I don't spend a lot of time browsing the Internet, visiting shady websites, or using untrusted USB drives (and for what it's worth, I browse using Firefox, which I always gathered was the most secure). Would the people on here that know more than me recommend uninstalling it in favour of something like The BitDefender? However, I haven't seen one mention of AVG on this entire thread, so. I'm now using Windows 10 and still have the free version of AVG Free running (albeit somewhat annoyingly, because unlike in the past, it now bugs me to upgrade to premium). I was perhaps using Vista or even earlier at that time. When I installed it all those years ago, AVG Free was what (I was told at least) was considered the best free anti-virus. I'm completely out of the loop when it comes to anti-virus, meaning that I've had the same AV for years and never even thought about changing it I just happened to stumble across this thread.

I wouldn't have known otherwise that SourceForge at one point wrapped the free program GIMP in adware without the permission of the GIMP developers. I like having ublock pop up in this case so I know to google why that webpage is potentially risky. While these sites are not malicious per-say, they have done some shady things in the past such as bundling unwanted applications with popular downloads. For example, it blocks SourceForge and Cnet's. I like 'ublock origin', although it may be a bit aggressive. The pro version of anti-malware has real-time scanning and malicious webpage blocking.Īlso add a good web/ad blocker.

Ideally you should have something like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Anti-Exploit to protect you from more bleeding-edge attacks.

The BitDefender free antivirus will provide more extensive virus definitions, while having negligible performance impact and generally staying out of your way. it is not as extensive as other free and paid anti-viruses, which will also cover the more exotic viruses. Windows Defender will protect you from known and popular viruses.

Antivirus defender windows 7