best free antivirus.

[76561199708035568]

And not windows defender something better then that and free.

[Rod]

Have a second pc dl drivers to usb stick and scan with whatever you want. Then take that to your gaming pc and dont even browse the web on it just use steam. Now then you just saved some bloat congrats.

[Midnight Aurais]

use avira it has the highest detection rate

but honestly windows defender+vm's is a better solution if you go start then type "turn windows features on or off" and open you then tick the box for hyper v unless you want to go vmware and windows sandbox it will then download them from microsoft and ask you to reboot the pc

once rebooted in start menu just search hyperv or windows sandbox i recommend adding the sandbox to your taskbar

windows sandbox is a volatile vm this means once you click close it is wiped from existence i am pretty sure it uses the image that is used to reset windows in the settings menu so you will enter in a clean windows environment

now you have to put vm's into your daily use of your machine sites like youtube and others that are fully trusted to be clean go onto your pc accounts you also do not use in vm's unless they are burner accounts

any search or unregular site gets opened in sandbox programs can also be tested there if they work and you used virustotal on some of its files like the exe you can consider moving it to your pc(host) if you still do not trust it or it runs 100% fine in a vm then you need to use like hyperv or vmware

so are vm's secure yes unless specifically targeted which requires a hacker to be present in the vm that is the only concerning one but just malware by itself cant break through the vm any other security vulnerability is user error in security the user is often the cause of why it get's breached

it is why with companies they often do not bother hacking you instead want to use social engineering so one of the employees makes a mistake like that guy that fell for a deepfake board meeting he transferred money to what he thought was a offshore bank account of his boss he did not even question it that is how convincing the deepfake was

[ragnarok]

Автор сообщения: Electric Cupcake

Malwarebytes.

But free version scans on-demand only.

This. Kaspersky proved itself a failure after it began to declare EVERYTHING on the PC as a virus except itself.

[Karumati]

brain

[Neo]

Windows defender is perfectly adequate these days, just as so long as you apply some safe Internet practices and common sense, as others have mentioned.

I personally also use the premium version of malwarebytes along side defender as they work very well together, if defender misses anything then malwarebytes tends to catch the rest.

[Midnight Aurais]

the only thing about windows defender is that there is a deactivation script floating around for viruses to include its the same with viruses detecting vm's and either start the software in hope you think it is safe to put on your host or it just gives a black screen or does nothing when a vm is detected

lets be clear no software should have script to detect vm's period there is no reason from a logical standpoint that legit software has to do this

[_I_]

defender works, just add steam and its library folders to its ignore list
along with users folders that you know are fine

use common sense when browsing and picking what to download and install

[The Grin]

Any antivirus you download, is always a risk for your pc no matter the antivirus because you never know during the scan what could be / is being modified in your windows registry, especially during background scans. Every tech specialist knows that.

You don't need any antivirus that is free or downloadable on the net.
Windows Defender is all you need.

If you go on risky websites, it's your responsibility and you can only blame yourself.

[Vox]

Avast got caught selling user data and Avira has sadly turned into junk.

[Midnight Aurais]

Автор сообщения: Vox

Avast got caught selling user data and Avira has sadly turned into junk.

rip yeah its not like i did not see virus scanners get bloated over the years then its vm's or yolo

[PopinFRESH]

ESET

[muckymucks]

Windows Defender is pretty good. Common sense is even better. I haven't had to deal with anti-virus programs in decades.

[Çapgun]

Автор сообщения: Raoul

Avast free and it also does malware.

https://www.av-comparatives.org/test-results/
https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-11/october-2024/
https://avlab.pl/en/advanced-in-the-wild-malware-test/recent-results/

Best answer

[EMO GANGSTER]

windows defender is fine but yeah if your on 10 it soon stop working I would say Avast for active protection with Malwarebytes.to scan your system time to time

[_I_]

Автор сообщения: EMO GANGSTER

windows defender is fine but yeah if your on 10 it soon stop working I would say Avast for active protection with Malwarebytes.to scan your system time to time

it wont stop working, but just wont get updates
use mbam, that will always get updates