Battle Free: Avast vs Bitdefender vs Kaspersky vs Others

[jackuars]

1. I know this topic has been done to death, but considering the recent changes in Kaspersky Free and that my subscription for a paid IS is almost ending, I would like to know which is a good choice for a freeware antivirus w.r.t features, protection & performance. I have never tried BitDefender Free or Kaspersky Free even though I have heard great reviews about it

 

[Brie]

I absolutely HATE Kaspersky for reasons not having anything to do with the quality of their products.

may i ask why? trust issues?

 

[Tughlaq]

Yes... but limited in the same way as in KIS/KTS/KAV...

What do you mean by "limited"? Please explain.

 

[harlan4096]

No connection, no access to the cloud infrastructure (UDS, etc...)

 

[Evjl's Rain]

No connection, no access to the cloud infrastructure (UDS, etc...)

what do you mean by this? Can you link us to the official answer from Kaspersky? afaik, kaspersky can still detect malwares by KSN/UDS

 

[harlan4096]

Offline? probably may detect those that are in a local cache, and also detections by Heur, but without connection...

I don't have an official answer from Kaspersky, if I remember correctly @cruelsister performed some time ago a test of KAR online and offline, and offline it demonstrated that the protection decreases considerably...

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Offline? probably may detect those that are in a local cache, but without connection...

I don't have an official answer from Kaspersky, if I remember correctly @cruelsister performed some time ago a test of KAR online and offline, and offline it demonstrated that the protection decreases considerably...

arrrh, sorry I misread that
I have done some off-screen test with internet connection on and off. I saw system watch's ability didn't change at all but of course KSN detection changed
in offline, we can still get full functioning of system watcher but lose all KSN signatures

 

[gery79]

i would go with bitdefender or kaspersky.... but my best choice would definitely be bitdefender. . If my only option would be free than i would consider other alternatives too. Panda is among the best free ,......it is the lightest and least intrusive of all. also i would install emsisoft emergency kit in all cases. if you are used to Comodo products there is Comodo cloud and their firewall.

 

[Tughlaq]

So there is no difference between KAV and KSC in offline mode? If that so , why should people buy KAV now for a year atleast?

 

[Evjl's Rain]

So there is no difference between KAV and KSC in offline mode? If that so , why should people buy KAV now for a year atleast?

there should be no difference. They are almost identical
the problem is KSC strictly attaches us to an account and we can't opt-out from its online management. We need internet connection to activate it initially and then you can use it in offline
KAV requires no account to be used with almost no extra telemetry compared to KSC
They are slowly abandoning KAV on their website. I can see less and less info. about KAV on the main site unless I click to see all products

 

[Evjl's Rain]

i would go with bitdefender or kaspersky.... but my best choice would definitely be bitdefender. . If my only option would be free than i would consider other alternatives too. Panda is among the best free ,......it is the lightest and least intrusive of all. also i would install emsisoft emergency kit in all cases. if you are used to Comodo products there is Comodo cloud and their firewall.

I admit panda free is one of the absolute lightest free AVs with BB
however, it must be used with an anti-exe or Comodo firewall because there are so many weaknesses in this product and I have seen many people getting infections with panda free/paid installed

I'm using panda free now with CF and I'm happy with its lightness

 

[Local Host]

I admit panda free is one of the absolute lightest free AVs with BB
however, it must be used with an anti-exe or Comodo firewall because there are so many weaknesses in this product and I have seen many people getting infections with panda free/paid installed

I'm using panda free now with CF and I'm happy with its lightness

I don't think Panda Free has BB, not to mention it's signatures are awful (it's relies entirely on the Cloud).

At least it doesn't have compatibility issues with W10, BitDefender Free is extremely buggy.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

I don't think Panda Free has BB, not to mention it's signatures are awful (it's relies entirely on the Cloud).

Are it least it doesn't have compatibility issues with W10, BitDefender Free is extremely buggy.

it does have BB despite not strong compared to the others
I have seen it working multiple times during hub tests

 

[Nestor]

I admit panda free is one of the absolute lightest free AVs with BB
however, it must be used with an anti-exe or Comodo firewall because there are so many weaknesses in this product and I have seen many people getting infections with panda free/paid installed

I'm using panda free now with CF and I'm happy with its lightness

Evjl's Rain do you consider Panda Free+ CF better combo than Panda Free+VS?I mean VS have more weekness, like scripts etc.so it's not a better choice than CF?

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

Kaspersky Free is my choice due to it's robust protection and refined software.

Avast Free is #2
Bitdefender is a distant #3

 

[LDogg]

Depending on your system. What features you want or looking and what impact they have within your system, it's always best to try each one for a period of time to see if the are to your liking. I'm still searching for that aspect as well.

~LDogg

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Evjl's Rain do you consider Panda Free+ CF better combo than Panda Free+VS?I mean VS have more weekness, like scripts etc.so it's not a better choice than CF?

it depends on what you like
CF tends to have more bugs than VS but CF seems to be lighter and more powerful than VS
i have noticed some bugs with CS configuration in my w8.1 machine while I didn't see them for a long time using on w10
I use panda because my favorite immunet is currently not working. They are investigating the issue
panda is the third lightest behind zemana and immunet running in realtime protection when pairing with CF

 

[Pat MacKnife]

I don't think Panda Free has BB, not to mention it's signatures are awful (it's relies entirely on the Cloud).

At least it doesn't have compatibility issues with W10, BitDefender Free is extremely buggy.

I don't agree with BD free, its running now for 7 weeks on a few systems and No bugs discovered yet, its running lite and without problems . (latest build .41) I prefer it over avast, Avg, panda....

 

[Moonhorse]

Actually avast with game mode, is fps boost comparing to windows defender when doing hard gaming, but theres tons of ways to optimize so av shouldnt matter in this case

But when doing light gaming, web browsing etc. its hard to compare wich av impacts most on your system resources

I dont get the hate against windows defender, only thing it lacks cuztomization wich is good for non-advanced people and bad for advanced users in some cases

Avast has ads
Kaspersky still injecting on browser, probably fixed on new build?

My vote goes to AVG, it has avast signatures + behaviour blocker without any ads/nag screens. Install and forget, probably harden it with syshardener or OSarmor, comodo firewall, voodooshield or any other software of your like

 

[stefanos]

it depends on what you like
CF tends to have more bugs than VS but CF seems to be lighter and more powerful than VS
i have noticed some bugs with CS configuration in my w8.1 machine while I didn't see them for a long time using on w10
I use panda because my favorite immunet is currently not working. They are investigating the issue
panda is the third lightest behind zemana and immunet running in realtime protection when pairing with CF

On my system Panda is light (cpu ram boot) but delaying applications and browsers

 

[Evjl's Rain]

On my system Panda is light (cpu ram boot) but delaying applications and browsers

I didn't really notice that during the time of using panda and performed some caching so it became faster
by the way, I just uninstalled panda and installed immunet 6.0.8, fully working version

the system is more responsive