Best Free Antivirus Software

Antivirus is one of the most frustrating categories of Windows software. It's important to have antivirus software installed because there are too many ways to get burned. The annual tax of licensing commercial antivirus software dramatically increases the total cost of ownership for any Windows computer. As a replacement for those pricey solutions from McAfee, Norton, and their competition, here are the most popular antivirus solutions as chosen in the annual reader survey:

Reader's Choice: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition received the most votes in the reader survey, chosen by an overwhelming 61% of readers. AVG also happens to be the free solution most closely resembling a traditional commercial antivirus product. AVG provides basic protection from virus and spyware infestation by scanning email messages, and doing scheduled system scans. Like other free solutions, AVG does not proactively scan downloads and instant messaging communications, but should catch anything that slips through either of those methods if you happen to inquire an infected file and open it.

2) avast! 4 Home Edition is truly an underdog in the freeware antivirus world. As long as you're using it for personal use, it's quite possibly the best option on the list, offering real-time protection for most common antivirus needs. 19% of readers picked avast! as their favorite.

3) Avira AntiVir Personal Edition gets high marks for keeping virus definitions updated regularly. 8% of readers selected AntiVir as their choice for best free antivirus application. According to a recent Windows Secrets article, it ranks on more "best of" lists than any other antivirus app. One key downside to Avira AntiVir is a lack of automatic email scanning; you don't get automated quarantine of infected email messages. The software comes alive if you are suckered into opening an infected file, so no damage should be done to your system, but that's still not a perfect scenario. If you purchase the pay version of AntiVir, email scanning is enabled. The other downside to AntiVir is a requirement to re-register it periodically, which is an opportunity for Avira to upsell you to the pay version. If you are willing to put up with these quirks, the actual antivirus protection is great.

4) ClamWin is another reliable free alternative for virus scanning. 3% of readers picked ClamWin as their favorite. It's especially suited for automatic removal of infected attachments from Outlook. The software doesn't do a real-time scan of your system like pay products, so it might not make sense for novice users, but for experts, it's a handy way to maintain virus protection without bogging down your system resources with something that's constantly scanning.

With 91% of readers selecting one of the four apps listed above, the remaining 9% is a fairly crowded field. 39 different applications were chosen by readers as a solid free antivirus solution. You can't go wrong choosing one of the four listed above.

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