Thu, 04/15/2010 - 07:55 — Jonathan Antivirus software provides an essential layer of protection from a multitude of virus, trojan, worm, spyware, adware, dialer, keylogger and rootkit infections. Traditionally antivirus programs just detected viruses and spyware removers just detected spyware but nowadays the boundary between antivirus and spyware removers is unclear. Most current antiviruses have at least reasonably good detection rates of all forms of malware. Malware includes viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, adware, dialers, keyloggers and rootkit threats that perform malicious activities on a computer. With the huge increase in malware, antivirus software cannot keep up with detecting all of it. But using more than one real-time antivirus uses much more system resources, can cause conflicts and even reduce protection. So I recommend you only choose one antivirus for real-time protection. Instead, you can increase your protection using other security software.
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Avira AntiVir Personal Edition is my top pick for the best free antivirus software if you're looking for the best protection against virus, spyware and rootkit threats. AntiVir is very light on resources and the detection rate of malware is outstanding, better than almost every other antivirus according to tests. However, there are some reservations.
Microsoft Security Essentials has good detection rates, in particular detecting rootkits. Even more impressive is that Security Essentials has very few false positives, is light on resources and is good at removal of existing malware.
Avast! Free Antivirus is also an excellent free antivirus that many users prefer. Its detection rates is on par with AntiVir. Avast has the most features, with full real-time capabilities, including web, e-mail, IM, P2P and network shields, boot-time scanning, and a behavioural blocker. Avast is light on resources.
Another option is a-squared Free, which started out as a trojan remover but has recently included the Ikarus antivirus engine. The detection rate is incredibly high, on par with AntiVir, which makes it a very good choice for an on-demand scanner. Unfortunately it has many false positives, and the large update sizes make it unsuitable for dial-up users.