Free Anti Virus Recommendations?

Nexxus · December 5, 2020

So I had a bit defender license from a friend but to be quite honest it was kinda proving to be a pain in my butt when I would do more tinkery things and it would flag things as a false positive.

I was wondering if there is any AV software someone could recommend me that will let me easily recover things I know are safe if it tried to quarantine/delete them, (this is my biggest pet peeve with av software is it fighting me/deliberately making it hard to recover things.) And thinking also something I can pause active monitoring on as well If I know in advance that something is gonna cause issues. Lightweight wouldnt be argued against either since im "only" on a 4770k.

I guess I am looking for less of a "vault" style AV and more a personal defence shield just in case something does go south.

jaslion · December 5, 2020

The built in one in windows. I'm not joking it's plenty good if you don't go around being stupid download mp3.exe files and running them.

Nexxus · December 5, 2020

Just now, jaslion said:

The built in one in windows. I'm not joking it's plenty good if you don't go around being stupid download mp3.exe files and running them.

I used to only use it, but a few years ago I recall it being panned in reviews of yearly AV updates so it made me a lil...gun shy about it if im totally honest.

jaslion · December 5, 2020

1 minute ago, Nexxus said:

I used to only use it, but a few years ago I recall it being panned in reviews of yearly AV updates so it made me a lil...gun shy about it if im totally honest.

Well simply put the best antivirus is you. If you don't do shady shit and aren't stupid nothings gonna happen. If someone wants to be in your system for stuff they would be by now plenty of easy way to just avoid any antivirus.

Windows7ge · December 5, 2020

I use to use Avast Free Antivirus. Never had problems with it. Sounds like it'd meet your needs.

su01 · December 6, 2020

I never browse the internet outside of a VM on VMWare Workstation. I just create a template windows machine and i can clone a whole new one anytime.

LogicalDrm · December 6, 2020

I would say Avast is the one I've used and has sandbox-mode, and you can set it to be primary for all detected stuff. Haven't used Avast in few years, so I don't know if its still as annoyingly intrusive as it used to be.