You not only get instant protection against viruses, worms, rootkits, spyware, and other threats, but also anti-phishing and anti-fraud protection to carry security with you when youre browsing the internet and entering passwords.

Antivirus For The Professional Technology Support

Tim Fisher has 30 years professional technology support experience.

He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire.

Her expertise includes social media, web development, and graphic design.

A good antivirus program is essential to a secure system, and you most definitely do not have to pay for one to get great protection.

Below is our hand-picked list of the 11 best free antivirus programs that you can download for Windows today.

All of these programs perform definition updates automatically, are always running to make sure your files are protected from malware and your personal information remains private, and can start scans on-demand whenever you like.

However, each of them do have a few prominent differences that make them stand out, so pay attention to those as you decide which one to use.

There are also free on-demand virus scanners you can install.

Antivirus For The Free Firewall Programs

Also, consider using a Windows Firewall alternative from this Free Firewall Programs list.

The main component in Aviras free software suite that makes it stand out is the optional in-the-cloud detection feature called Protection Cloud.

This scanning method lets Aviras antivirus tool identify and stop threats before they get out of hand.

This is how it works: When a suspicious file is detected on any computer running Avira, a fingerprint of that specific file is generated and uploaded anonymously to Avira so that they can scan it and report its status (whether its safe or dangerous) back to every Avira user so that the program can take appropriate action.

Avira can scan and remove existing threats as well as automatically detect and stop new ones.

It protects you against ransomware, Trojans, spyware, and other kinds of malware.

You can even choose which ones to actively watch out for, and disable others (though its not recommended) like dialers, jokes, adware, etc.

The Avira program offers more than just a very extensive antivirus application.

It includes several other layers of security that will install automatically, and they might take a while to download since there are several.

However, you dont have to use them and they wont bother you unless you open them.

These separate modules include a VPN that encrypts all your traffic (up through the first 500 MB each month); password manager to securely store complex passwords; and software updater that identifies outdated programs and gives you the download links to update them.

These extra features can be annoying if youre strictly after an antivirus solution, but again, you dont have to use them; just keep them tucked away where they are and you wont have to worry about them.

Avira Free Security is intended to run on computers with Windows 7 and newer, including Windows 10 and Windows 8.

If you want an antivirus program thats not only free but easy to use and not cluttered with lots of buttons and menus, you should definitely try the free version of Bitdefender Antivirus.

Free Antivirus For The Mac