Battle Free Antivirus of the Year 2015 [POLL]

[jackuars]

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And the Winners for the Best Free Antivirus of the Year 2015 are

• 1. Qihoo 360 Total Security (33.33%)
• 2. Avast Free Antivirus (29.7%)
• 3. Comodo Internet Security Premium (19.8%)

Thanks to all your votes (111 of them)
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From your nominations at Free Antivirus of the Year [Nominations Thread], 5 products have been selected for the final poll phase starting today.

The poll will be closed on 31st Dec 2015 and the winner revealed on 1st Jan 2016.

Do reply in this thread which product you chose and why?
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Also please take a moment to mention the Pro's and Con's you have found in the Product, so that it will be helpful for others while making their decision.

Related Threads:

Avast Free Antivirus - The Pro's and Con's
Qihoo 360 Total Security - The Pro's and Con's
Comodo Internet Security Premium - The Pro's and Con's
Panda Free Antivirus - The Pro's and Con's
Avira Free Antivirus - The Pro's and Con's

 

[Andytay70]

Avast gets my vote used it for years and its never let me down............yet!

 

[Overkill]

I have to vote for Avast.
Pros
It's pretty light on the system has good detection with both file shield and web shield and I love the fact that you can pick and choose what you want to install.

Cons
All the ads/popups and the bloated default install

 

[phyniks]

I m running Comodo IS premium on my laptop,Win 7 64 bit, and regarding performance and system impact,it is great....I has changed a lot since the last time I d used it....no bugs seen yet(10 days)
The GUI is great

I don't know about the antivirus(regarding new,or known threats......and I m curious to know ,if anyone kindly inform me about it) but the Firewall is one of the bests(if not the best)

 

[Der.Reisende]

I voted for Qihoo 360 Total Security.

Since the poll is for the best Antivirus I'd say with great confidence that Qihoo 360 Total Security beats the rest!

I've tried all the above and I will share my personal experience with them:
1. Avast Free Antivirus - Always slowed my computer to a crawl the moment I restarted my computer. I had to remove it using the Avast uninstall tool in safe mode.
My friend had Avast Free Antivirus installed in his computer and when I ran Emsisoft Emergency Kit and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free on his computer we found over 500 PUPs and Adwares!
On top of that Iobit Advanced System Care detected 20 spyware threats on it!
I even have the proof 'cause I took screenshots and saved them.
Now you know where I put Avast Free Antivirus? Right down at the bottom of all!
Of course no offense to all the Avast users and fans out there. It still provides some form of protection to them I guess.

2. Avira Free Antivirus - The last time I installed this it was quite heavy on resources. It has decent detection rates. And the performance was better than Avast.

3. Comodo Internet Security - I have switched on and off to this several times. Before I finally decided to let it go completely. Reason: It has poor compatibility with other Antiviruses and Antimalwares and so on. The firewall is amazing. It provides numerous features which lack on other firewalls. But the Antivirus has lower detection rates in my opinion. It's more useful for prevention mechanism than cure. You know I mean?

4. Panda Free Antivirus - I tried installing earlier this year. And it didn't even complete the installation because of some error. So I can't say how good it really is.
I've used Panda Gold Protection and Panda Internet Security though. And they were pretty good I'd say. But not as good as Eset or Kaspersky. Know what I mean?

5. Qihoo 360 Total Security - Now this is just one beast that I discovered after dumping Comodo Internet Security. It has a total of 5 engines of which 3 are enabled by default. It's detection rates are pretty good when you have both Avast and Bitdefender Scan Engines installed. For some strange reason though, the antivirus updates are always one or two days apart from each other. Sometimes they are on the same dates but other times the Bitdefender engine's definitions are behind the Avira's.
Qihoo 360 Total Security also provides Webcam protection, 3 layers of Internet Protection, and 9 layers of System Protection!
It also provides utilities for speeding up your computer and performing cleanup.
It also provides a tool box from which Patch Up and Sandbox seem to be the most useful for me.

Now I've read a lot about the privacy intrusions regarding Qihoo 360 but I'm sure this could also apply to other cloud detecting Antiviruses and Anti-Malwares right? For example when I used Hitman Pro I could see from the logs that they produced my Computer name, Windows version, Username on the scan logs. So I'm pretty sure they have that information on their side too. When I used Zemana AntiMalware they produced my Operating System, Processor, BIOS mode, CUID, and Domain Info on the scan logs. So I'm pretty sure they must have that information with them also.
What we do know about Qihoo 360 TS though is that the same amount of transparency isn't there. Their scan logs don't give away any information other than the threats detected.
Now if you're smart enough though you can configure your system to only allow updates to made. But this will restrict the cloud detection capabilities. This won't really matter though if you have enough confidence on the Bitdefender and Avira scan engines!

I know this got too long but hopefully it was informative.
Thank you

Well said Sir!

Agree on Avast regarding system performance and detection, my stepmother's PC got heavily infected (guess by Malvertisement). Q360 TS which replaced Avast found some (not many) PUPs, Viruses (different classes).
Used to have Avast Pro three years ago, but maxed out it was horrible regarding system impact (Gamer PC).

Avira: Really dislike the GUI. Can't speak on the detection, removed it after 1 week, no viruses tested.

Never tried Comodo nor Panda.

Had BD IS 2015 for a while, but takes down system performance badly

Q360 TSE replaced KIS 2015 on my main laptop for me, for compatibility reasons (Win10) and 'cause of a system crash when scanning a Malware pack (had to reinstall Win10 'cause of the performance impact even after removal of KIS). Before, Q360 TSE was just installed for 1 year on my elderly gaming PC. After having good feedback from my family (Q360 TS installed), I replaced TSE, 'cause of very fast / often update of TS only. Impressed by detection + performance (Avira + BD activated - yes, I discovered the update problem too...). Love the new German translation, too.
The cleaning tools replaced CCleaner and others for me, still employ Auslogics DD.

Don't care too much about privacy, happy user of Apple, Google, Facebook and M$ products (not Office)

Q360 Works fine with HMP.A

Looking forward to test 360 Connect on iPhone Did someone use it on Android by now?

 

[Deleted Member 333v73x]

Avast gets my vote used it for years and its never let me down............yet!

It never will

 

[LabZero]

CIS gets my vote because it has opted for a system-wide integration of prevention of attacks and by implementing high level modules.
The firewall component isn't for basic users. Its optimal response to external attacks is guaranteed by a high degree of customization suitable for experienced users who are able to handle, for example, the rules for each type of softwares.

 

[Deleted Member 333v73x]

I've tried all the above and I will share my personal experience with them:
1. Avast Free Antivirus - Always slowed my computer to a crawl the moment I restarted my computer. I had to remove it using the Avast uninstall tool in safe mode.
My friend had Avast Free Antivirus installed in his computer and when I ran Emsisoft Emergency Kit and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free on his computer we found over 500 PUPs and Adwares!
On top of that Iobit Advanced System Care detected 20 spyware threats on it!
I even have the proof 'cause I took screenshots and saved them.
Now you know where I put Avast Free Antivirus? Right down at the bottom of all!
Of course no offense to all the Avast users and fans out there. It still provides some form of protection to them I guess.

1.) Which version of Avast did you use, the resource usage is the lowest (they received AVTest Gold Award for performance) so I don't know why it would slow your computer?
2.) Your friend probably didn't have 'Scan for Potentially Unwanted Programs' checked.
3.) Advanced System Care is by a company called IObit which have a very bad reputation, upload its installer to VirusTotal you'll see and they steal other companies signatures and generally do more halm than good they would detect it because they want you to run their 'Malware Fighter PRO' which will ruin your system.

 

[Coder]

Qihoo 360, good protection with default settings.

 

[CySecy825]

Panda free antivirus gets my vote

Light
Good protection
Good features
Good GUI
Fast response for new threats by Cloud

 

[minegroasprilla]

360 TS (Avira + BD activated - yes, I discovered the update problem too...)

So, the signatures of 360 TS doesn't updated at the same time that Bitdefender and Avira?.... old signatures.... Dangerous

 

[Andrew999]

Comodo Internet Security Premium in my opinion because if you set it up properly is provides 100% protection. Also it provides a lot of features like Comodo Rescue Disk and Comodo Killswitch

 

[Pat MacKnife]

So, the signatures of 360 TS doesn't updated at the same time that Bitdefender and Avira?.... old signatures.... Dangerous

360 TS, Sometimes avira-engine is 7 days begind with signatues ! you can check this in Program files -> 360\Total Security\deepscan\SDEng\savapi\
avira vdf updates

 

[minegroasprilla]

360 TS, Sometimes avira-engine is 7 days begind with signatues ! you can check this in Program files -> 360\Total Security\deepscan\SDEng\savapi\
avira vdf updates

7 days??? upss

 

[lyzza1974]

Accoding to AV-Comparatives org and av-test.org last detection test on sept and oct Avira is the top ranking antivirus.Meanwhile Panda Av is on 9th place and Avast is on 12th place in AV-Comparatives org test.Accoding to av-test.org Panda free antivirus on Oct results test 97.2% on protection and 99.6% on detection.Qihoo 360 98.2% on protection and 99.6% on dectection last august

 

[jackuars]

So, the signatures of 360 TS doesn't updated at the same time that Bitdefender and Avira?.... old signatures.... Dangerous

Signature detection is an outdated method for response to new threats. Add cloud protection, behavioral blocker, zero-day protection, web protection and sandbox, you can see how well it does against threats everyday.

 

[Azure]

Signature detection is an outdated method for response to new threats. Add cloud protection, behavioral blocker, zero-day protection, web protection and sandbox, you can see how well it does against threats everyday.

Maybe. But when the threat is old (a week or more old) then signature detection is a decent method. Remember threat don't stay new or zero-day forever.

 

[Anupam]

360 for me.

Because it's awesome, no adds, completely free, 3 engines, Sandbox. What else do you want?

 

[SloppyMcFloppy]

360 for me.

Because it's awesome, no adds, completely free, 3 engines, Sandbox. What else do you want?

I want them to fix their privacy policy.

 

[jackuars]

Maybe. But when the threat is old (a week or more old) then signature detection is a decent method. Remember threat don't stay new or zero-day forever.

Sure about that. But then I was mentioning that faster signature updates doesn't mean better protection. By the time the threat is old, Qihoo's definitions frequency (7 days) will catch up to it.

 

[Der.Reisende]

So, the signatures of 360 TS doesn't updated at the same time that Bitdefender and Avira?.... old signatures.... Dangerous

No, Q360 TS own database is updated very often and does not lag behind. Avira usually does update timely, too. BD is kinda problem. Sometimes, it lags behind for one day. In most cases, I need to manually update 3-4 times to get the new signatures (sure they might come by auto-update too). I manually update as soon as I start the PC, it's kinda habit I had with every AV I had.
According to VT + this forum, I noticed that Qihoo's Signatures a pretty strong, and they're cloud based.