{"id":1207,"date":"2017-10-16T19:58:58","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T02:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2018-01-15T10:25:25","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T18:25:25","slug":"best-free-pc-security-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/2017\/10\/16\/best-free-pc-security-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Best free PC security software"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Fortify your PC against all manner of attacks\u2014for free!”<\/em><\/p>\n

This PC World article “How to build the best free PC security software suite<\/a>” (October 16, 2017) is one of the best digests of the topic that I’ve encountered. The article offers a ready summary of what you need to cover various security risks on your PC. For those not wanting to purchase an annual computer security subscription (with auto renew, eh) — but not go potluck — and willing to blend together a solution, the recommendations agree with my research and experience.<\/p>\n

Antivirus software is the key component of any security suite, and for good reason\u2014it\u2019s going to be your primary defense against malware. Windows offers its own built-in anti-virus program called Windows Defender<\/strong> for Windows 8.1 and up\u2014Windows 7 users can download and install Security Essentials<\/a>. Windows\u2019 solution offers fairly good basic security, but most third-party testing firms find that it falls short of third-party security suites. The upshot is: If you\u2019re a security-aware user who\u2019s willing to occasionally run a scan with Malwarebytes<\/strong> (see below) then Defender may be enough.<\/p>\n

Avira Antivirus Free Edition<\/a>\u00a0and Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition<\/a> are two free products worth your attention. According to recent benchmarks published by the German antivirus testing firm AV-Test<\/a>, paid products for both Avira and Bitdefender won top marks on all three of the firm\u2019s major testing categories including protection, performance, and usability; both did a perfect or near-perfect job at stopping malware and other threats. Avira did score one false positive from AV-Test when it identified legitimate software as malware during a system scan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, as for any free PC app, there’s a caution:<\/p>\n

… free products can include browser toolbars, extensions, or other desktop programs that you might not want. Freebies can also have ads that help their makers pay the bills. Be mindful while you\u2019re installing free programs to avoid also installing bloatware you don\u2019t want, which is often flagged for installation by default.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the full article for recommendations to safeguard your PC in other ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Fortify your PC against all manner of attacks\u2014for free!” This PC World article “How to build the best free PC security software suite” (October 16, 2017) is one of the best digests of the topic that I’ve encountered. The article offers a ready summary of what you need to cover various security risks on your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,36],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer","tag-anti-virus","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1213,"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions\/1213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digivideoplus.com\/dv_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}