Well, I have been just satisfied with free Windows Defender, but I would pay instead of saving a little money, if the choices are on the above ... History: Trend Micro, AVG, Avast, Panda, Windows Defender (Security Essentials) - never found any true viruses running in my Computers, except false positives and those AV programs often causes me headaches by hurting my valuable softwares
Symantec Endpoint Protection is the way to go. (w/ Malwarebytes Anti-Malware on the side) Both go well together.
Here's my experience with some antivirus. Windows Defender - Please just don't... Seriously, Microsoft should focus on OS, their antivirus isn't worth it... tested this AV on my relative's computers (4 people) after 6 months made a scan with various virus removal tools and damn I had to press the red button. Nasty little bugs just went through Windows Defender without getting noticed. Avira - Loved the initial versions of Avira, simple and lightweight, regarding its detection rate, never had many problems, a few false positives, most viruses were caught by it. Now with the latest versions, gonna be honest, despite that their detection rate might be good (and I say "might" because I haven't used it in a while). Regarding its performance it has become awful, and performance is something that you should consider, even on an antivirus. AVG - I was pretty skeptic about this one, always avoided it, don't ask me why, I just did. Eventually I just started using it and was surprise by it, it was the most user-friendly AV I have checked and it had really nice performance. Regarding it's detection rate, nothing to complain about, there were a bunch false positives, but oh well, you'll get those in any antivirus. Symantec Endpoint Protection - My favorite, BUT I don't advise people on this one unless they got some expertise, this bastard is really confusing, it's just a mess, once you start tweaking it you'll end up asking yourself wtf have you just done. Still, It's a pretty good one. ClamWin - Simply the most lightweight antivirus out there, period. It's a simple On-Demand scanner, so there is no real time protection. Still, It's a good one. Now, I have just written about some free ones, so I'll leave it as it is since this is a "Free app search" thread. Honestly, there is no best antivirus, most of them have their own virus database, what one might pick up as a virus, the other one might see it as a false positive, while another might not even be alarmed by it. So, besides the AV, you might as well use some extra security tools, Adware Cleaner, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (they are giving free licenses), Spybot Search & Destroy, there are plenty of tools that together may help enforcing security, but in the end, it all comes down to the user's behavior (sort of). This types of subjects regarding viruses is just stupid, for a simple reason, It's just like real life viruses, one pops out, a few people get infected and ONLY THEN is the anti virus made (after the virus is known), so, this just re-enforces the idea that there is no best anti virus, at least regarding detections. Regarding performance, well, that's another subject to discuss. Currently I use is ClamWin alongside with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and I might even pick up a few other tools just to make sure (no real time scanner activated), simply because I don't need a real time scanner and I like things simple and lightweight (don't bash me please... I am extra careful with this kind of stuff xD)
I like Avast. In addition to the expected scan for malware, Avast offers three other security-related scans. And it supports real-time protection which is helpful when I'm mistakenly clicked a dangerous website.
I've used Avast Free ever since it became available and have been quite pleased with it. I have, however, do have a problem with it and W10 10240 as follows: if I right click the Avast icon in the system tray and disable the shields, it's "game over". Instead of the icon displaying a "x" to indicate it's disabled, nothing changes and, except for the mouse cursor, my system is frozen. No response to left click, right click, double clicks and the keyboard is dead. I've let it sit for 10 minutes to no avail. Ultimately I have to hold the power button until the computer (Dell M6700) shuts off. Don't know if it's just me or not. At least I've never lost anything. (And yes, there is a reason for my disabling the shields and no, I'm not stating why).
Im looking for a free antivirus to put on a file server. Tried Bitdefender for a bit but the pop ups are very annoying and I even doubt it is actually doing anything. What do you recommend?
MS Defender if its a win based system. probably least obtrusive I can think of. What is the system you are running? hehe