Which Free Antivirus & VPN.

  • Thread starter Thread starter HarrisHawk
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HarrisHawk

HarrisHawk

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Hi. I'm just wondering which free antivirus is decent and lightweight. Also which is a decent VPN provider that is (technically) free.

Any help and advice would be appreciated.
 
Bitdefender is the best free one in terms of protecting you with one pretty big caveat - it comes with a MITM SSL root certificate which I don't like at all.

Personally I just stick to built in Windows Defender. It's not the best but combined with an ad-blocker and common sense computer usage it should perfectly suffice.
 
Samus
Bitdefender is the best free one in terms of protecting you with one pretty big caveat - it comes with a MITM SSL root certificate which I don't like at all.

Personally I just stick to built in Windows Defender. It's not the best but combined with an ad-blocker and common sense computer usage it should perfectly suffice.
Click to expand...
I hate Bitdefender with the power of 1000 suns. Its exception management is woeful. And, while I can understand it being a bit picky about the crypto mining software I'm running, I get really annoyed that it refuses to unblock webcam access for Google Hangouts.

I'm on the hunt for a new AV product. However, unlike @HarrisHawk, I understand that these things cost money to make, and therefore I will be looking for a proper paid service, not some shoddy free thing which is just going to steal my data and annoy me while it's failing to work properly.
 
GilesGuthrie
I hate Bitdefender with the power of 1000 suns. Its exception management is woeful. And, while I can understand it being a bit picky about the crypto mining software I'm running, I get really annoyed that it refuses to unblock webcam access for Google Hangouts.

I'm on the hunt for a new AV product. However, unlike @HarrisHawk, I understand that these things cost money to make, and therefore I will be looking for a proper paid service, not some shoddy free thing which is just going to steal my data and annoy me while it's failing to work properly.
Click to expand...
Well I removed Bitdefender a few years ago when they started shipping the MITM SSL cert, can't say I ever had much issue with exceptions when I did use it but that was a few years ago.

As I say I really don't think you need any more than the built in Windows Defender as long as you use other protection when browsing and employ common sense.
 
I've been using Avast Free Antivirus for a long time and can recommend. I noticed today they have a new free product called the Avast One Essential and it has a 5GB free VPN allowance a week.

Avast One Essential
 
I'm using comodo antivirus and firewall, but I'm thinking of switching teams over to the built-in software on my Windows 10 computer.
 
Last edited:
If on Windows 10 or 11 forget 3rd party AV. Just use Defender that is included with Windows. 3rd party AV is just a placebo these days - essentially pointless.
 
Daz555
If on Windows 10 or 11 forget 3rd party AV. Just use Defender that is included with Windows. 3rd party AV is just a placebo these days - essentially pointless.
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What about people that are still on Windows 8, Windows 8.1 though?
 

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