free antivirus software

With the largely growing number and rampant spread of trojans, malware, spyware and other computer viruses, it’s very important to always have an updated antivirus software installed on your computer. Some people take it for granted or don’t install it because they can’t afford Norton or McAfee. What most people don’t know is there are a lot of free antivirus software available for free and work as well or even better than most of the commercial antivirus software.

I’ve made a compilation of available free antivirus software or programs that you can install and use to protect your computers. Among the antivirus software listed below, the ones I’ve tried and used are AVG Free Edition and Avast! Home Edition (currently installed on my laptops).

DISCLAIMER: This list is intended to provide users with alternative free antivirus software. I’m not endorsing these products and I haven’t tried all of them. INSTALL AT YOUR OWN RISK.

A-Squared Free – scans your computer for malicious software (Malware), including Trojan Horses, Dialers, Worms, Spyware, and Adware. A-squared Free is specialized in finding and removing them securely. The disk scan checks all files on your system disks for Malware. The scanner scans for Spyware Traces. Currently more than 1.2 million different types of Malware may be detected and removed.Free daily online updates provides the best protection.
Platform: Windows
Homepage / Download

Avira AntiVir Personal – Free Antivirus – is a reliable free antivirus solution, that constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs such as viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers etc. Monitors every action executed by the user or the operating system and reacts promptly when a malicious program is detected. Avira AntiVir Personal is a comprehensive, easy to use antivirus program, designed to offer reliable free of charge virus protection to home-users, for personal use only, and is not for business or commercial use.
Platform: Windows, UNIX
Notes: Nagware*, home use only
Homepage / Download

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition – is a well-known anti-virus protection tool. AVG Free is available free-of-charge to home users for the life of the product! Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high-level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy-to-use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements).
Platform: Windows, Linux
Notes: Nagware*, Registerware*
Homepage / Download

avast! Home Edition – is a complete ICSA & Checkmark certified antivirus, Checkmark certified anti-spyware & anti-rootkit package. Avast includes the following components: On demand scanner with skinnable simple interface, just select what do you want to scan in which way and press the Play button; On access scanner, special providers to protect the most of available e-mail clients; Instant messaging–ICQ, Miranda; Network traffic–intrusion detection, lightweight firewall; P2P protection for Kazaa, BitTorrent; Web shield–monitors and filters all HTTP traffic; NNTP scanner–scans all Usenet Newsgroup traffic and all operations with files on PC; Boot time scanner–scans disks in the same way and in the same time as Windows CHKDSK does.
Platform: Windows, Linux
Notes: Registerware*, home use only
Homepage / Download

BitDefender Free Edition – designed with a centralized management console, which allows protection options configuration for all BitDefender modules. It is enough to open the management console in order to have access to all modules: Virus Scan, Scheduler, Live! Update, Quarantine, Reports. On demand scanning – Powerful scan engines ensure detection and removal of all viruses in the wild every time you need it. You can schedule the checking of your system at any time, periodically, without any other intervention. With just a right click you can check your files and folders. Automatic and manual update are available. Intelligent update of antivirus protection, without your intervention. The update can be done from the network over the Internet, directly or through a Proxy Server. There are over 90,000 Virus Definitions.
Platform: Windows

Notes: No on-access real-time scanner
Homepage / Download

ClamAV – is an open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, designed especially for e-mail scanning on mail gateways. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates. The core of the package is an anti-virus engine available in a form of shared library.
Platform: UNIX
Homepage / Download

ClamWin – is a free, open source antivirus software for Microsoft Windows. It provides a graphical user interface to the ClamAV (Clam AntiVirus) engine.
Platform: Windows
Notes: No on-access real-time scanner
Homepage / Download

Comodo AntiVirus – is a comprehensive, freeware virus scanning, detection and removal application for Windows 2000 and XP with an exceptionally easy-to-follow user interface. It supports real-time monitoring, user-defined scanning tasks, on-demand scanning, email scanning with certification (inbound and outbound), suspect file submission, scheduling and automated updates. Although a very new application, it includes an extensive definition database which is updated very frequently (typically updated daily.)
Platform: Windows
Homepage / Download

DriveSentry – free next generation protection for your system/data. DriveSentry takes a new approach to traditional security software providing unobtrusive, zero-day protection from the latest threats. DriveSentry uses whitelisting technology, combined with one of the largest blacklists of known viruses and realtime program advice from DriveSentry Advisor Community to provide up-to-the-second protection where traditional security software fails. Version 3.1.2 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, and bug fixes.
Platform: Windows
Homepage / Download

Graugon AntiVirus is a spyware, adware and virus scanner and remover. With an up-to-date virus database, Graugon AntiVirus is able to search for and remove all viruses and malware on your computer. Graugon AntiVirus will neatly list all malware detected on your system and remove them with ease. With the removal of all malware from your computer Graugon AntiVirus is therefore able to boost system performance and efficiency.
Platform: Windows
Homepage / Download

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware – is an anti-malware application that can thoroughly remove even the most advanced malware. It includes a number of features, including a built in protection monitor that blocks malicious processes before they even start.
Platform: Windows
Notes: free on-demand scanner; one-time fee for real-time protection
Homepage / Download

PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition – protects you against the most nefarious cyber-threats attempting to gain access to your PC and personal details. Going online without protection against the latest fast-spreading viruses, worms and Trojans can result in infections within minutes. Once infected, the virus will usually attempt to spread itself to your friends, family and associates by accessing your e-mail contacts and networked PCs. The infection may also allow hackers to access files on your PC, use it to launch attacks against other computers and Websites or to send mass spam email. That’s why PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition provides protection, with rapid database updates, IntelliGuard real-time file, Internet & e-mail protection and comprehensive system scanning to ensure your system remains safe and virus free. Version 5 features new improved scan engine, smaller memory footprint, and much improved system performance.
Platform: Windows
Homepage / Download

Rising Antivirus – protects your computer(s) against all types of viruses, spywares, trojans, worms, rootkits, and other malicious programs. With it’s ease of use, Active Defense technology, Patented Unknown Virus Scan&Clean technology and Patented Smart update technology make Rising Antivirus your ‘install-and-forget’ product that lets you focus on what you really want to do. Key features: proactive defense technology, patented scanning technology for unknown viruses, patented fully automatic smart update, smart virtual machine with behavior and packing pattern recognition, application protection, self protection, application access control, program startup control, malicious behavior detection, hidden process detection, computer security check, security tool integration platform.
Platform: Windows
Homepage / Download

If you know of any other free antivirus software or program that’s not on the list, please share it with us so it can be added it to the list.

*Nagware is a type of shareware that reminds (or nags) the user to register it by paying a fee.
*Registerware requires the user to give personal information through registration in order to download or use the program.