I would test Bitdefender AV Free. My usual pick would be Avast Free, but somewhat customized (for example, no sounds). Or, MSE.
Bitdefender- I have been using it for the last couple of weeks without any issues and I love the simplicity of it.
If I had to go free, I'd try Bitdefender, mainly because of the high praise its been receiving here on Wilders. I think ZoneAlarms freebie is also a good choice, but it wasn't listed, and I guess would be considered a suite by some.
I would agree with you about zonealarm as it uses the kaspersky engine and its free. Not sure if its an different version of kaspersky though.
Avast. With just 2 shields it uses almost zero CPU and very low i/o reads-writes. The only lighter free AV out there is the famous "Placebo AV".
Well, I actually run MSE, so I reckon I would pick that. I have been hearing very good reports about BitDefender.
Am I the only one using Panda Cloud AV Free? It's been doing the job for me throughout 2012 and into 2013 (and it truly is 'light as a feather').
Bitdefender Free has caused me problems online. For one I couldn't stay logged in online flash content. Besides that it seems as the least resource intensive AV out there, liter than MSE or Avast.
I tried it after I uninstalled McAfee from my notebook around two years or so ago. I could not believe the difference in performance on the notebook with the Panda Cloud installed. Unfortunately on its first full scan it 'found' three viruses which were actually false-positives. I have since discovered that the Panda Cloud can be quite susceptible to false-positives. Which I thought was a great shame because it is the lightest AV I have ever run. They may have fixed this problem now for all I know. In fact, I think that it was truly lighter than a feather LOL.
I dropped McAfee last month and I've been enjoying avast but I wish I'd installed Bitdefender instead. I hadn't realised at the time there was a free version.
Using BitDefender Free right now. Seems to be the best. No problems so far. Soon it should have the ability to control quarantined items also... At that point, it will be unbeatable, IMO....
I don't run real-time AV. When I did (which was long time back), Avira was my favorite. I haven't keep up with it's developments though... Anyway, if I still have to pick, then maybe this?? For compatibility with Windows (inc. built-in mitigations such as ASLR) and lesser FP: MSE For performance and detection: Avast For 'cloud': Panda
Avast... The Web and Network shields are top notch. The File shield is good enough. The Behaviour shield and auto Sandbox do work properly. The whole product (free, as to my experience) works beautifuly out of the box. There are issues, but then again... there's always issues.
Probably MSE. I figure Microsoft knows their own operating system better; hopefully that would mean less of a performance hit, fewer conflicts with other software, and fewer FPs. Granted I've heard bad things about MSE, I've seen, heard, and experienced bad things about almost every AV by now.
I can't comment on MSE specifically, but Window Defender in Windows 8 which replaces MSE uses far too much CPU use for my liking, so I disabled it on all my Windows 8 machines. I also disable Windows Defender on Windows 7 and Vista computers due to high CPU use at times.
I'll give it that MS knows their OS. Here's why: http://www.insanitybit.com/2012/12/...entials-fails-test-short-analysis-of-results/ http://www.insanitybit.com/2012/12/13/analyzing-antivirus-security/ I'll also give it that it has fewer conflicts with other software, and fewer FPs... BUT there are other AVs that give less of a performance hit imo. Of course, I know it's subjective. Nevertheless, it's good to see though that Wilderssecurity members (and Windows users in general) continue to diversify when it comes to AVs and not let MSE dominate the industry. I don't want to see a day where VirusTotal has only 1 engine.
Well blast - I knew I forgot something. Former King soft user here, it seems to get better with each new version, too.
