A lot of attention gets spent on the best paid antivirus suites , but free antivirus solutions are worth talking about, too. Not only are Windows’ built-in safeguards a solid option, but the same antivirus engines behind paid third-party software power the gratis versions, too.

So if you see a free alternative to a paid version you like, you can safely assume the antivirus protection level is similar—save for any specific malware types the free version doesn’t cover. The difference is the number of features available to you.

To create this list of the top free antivirus programs, we looked at the top mainstream antivirus suites for Windows and selected the ones that offer a free version, as not all of them do. Then we looked at how well these suites performed in third-party detection t

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