Best Antivirus Software 2016

There is no excuse for not having AV protection on your PC. None. And don’t say you don’t need to bother, as you have Microsoft Security Essentials installed by default. MSE has been shown to pay little more than lip-service to virus protection. You need a third-party AV service on your PC and there are lots to choose from, led by the six we look at here.
The good thing about having a free product from one of the leading Internet Security (IS) companies is that they use the same AV engine as in their commercial products. What you get in the stripped down versions is a smaller feature set. Few include spam filtering, improved firewalls or parental controls.
The best antivirus software is effective at combating malware, Trojans and other hazards, without slowing your computer or other devices to a crawl. Our analysis identifies several good bets to protect PCs and Macs including free antivirus programs that work surprisingly well.


1. Avast

It was downloaded by over 220 million people, and has three variants of versions: the free version has three important features: Intelligent antivirus & anti-malware, Home Network Security and Browser Cleanup which gets rid of the annoying browser add-ons. The Internet Security version costs 40 dollars for one computer, for one year, but it offers four additional features: Pay & bank online, Anti-hijack protection, Silent Firewall and Anti-spam, while the premier version (50 dollars for one year) brings in addition Automatic patching of security holes and prevents misuse of your private data.

2. Bitdefender

For near-flawless malware protection -- with no annoying pop-ups or computer bog-downs -- experts recommend Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2016 for Windows computers. It's a whiz at detecting phony phishing websites. Nifty extras include a file shredder, password manager and SafePay hardened web browser to protect you while banking or shopping online.

3. 360 Total Security

Created by Qihoo, this free solution improves the performance of your computer, offering three variants of scans: Quick, Full and Custom. Its main features are: Speedup, which identifies the startup non critical programs + background tasks + services that are slowing down the computer and allows the user to enable or enable them; Cleanup removes junk and temporary files in order to free up space on the hard drive; Virus Scan will scan your hard drive to locate and destroy viruses and other features that are worth mentioning are: Patch Up utility, Sandbox and System Backup Cleaner. This program uses five engives for your computer’s protection: 360 Cloud Scan Engine, QVMII engine, BitDefender and Avira Antivir engines.