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Free anti-virus applications compared

Posted on 7 Jan 2010 at 00:00

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We all know that it's essential to protect our computers against malware, but we don't necessarily want to pay for the privilege. Fortunately, there are lots of free anti-virus applications out there to choose from. The big question is: are the free applications as good as the paid-for ones?

That's the answer that we've decided to find out with our unique attack tests. Expert Reviews is the only site to use live viruses in its attack tests, making our results the most accurate you can find. Please read our full test methodology to find out exactly how we test.

We'll bring you a full test of the paid-for anti-virus applications next week.

The tested applications

• Alwil Avast! Home Edition 4.8
  


• Avira AntiVir Personal 9.0 review
  


• AVG Technologies AVG Free 9.0
  


• Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 review
  

See page 2 for benchmark results.

For more details about purchasing this feature and/or images for editorial usage, please contact Jasmine Samra on pictures@dennis.co.uk

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