Free AV: Avast vs Panda vs Qihoo 360 vs Bitdefender vs AVG for Windows 7 & 10 (2016)

[Glitch]

As mentioned, my primary priorities are

0. Free
1. Performance and resources consuming.
2. Ease of use, Options and UI (Not Important But a Plus of Course)
3. Protection (Not the Main Objective But a Plus of Course)
4. Not mentioned more lightweight product is huge plus only if it's trustworthy as better protection than the mentioned products.

Edit: AVG is added, feel free to add more products. These ones are the only free products I'm aware of (except avira which is too advanced for my friend with all the false-positive and too much restrictions, so no for this one at this situation)

 

[ZeroDay]

In what respect? Certainly not lightness, which was @Glitch's main requirement. Panda and Bitdefender trounce it. The way I understood it he was also looking for a free solution which rules out a number of suggestions here.

@Glitch - considering your requirements I'm surprised Avast seems the best choice for you. Surely even Avira would be better.

@Evandro One of the main requirements was ease of use which rules out Comodo Internet Security.

360 Offers much, Much better protection than Avast ever has. Watch some youtube reviews. 360TS runs smooth and I think it's been proven that Avast can't compete with it. I'll not get into a debate, watch some Youtube videos. Didn't Cruelsister do a video on it too?

 

[Evjl's Rain]

In what respect? Certainly not lightness, which was @Glitch's main requirement. Panda and Bitdefender trounce it. The way I understood it he was also looking for a free solution which rules out a number of suggestions here.

@Glitch - considering your requirements I'm surprised Avast seems the best choice for you. Surely even Avira would be better.

I had problems with avira in some of my machines
there was a memory leak problem that ate 100% of my memory + pagefile in 3 working laptops
maybe they fixed it already
however, my friend with his ancient 1Gb ram laptop said it was heaier than avast (3 months ago)
also memory usage of avira in idle is much higher than avast (memory leak was not yet triggered), perhaps because of its huge signature
when something is detected, "system is being scanned" will immediately eats 200Mb of ram for each
I agree that in real usage it didnt slow down my pc much but when something is wrong, it broke my pcs. better to use avast with minimal installation and tweaked settings

 

[uninfected1]

360 Offers much, Much better protection than Avast ever has. Watch some youtube reviews. 360TS runs smooth and I think it's been proven that Avast can't compete with it. I'll not get into a debate, watch some Youtube videos. Didn't Cruelsister do a video on it too?

I certainly wouldn't disagree in terms of protection (I'm not a fan of Avast). My point was, with regard to @Glitch's main requirement, lightness, from personal experience it falls well short of the iikes of Panda and Bitdefender- it has to - it has both the Avira and Bitdefender engines plus its own engine, plus a number of other superfuous processes many people won't want.

Also, with regard to @Glitch's other main requirement, ease of use, 360TS is way more complex than Panda and Bitdefender.

PS - @Glitch - it's a real shame regarding the offline protection because, in every other respect you mentioned, I'm sure Panda would have been pretty near perfect.

 

[DJ Panda]

360 Offers much, Much better protection than Avast ever has. Watch some youtube reviews. 360TS runs smooth and I think it's been proven that Avast can't compete with it. I'll not get into a debate, watch some Youtube videos. Didn't Cruelsister do a video on it too?

Here is a video:

I'd say both products can do an equally good job. Saying it is MUCH better protection is stretching the truth a little though. Avast is able to handle itself against the paid products in the AV tests.

 

[ZeroDay]

Here is a video:

I'd say both products can do an equally good job. Saying it is MUCH better protection is stretching the truth a little though. Avast is able to handle itself against the paid products in the AV tests.

It's absolutely not stretching it 360 TS is a much, much better product protection and detection wise than Avast. Tomorrow when I have lime I'll link plenty of videos proving this, not just one.

 

[hjlbx]

Webroot is not free it, is it ? I can't find any free product on the home page.



Cloud means the need of internet 24/7 so no offline scan or offline many stuff. I don't guarantee that.



Only free solution is available for me here at this situation.

I see a lot of debate about Avast. Either it's too bad or too good. So far, performance wise, it's very good. I would test panda more however since it showed me good performance already but being "cloud" solution is what gave me the push to try another (Avast). Again, I thank you all for the suggestions and sharing experience with me.

I'm in front of another laptop now and testing whatever you suggested so far. This one is also 4 GB ram and with Core i5-3210M CPU 2.50GHZ. Windwos 10 64-bit is installed fresh on it now and I'm testing the solutions available. By the looks, no solution mentioned so far is eligible more than Avast.

Please correct me if my info about the need of internet continues connection for cloud based products.

Webroot is paid.

No matter which you choose - free or paid - you have to try it out on the system and see if it works properly. In the end, whether or not a security soft works is always the initial assessment\determination. It doesn't matter if its the greatest protection in the world - if it don't work right on the system, then it cannot be used.

I'd choose Bitdefender Free - since Avast and 360 are firewall-less and add a bunch to the system that just are not needed.

You have to understand how Bitdefender Free works; 99 % of the time people say it is buggy\malfunctioning, but in reality it is working as designed in Auto-Pilot mode.

For example, BD Free sometimes encrypts quarantined files in-place, it will remove the browser homepage as part of an infection removal, it is automated and there won't be any prompts, upon initial install it might auto-delete files during the initial scan (actually this is a bug that I'm not sure that BD fixed), etc.

With BD and BD Free there are a lot of unexpected behaviors -- and they aren't documented; you have to learn by doing.

 

[Glitch]

Webroot is paid.

No matter which you choose - free or paid - you have to try it out on the system and see if it works properly. In the end, whether or not a security soft works is always the initial assessment\determination. It doesn't matter if its the greatest protection in the world - if it don't work right on the system, then it cannot be used.

I'd choose Bitdefender Free - since Avast and 360 are firewall-less and add a bunch to the system that just are not needed.

You have to understand how Bitdefender Free works; 99 % of the time people say it is buggy\malfunctioning, but in reality it is working as designed in Auto-Pilot mode.

For example, BD Free sometimes encrypts quarantined files in-place, it will remove the browser homepage as part of an infection removal, it is automated and there won't be any prompts, upon initial install it might auto-delete files during the initial scan (actually this is a bug that I'm not sure that BD fixed), etc.

With BD and BD Free there are a lot of unexpected behaviors -- and they aren't documented; you have to learn by doing.

I will test that on my own then. I don't think my friend will have a mmmmm, patience or knowledge to deal with that. Actually, firewall-less is good. I prefer the stock internal firewall for its efficiancy really and speed.

360 Offers much, Much better protection than Avast ever has. Watch some youtube reviews. 360TS runs smooth and I think it's been proven that Avast can't compete with it. I'll not get into a debate, watch some Youtube videos. Didn't Cruelsister do a video on it too?

On my brother's main machine, 360 is used. It has high ram and cpu (don't remember exactly what). So 360 efficiency is perfect there. Even lighter than many other tested paid apps as I and he experienced. But on the laptop with such limited resources, it really effected its performance and the Windows installed is clean Windows 7 !! So not many files to scan, yet ! I didn't even suspect it is the antivirus until lately when I removed it just out of curiosity.

PS - @Glitch - it's a real shame regarding the offline protection because, in every other respect you mentioned, I'm sure Panda would have been pretty near perfect.

I know. I would end using it.

In what respect? Certainly not lightness, which was @Glitch's main requirement. Panda and Bitdefender trounce it. The way I understood it he was also looking for a free solution which rules out a number of other suggestions here.

Exactly

@Glitch - considering your requirements I'm surprised Avast seems the best choice for you. Surely even Avira would be better.

Avira catches too many files which are NOT harmful. I experienced this too long time ago. But I imagine it became even stronger which catches more files. That however not the main reason. The mean reason is, it didn't provide option for leaving the file, just stopping its effect on execution, no healing. All it does, is deleting which really effected me back then and corrupted all my apps/games when I had a virus called "sality" if I remember correctly.

I thought "sality" infection cannot be healed. But when I tried kaspersky, norton & eset (the three yes one after another) they fixed the files without deleting them !!!!!!!!!!!. That's why since then I use Symantec Endpoint or Eset Antivirus. But this comparison will be in another thread though.

NOTE: I'll add Windows Defender for Windows 10 in the poll now. Since I'm dealing with Windows 10. But talking about this product specially have to contain protection level in concern. I have no verified info but just talking about how it's not good protector in comparison to ANY product. While on testing websites, I see it's good enough and better than many !!!

 

[uninfected1]

Please correct me if my info about the need of internet continues connection for cloud based products.

You were concerned about a lack of offline protection with Panda. There's a thread about exactly this right here on MalwareTips:
Offline protection

It would seem Panda provides quite sufficient offline protection, and they have been taking steps to increase offline protection for some time now:
Panda's Cloud Antivirus upgrades offline protection

If this was your only concern about using it, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

EDIT: Just remember to uncheck those 3 boxes that try to hijack your browser by installing Panda Safe Web

 

[Glitch]

You caught me before installing avast on the Windows 10 laptop at the moment. Trying Panda and see what happen

 

[uninfected1]

@Glitch I think the mistake quite a few contributors to this thread have made is they have simply promoted their own favourite AV, which I've no doubt works well for them, but they have failed to take into account your specific requirements.

For instance, Avast, Comodo and 360 TS all fail the ease of use test, and Avast and 360TS possibly your lightness test too. Of the ones you listed, the only other one apart from Panda that might fit the bill is Bitdefender.

Some even recommended paid products despite you making it clear from the outset that it needs to be free.

 

[ZeroDay]

I'm using WD for the record with my system locked down using Windows built in tools, EMET and Voodooshield.

 

[hjlbx]

@Glitch I think the mistake quite a few contributors to this thread have made is they have simply promoted their own favourite AV, which I've no doubt works well for them, but they have failed to take into account your specific requirements.

For instance, Avast, Comodo and 360 TS all fail the ease of use test, and Avast and 360TS possibly your lightness test too. Of the ones you listed, the only other one apart from Panda that might fit the bill is Bitdefender.

Some even recommended paid products despite you making it clear from the outset that it needs to be free.

Avast, Comodo, 360 TS, Panda free - they all add either components that are disabled (e.g. firewall - Avast, Panda) or a bunch of stuff that isn't needed and just needlessly eats up disk space (Avast, 360 TS, Panda).

COMODO is too much for novice to handle; it shouldn't even be considered.

For novice Windows Defender\Firewall is best option.

There are some other decent freewares out there - like Reboot Restore Rx and NVT ERP - but if the user has no inclination to learn how to use them it is pointless to introduce them to the user.

The only problem with Bitdefender free is that it might do some things that are unexpected - but intended by design.

For a complete novice the best option in Standard User Account with Windows Defender\Firewall -- and leave it at that...

 

[uninfected1]

For a complete novice the best option in Standard User Account with Windows Defender\Firewall -- and leave it at that...

I'm now also thinking that might just be the best option too. I'd probably still favour Panda but yes, WD is a perfectly viable alternative, particularly for convenience.

 

[DJ Panda]

It's absolutely not stretching it 360 TS is a much, much better product protection and detection wise than Avast. Tomorrow when I have lime I'll link plenty of videos proving this, not just one.

How is it much better than Avast? It seems to be good only due to the fact of using other AV engines.. With Avast's Hardened Mode it detects even more after its already. Not only does Avast have a File Sheild it also has a websheild blocking sites from harming your computer. Also has PUP support. Finally Chinese antivirus vendor cheated several antivirus tests - results withdrawn - Myce.com

 

[JakeXPMan]

How is it much better than Avast? It seems to be good only due to the fact of using other AV engines.. With Avast's Hardened Mode it detects even more after its already. Not only does Avast have a File Sheild it also has a websheild blocking sites from harming your computer.

Yeah I agree, and isn't Qihoo a risk for beginners since it finds many False Positives along the way?

Plus why trust a security product which has been stripped from an AV test site. It also doesn't have its own engine ... its a Avira/Bitdefender hybrid used together under a pseudo name.

 

[CMLew]

1) Having many FP is still better than no detection IMO.
2) I don't see anything wrong using others vendor's engine for detection.

There's really no need to compare which is superior between Avast vs Qihoo security. It'll just please their fanboys to comment even more on their idol is good over the other and it will be never ending.

Both software have their own capability to protect the user from getting infected. One is a paid security suite. Another one comes for free. So that's about it.

 

[JakeXPMan]

2) I don't see anything wrong using others vendor's engine for detection.

There's really no need to compare which is superior between Avast vs Qihoo security. It'll just please their fanboys to comment even more on their idol is good over the other and it will be never ending.

Me neither, but I don't trust em as much as I would the real AV, and any Anti-virus is fine as long as it doesn't break the machine.

Debating software quality, is sure more productive then hearing never ending news about Celebrity gossips. If noone told me about Comodo, (despite distain for the fanboys), I woulnd't have used and liked it.

So even if its the same old story, its does fit in a malware security website.

 

[Atlas147]

I can. Avast stopped updating automatically, and uninstalling it was hardly straightforward. Uninstalling through programs and features wasn't sufficient, and neither was Avast's additional official removal tool so I had to use Rezjor's unofficial one too. Eventually after a lot of hassle I was able to install Panda. And what a difference. Booted 15 seconds quicker and everything felt a lot less sluggish.

Personally it was this way for me, expect that in my case it was Panda that messed my system up. Couldn't run the protection properly, had pretty bad support, and their official uninstaller was pretty bad as well (couldn't wipe panda off the system). Switched to Avast and everything was fine for me.

 

[sunrise]

Actually should be Qihoo 360 Total Security Essential. Why? Using it (with Bitdefender engine + max protection settings) on a refurbish dinosaur Intel Core Duo with 2GB RAM and the computer is like there no antivirus installed.
Enough said.

 

[ZeroDay]

Healthy debate is good. We all have different opinions and that's why people come to MT for advice. I respect everyone's comments, advice and opinions as they're all equally valid.