Antivirus software

You’ve come to the wrong place if you’re looking for free antivirus protection. Our list here covers the very best antivirus tools, and they’re not free. On the other hand, the best free antivirus apps beat out many of their commercial counterparts. Consider Avast One Basic or AVG AntiVirus Free if your budget just doesn’t stretch to paying for antivirus protection.

Which antivirus should you choose? While you have many options, two stand out from the rest. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus holds perfect and near-perfect scores from three independent antivirus testing labs, with more features than some security suites. Norton AntiVirus Plus likewise offers many suite-level features, and it gets excellent scores from all five testing labs we follow. We've named these two our Editors' Choice winners for commercial antivirus, but they're not the only antivirus apps worth consideration. Read the reviews of our top-rated programs, then make your own decision.

Editors’ Note: Given that the US government has banned new sales of Kaspersky security products, we no longer recommend them.

Every Windows computer comes with Microsoft Defender Antivirus preinstalled, making it the most widely used antivirus software. However, if you've installed third-party protection, Defender stays on the sidelines. If no other antivirus is present or your existing antivirus expires, Defender steps up.

Commercial antivirus apps offer protection beyond what's included with Windows, but Defender is looking better lately, with some solid scores from independent testing labs. The combination of good lab scores and a great score in our hands-on malware protection test brought its rating up to 3.5 stars. As it is a free, built-in utility, we're not including it in this roundup of commercial antivirus apps.