Lately, a lot of friends and “friend of friends” are  asking me what are the best Antivirus today, after giving them a recommendation they quickly get back at me saying it’s not free or way too expensive. Trust me, nothing beats a paid Antivirus software especially with it’s bloat-loads of packed security software. If you aren’t prepared to shed some cash for some kickass Antivirus, don’t worry coz there are some free but good Antivirus software for personal use right now. Here are some of Sporty Techie’s top recommendations:

Avast Antivirus (Home Edition)

One of the best free stuff you can ever download, It has high reviews across the net, sometimes second to Avira, if not topping the charts. IMHO, it’s fast and detects a fairly decent percentage of viruses and malwares. The only thing that I really hate about Avast is it’s interface, yes I hate it… A LOT! Aside from that, Avast doesn’t eat much of your CPU power and memory.

You can download the free version of Avast Antivirus here.

Avira Antivirus Personal Edition

Another highly recommended Free Antivirus software, Avira also has high reviews across the net occasionally beating Avast and other free Antivirus programs out there. It’s fast, eats up minimal resources and has a very sleek and simple interface that make it easy for non-geeks to understand how to use it. Why I put in second place below Avast? Well, one reason is bec. sometimes its updater can become a pain in the ass. Around 3 times I installed this for someone, it won’t update at all. Aside from that it often bugs you with pop-ups that can be really really annoying especially if your playing a  game or watching a movie.

You can download the free for personal use Avira Antivirus here.

Microsoft Security Essentials

Formerly known as One Livecare, this free Antivirus from Microsoft itself is fairly good, always in the top 5 of free Antivirus reviews. It’s basic, simple, and its made that way by Microsoft as it isn’t made to compete with other full featured Antivirus products like Symantec or Kaspersky. I really liked it sleek design aside from being moderately fast in scanning. It doesn’t hog much of your resources and it doesn’t slow down your boot time at all. In fact it speeds up your boot time for about a second according to some benchmarks. Basically, just install it and forget it, you don’t even need to tweak it’s settings and it will quietly download updates for you.

You can download Microsoft Security Essentials here.

Wait, no AVG? Honestly, this is the worst Antivirus software in my own opinion. In all the computers that I saw AVG installed, there’s always bound to be viruses. I even saw it scan flash drives and detect viruses, and that’s it. It cant delete or quarantine the detected threats. I know AVG is free but at least offer some aggressive protection. Even its paid version is bad, I highly recommend that you STAY AWAY from this one (Sorry AVG lovers).

Still, even all these free Antivirus products can’t protect you with the most vicious viruses. Avira let me down almost 25% of the time, failing to protect the computers that I installed this into. By far the most effective Antivirus software I can recommend is Kaspersky, but comes with a hefty price. You can still try it for 30 days and see for yourself. Remember, your PC’s protection is still in your hands.