BitDefender. Used to be Avast! but come on; a free AV with BitDefender's detection rates and none of the bloat!
i tried many antivirus come back to avast stability is major important factor and avast also good rate avg 95-97% with settings so its decent overall AV i like to try is bitdefender if stable and options like restore files and exclude them are in BD free
All it really needs is the ability to restore quarantined items, which is supposed to be coming. When they add that, I think it will be unbeatable. I'm using it now as is, and not worried about FP's or anything. Working great so far...
Avira has some of the best signatures around, it's simple and light. Avast has not the best signatures but it has wonderful Web/Network shields, cloud updates and else. AVG has very good signatures and a top notch BB (Identity Protection). MSE has its flaws but it's install and forget, compatible with almost everything under the sun. There's also Kingsoft and all the other less known free AVs. So, why install (vote for) such a strange thing as Bitdefender Free which promises you the best signatures, conflicts, false positives, no configuration, no options, problems when installing/uninstalling... No options... no options... (is this still Wilders?)
Avast would be my preference - unfortunately it causes too many slowdowns and BSODs on my system - so got the boot!
I'd choose Avira, although at the moment I have only the premium version on one computer. I'm testing 3 computers without AV, Sandboxie on 2 and Shadow Defender on the third, so far no problems.
Given those choices I would choose Avira. On account of the fact it ran very light on my setup when I used it in the past and played well with Comodo FW/D+. If I were running a post XP OS my answer would be MSE though.
If I had to pick one for me it would be Avast. I don't use free products though. For someone else that refused to use a paid product I would give them MSE. Not because I like it, but because it will stop them from calling about about the advertising/popups that the other free products tend to have.
