Can anyone recommend anti virus for windows 10

[waddycall]

We’ve got a 6 or 7 year old PC running windows 10 that only gets very occasional use. It’s got McAfee on it and it is so slow it’s almost unusable. The task manager always shows that McAfee is using up all its resources.
Can anyone recommend a decent anti virus thats either free or cheap, that sits in the background minding its own business and doesn’t make your computer grind to a halt?

PS I’m not buying another computer. Don’t want to be in the throw technology away after 5 years and get a new one brigade. That’s not going to help anyone and this computers got all the computing power I’m going to need

PPS needs to be easy to install by an idiot

PPPS can’t be arsed with changing operating system

 

[northwest]

Norton or McAfee IS the virus. I run absolutely no antivirus software at all, it is totally unnecessary. Windows defender does a decent job and as long as you DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK! You will be as safe as well, safe. Antivirus software in 2025 is not really needed. Common sense and a decent email provider and the jobs a good'n.

Just uninstall all the rubbidsh and let malwarebytes run once in a while and you are good to go. If you think you might have a virus just use Housecall and don't fall for the marketing ploy of it selling you a "package".

 

[PhillipM]

As above, Windows Defender and the occassional Malwarebytes scan is all 99.99% of users need any more.

 

[zzr1200]

Trend Micro Maximum Security is what I use, it's not cheap but I've never had a problem with it.

Plus Trend has been in the Anti-Virus game since DOS was around....

 

[Robotstar5]

Windows defender and malaware works fine for me on Win 10

 

[Ross365]

I've been using ESET for a ver...............y long time. Not sure if it qualifies as cheap, but it's definitely good.

 

[jmp49]

+1 Windows defender and keep it up to date.
Related story, I was doing a qualification that had a module to attack a windows server in a closed lab environment (OSCP...), I was really careful that it was totally benign outside that env and would not propogate independantly, so not a true virus, but still malware. I tested it against what I knew the server was running for av after some recon & It worked great, I passed the qual.
As part of further learning I was encouraged to test it on various AV engines, so I uploaded it to virus total, which is a place that AV manufacturers provide free scanning engines, and in return they get to look how their tool responds to new unknown threats.
Every single engine missed it except windows defender, which detected it doing bad things by the way it behaved in certain ways. The rest were checking for patterns of code or different attack vectors, and because I'd written it and it was my own work and not just the generic code passed about the darknet, they missed it.
So now, every time someone asks what AV to put on a windows system, I'd always recommend defender with up to date coverage. People think because its free with the os its rubbish, but the microsoft team responsible for it are very very good, and they have acess to the internals of windows that others dont so easily have.

note, I'm not a bad person, some of us do this for a living.

 

[waddycall]

Cool. So this sounds promising. I’m on windows 10. Will defender still get updates for this? I’ll get malware bytes for now. I’ve cancelled my McAfee subscriptions (for some reason I had 2!) and got £150 refund. Woohoo. Also uninstalled it and the computers like new.

 

[RichardM]

I'm the same as @northwest , don't click on the links unless you want to go to where they say. Don't know if Defender will get updates.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I’m on windows 10. Will defender still get updates for this?

Windows 10 support 10 is about to end. I suspect that defender on W10 will no longer receive updates. Quite possibly others will lose support on W10 as well.

Aside from that, I use Defender as well. It's not nearly as resource hungry as the usual suspects and works very well.

Jack

 

[jmp49]

Support for windows 10 ends on october 25th this year, so it wont have any security fixes or updates after that unless you get the extended support update pack, which can give a extra year of support for home users, or up to 3 yrs for users of business pc's.
As you can download the defender update packs as downloads to use offline, if you happened to know anyone on windows 10 esu programme, you could just get the files from them...
I dont even have any windows machines now, apart from virtual machines and they dont communciate outside lab env's so I'm not on a ESU programme.

 

[gaz1]

mcafee needs an uninstaller as certain ones are a git to get rid of

windows 10 should have its own antivirus but i prefer an alternative and windows tries to make you use theres

so 2 anti viruses running at the same time are cancelling each other out

there is free out there though

 

[Turbo]

Been using Avast free version for years and no problems yet.

 

[m_c]

Support for windows 10 ends on october 25th this year, so it wont have any security fixes or updates after that unless you get the extended support update pack, which can give a extra year of support for home users, or up to 3 yrs for users of business pc's.
As you can download the defender update packs as downloads to use offline, if you happened to know anyone on windows 10 esu programme, you could just get the files from them...
I dont even have any windows machines now, apart from virtual machines and they dont communciate outside lab env's so I'm not on a ESU programme.

Doesn't Defender still get updates?
I'm fairly sure I've seen Win7 still install Defender updates long after Win7 itself stopped receiving updates, so I would assume Win10 will be the same..

 

[skotl]

As above, Windows Defender and the occassional Malwarebytes scan is all 99.99% of users need any more.

That. Everything else is money down the drain.

 

[Domdom]

Windows Defender will continue to work after October this year when Windows 10 goes end of support. It’s still working fine on my old Windows 7 machine, mostly because it’s a module outside of the core OS.

One of the reasons it’s so reliable is that Microsoft know how to hook it into their operating system, but also go take a look at companies that Microsoft have acquired in the past. So many in the security, AV, anti malware type of field. There is a lot of expertise and experience that goes into the Defender product.

 

[AVI_8]

I was told by a computer repair man that Microsoft’s built in virus protection is more than adequate, McAfee is a big program which just slows the computer down to a snails pace, and it’s also not easy to completely uninstall I found

 

[jmp49]

Doesn't Defender still get updates?
I'm fairly sure I've seen Win7 still install Defender updates long after Win7 itself stopped receiving updates, so I would assume Win10 will be the same..

I assume the same, but there's scant little information from MS themselves on long term support for unsupported platforms for defender itself for a definitive answer, but there is indeed current updates for win 7 defender.
The interesting thing about the extended support is the os continues to keep getting security patches as well as defender updates. Which begs the question, why did they not let everyone have the chance to buy extended support for 3 years not just companies, if theyre making them anyway.