Best Antivirus Software For Laptop: Software Free Download' title='Best Antivirus Software For Laptop: Software Free Download' />Download Best Free Antivirus and AntiSpyware Software for Windows If you are a Windows user, you must install an antivirus and antispyware software in your system. Even the best free antivirus software falls short compared to paid protection. Though you can get a free antivirus download from trusted companies including AVG. A detailed look at the best cell phone spy software on the market. Read our spy mobile software reviews to make the right decision. Best Antivirus Software For Laptop: Software Free Download' title='Best Antivirus Software For Laptop: Software Free Download' />Avast Free Antivirus Free download and software reviews. Avast has one of the most popular antivirus apps around, due in part to offering a free version, and its one that performs respectably. The company acquired its rival AVG in September of 2. Avasts malware scanning engine, but their distinct personalities remain. Here are the highlights of Avasts latest release. Pros. Easy to use Avast has four main protection components File Shield, Behavior Shield, Web Shield, and Mail Shield. If, for example, you use webmail andor you find that Avasts Web Shield interferes with your web browsing, you can disable both relevant protection layers, while keeping the others active. Now, ordinarily, an antivirus app will keep warning you to turn these features back on. But if you really dont need them enabled, you can tell Avast that you want to ignore those warnings, and it wont bother you about those settings again. Solid protection According to independent labs, such as AV Test and AV Comparatives, Avast Free isnt quite as sharp as industry leaders like Trend Micro or Bitdefender, but its arguably the best protection youll find that comes without a price tag. Aggressively low pricing If you do decide to order Avast Pro, you can do so from within the app, and Avast offers a one year subscription for a reasonable 1. If you change your mind, Avast offers a 6. Avast Internet Security, which was priced at 2. Pro purports to add enhancements to online banking security and a test space for checking suspicious apps. This latter function appears to be a sandbox, in which you can open an app and investigate its behavior without risking an infection. Relatively muted sales pitch Free antivirus apps have a reputation for being pretty pushy about paying for a subscription, but Avast is on the low key end of the spectrum and it has been for a number of years. There are a couple upgrade buttons on the main console, and a number of features a firewall, URL safety verifier, and Webcam Shield, among others that redirect you to an order screen when you click on them, but nothing felt particularly tricky, and the sales pitch doesnt make ironclad claims about what the program can do. Data collection transparency Avast tells you right off the bat that it wants to gather anonymized usage data, some of which may be used to help fund development, but you can disable this function in the Privacy settings. Though it would be nice if it explained what certain information it wanted to gather. Cons. Some settings could use more explanation Avasts settings menus have a number of icons marked with an exclamation point that you can click on for further details. But the description for Cyber. Capture doesnt sound substantially different from what a virus scanner already does It analyzes unrecognized files, defends and warns you about new threats, and helps keep your system secure. And Hardened Mode is there to further lock down the security of this computer. But in what way Subscription offers can get confusing The 1. Avast Pro offer is available via the upgrade buttons on the main console, but its not an option when you click on one of the features that has a padlock on it. File Host Vao Youtube. There, you get two different offers 2. Avast Internet Security or 3. Avast Premiere. But if you, say, click on the padlocked Sensitive Data Shield icon, you only see the Avast Internet Security offer, and it has a different list of advertised features. Bottom Line. While there are some quirks in the interface, Avast is a respectable and respectful antivirus app overall, and the paid version is notably budget friendly.