Last year Avast won the nominations & the final round. This time are we expecting anything different? Let's wait and watch
To make these nominations/results more constructive for the end-user, I will start a Pro & Con section for each antivirus in their respective sections. Please state what you found best in each antivirus to help other users.
bullguard internet security is a good / solid suite : excellent signatures and firewall , ( almost not noticiable on machines ) light footprint. on second place , kaspersky free av or free cloud av from kaspersky.
Realtime protection mode: Expert mode (Prompt upon detecting suspect actions)
File system protection level: High (monitor all file operations)
Action on threat detection: Choose action manually
Download Protection: Security prompt on dangerous files only
Why do I?
It has improved a lot during the time I have been testing it in the Malware HUB, especially against scriptors, which regularly found their way into the AutoRuns, and are now covered in many cases by TCPM BB (haven't had a scriptor in AutoRuns for some time now).
+in custom settings, quite reactive behavior blocker
+Comes with Bitdefender engine, which get's autoupdated by TCPM multiple times an hour, and seems to always have the latest definitions.
+Tencent cloud will cover quite some threats, that Bitdefender will not have in signatures yet
+receives new versions regularly (sometimes once a week), autochecks if a new version is available, you'll get a notification, and if you decline, it will ask again shortly
+Decent URL filter built in (does however not work with M$ Edge, Vivaldi and Brave Browser yet, to my experience)
+Download Shield will check downloaded files against Tencent cloud & local Bitdefender signatures (does however not work with M$ Edge, Vivaldi and Brave Browser yet, to my experience)
+TCPM Realtime Protection will monitor the system all the time, using Bitdefender signatures, malware drive-by's will be blocked even if there is only a TEMP file yet
+Light on the system (~250 MB of RAM usage), also Boot time is very good (on my laptop, 4.1 sec)
+free of additional tools, just a plain AV
+Ad free
+Very good cleanup features (assisted by both rules and Bitdefender local signatures)
+can remove running malware from memory without reboot (when detected by Bitdefender local signatures for example
+can be bundled with additional security software (like as AppCheck AntiRansomware free, Sphinx Software Windows 10 Firewall Control,...)
+not crippled by VPN (at least not by F-Secure FreeDome) - great Firewall of China will block VPN connections
+forum with quick replies by staff (but it's in chinese, you'll need Google Translator, and registration requires QQ account - staff replies in English)
-a bit buggy on first setup - custom settings did reset after a reboot, however, once set again, they stay as set, even after upgrades to a new version
-Bitdefender signature updates take quite some time to download + Bitdefender isn’t the fastest vendor to detect new malware
-upgrade download speed is rather slow
-no scheduled scans option
-only available in English
-Zemana Anti-Malware flags all / most related files as PUP
I checked them out yesterday and I like it - there's a lot of room for improvement if you're the eye-candy type because some aspects of the GUI are outdated and I don't like how the configuration is "locked" until you "unlock" it when there's nothing like password protection enabled, but the protection is nice for a free and non-intrusive product.
You can guarantee you aren't going to literally become the product unlike with a vendor like Avast in comparison.
My first thought is for Kaspersky free, but I don't like to mix antivirus with suites.
For example, for an XP user, it would certainly go to CIS. For a Win 7, 8, or 8.1 user, it would be kaspersky free, but for a Win 10 user, I would recommend WD.
We are not talking about users' knowledge or customs, so I vote for Kaspersky, but ...
Kaspersky free. It's a solid product with solid protection, KSN is great. Although maybe going for security cloud free may be a better option so you can tweak all the settings. I but, I think this year KFA is hands down the winner for a free AV in 2018.
With all the threads and news about Kaspersky, I have no doubt it will win this competition. It kind of replaced Avast as free widely used Av and as the one everyone talks about.
Not that it matters anymore since Kaspersky wins, but my personal vote would be Panda, because of simplicity, lightness and zero nagging ads.
Kaspersky Free antivirus for me too. Best performance, signatures,web filter, no ads, all in one. The only bad thing is that Kaspersky is constantly scanning in the background which will be not that good if you're not using an SSD drive. System scan speed is also very slow.
