Looking for recommendations for an anti-virus.

[MallCopGamer43]

Hey, just like the title says, I'm just looking for an anti-virus for my pc. If anyone has any recommendations I'd really appreciate it and look into them.

[RAS_3885]

Smart browsing habits, Windows Defender, and Malwarebytes free.

 

Unless you have specific software needs those don't provide.

[whispous]

Windows Defender built in does what pretty much most people need. Do you have unusual requirements?

[Pixelfie]

Usually Defender is enough. Installing an extra programs only makes your PC slower while making it only a little bit more secure.

 

If you still want a program Kaspersky is very good imo

 

You can also enable TPM for extra security, if your hardware supports it.

[FRD]

Windows Defender will suffice these days.

Do you need a free program or you want to pay too?

I recommend Kaspersky Total Security or if you want free Kaspersky Security Cloud.

[Darkclone]

First up I am not an expert on all this. I have just been more privacy conscious lately than I have previously been. This means I may say things that are not 100% right but should still be thematically right.

 

I don't know what kind of feelings you have around privacy, but if you are really strict on privacy I would avoid bit defender and kaspersky as they intercept and decrypt your dns/https requests as part of their web monitoring meaning they have access to everything you are looking at and they could decide to collect that information for their uses. I have personally used bit defender (stopped around 14 months ago) and it mostly worked well but I would run into issues with certain game clients such as the Riot one for League of legends. It would block the outgoing connection even with everything set as permitted for it. I would have to pause bit defender to play league.

 

But honestly I feel that windows defender is all most people need these days and if you are worried you can always get portable virus scanners that you can run every now and then that don't need to be installed such as Emsisoft emergency toolkit and VIPRE rescue.

 

Otherwise for people who are concerned about privacy Clamwin is an open source virus scanner. Being open source increases the chance that any dodgy things in coding will be found by users are reported on leaning a bit more trust to the program in my eyes. I will admit I haven't used it just purely due to laziness and letting window's defender do it's thing.

 

Hopefully this makes sense. As always make a decision based on what is right for you. If you do decide to get a paid virus scanner then have a look around for prices as they are normally the most expensive directly off the people who make it. For Bit defender you can always find a 3 month free trial that doesn't require credit card information to use and some people may think a bit more deeply about how to manipulate that using maybe temporary email addresses but I am not sure about how things like that are viewed here so I will leave it at that.

 

Good luck and have a great day all!