Best 2017 antivirus that won't bog down my Win7 PC?

[Bruce Page]

I'm looking for recs on antivirus software that won't bog down my system, e.g. McAfee & Norton. I've been running Avast Pro but I'm fed up with all the upgrade nags from them. Anyone running Bitdefender?

[Jim Becker]

I purely use Microsoft's built in capability for anti-virus/anti-malware and firewall and have been doing that since Win7 first arrived all the way through Win10.

[Mike Henderson]

I use AVG free. Since it's free they try to get you to upgrade to the pay version. If you want free, you have to put up with that.

Mike

[Wade Lippman]

Testing shows that Microsoft's product is almost worthless. Sad.

I have been using Bitdefender. It is not free, but it is pretty cheap.

[Bruce Page]

I probably should have put this in my original post; I'm not looking for free. I haven't used a free AV in years, free usually comes with constant nags, which I hate. I have been running the Pro (paid) version of Avast for the last few years. This year they have started a steady stream of nags for me to buy their 'additional' products. See ya!

[John Terefenko]

I run AVG free and there is no ads for upgrades unless you click on it. Just schedule to run a check at a certain time of the day and you are not bothered. It may not be the best but it still is a firewall and it does find things and warns me or lets me know it stopped a threat. I like it.

[Mike Henderson]

I probably should have put this in my original post; I'm not looking for free. I haven't used a free AV in years, free usually comes with constant nags, which I hate. I have been running the Pro (paid) version of Avast for the last few years. This year they have started a steady stream of nags for me to buy their 'additional' products. See ya!
You can pay for AVG. I don't know if that will stop them from sending you "upgrade opportunities" however. But as John noted, you don't have to pay any attention to them.

Mike

[Brian Elfert]

Microsoft's own anti-virus product was very well rated three or four years when most people still used Windows 7. I have no idea how good their current product is with Windows 10.

I do know that Windows Defender slows Windows 10 PCs to a crawl at work, but that could be a conflict with our Symantec anti-virus software.

[Dennis Peacock]

Interesting topic.....I will follow this one closely.

[Wade Lippman]

FWIW Newegg has Kaspersky for free after rebate. I'd jump on that if I needed AV.

[Steve Peterson]

You can pay for AVG. I don't know if that will stop them from sending you "upgrade opportunities" however. But as John noted, you don't have to pay any attention to them.

Mike

I also have AVG free and get really annoyed by the nag popups. The worst is the popup reminding me that they can optimize my power savings when running on the battery. You cannot disable the message without buying the premium version. It pops up at least once a minute and if you were typing, you lose keys until you click the "x".

One thing I have heard is that the popups are much worse if you install the 30 day trial version of the premium product. It is better if you completely uninstall the trial version and install the free version. I am ready to try that approach.

Steve

[Alan Rutherford]

I've used BitDefender for 2-3 years on my wife's Windows 7 and Windows 10 and would recommend it. The interface is a little more simplistic than I'd like but it works well. When you start the PC, it pops up a message saying it's awake but it's later in the process than you'd expect. This is normal behavior and it is protecting internet connections and opened files immediately as the computer boots.

We recently had a problem that could have been caused by a virus or by BitDefender. BitDefender support was reasonably prompt and helpful. Didn't solve the problem but didn't brush it off either and it turned out it was not their problem to solve. It was Windows 10 stepping on itself.

The best answer if you can do it someday is to get out of Windows. I've been on Linux (OpenSuse) for years and don't use anti-virus at all. I took advantage of the problem with Windows to wean my wife off of it and onto OpenSuse. It hasn't been painless but it's more stable, more secure and free. In the meantime, I'd say get BitDefender.

[Izzy Camire]

I use Kaspersky on Win 7 & Win 10 and have no problems.

[roger wiegand]

I've been very happy with Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition. It's not cheap (not outrageous either, $60 for two licenses/year) , but it seems to be completely unobtrusive. It was recommended by my IT guys for my last business but I've been using it at home for the last four years. I've had a terrible time with the other products I've used over the years, this one just works.

[Jim Becker]

Testing shows that Microsoft's product is almost worthless.
Yet there is other testing that shows it performs as well as any other...screwy business for sure!

[Myk Rian]

FWIW Newegg has Kaspersky for free after rebate. I'd jump on that if I needed AV.
Got a link? It seems to be MIA.

[Todd Willhoit]

I have been using Kaspersky for several years. It seems to be light on resources.

[Matt Meiser]

Knock on wood, we are using Microsoft's AV plus a paid subscription to MalwareBytes Anti Malware and the combo seems to be effective. The latter blocks stuff that isn't technically a virus but still often very undesirable.

[Jim Tobias]

Been using BitDefender for 7 or 8 years. Reasonably priced and works great.
Also, renew price is always considerable cheaper than the first buy.

Jim

[Kev Williams]

Back in '06 I started using AVG. It did it's job, but it started becoming a resource hog...

So when MS trashed XP I found Avast. It worked like AVG did in the old days.

--then it got like AVG did in the new days, but took less than 2 years. It got to where it was 'analyzing' EVERYTHING, including System Restore whenever it was creating a restore point in the background. System Restore would time out and then the whole computer would die in slow motion. All 5 of my XP computers did this. Found the errors in the event logs, wasn't sure what was causing but I suspected it was Avast.

So I came across Panda AV, downloaded their free version on one computer, and Voila. Faster computer that didn't die. So now it's on ALL my computers.

It pops up one nag most days, sometimes a second one. Most times I don't see them anyway. What I like about it is, after almost 2 years with it on every computer, it only noticeably slows down the computer while it runs an automatic background scan or downloads virus info. But they ALL do that to some extent... Otherwise, unlike AVG and AVAST that just kept getting worse over time, Panda hasn't changed. It doesn't affect normal operation. It never tells me it's doing anything unless it catches a virus. It is by far the least intrusive AV program I've ever used. And since it HAS caught a few nasty things, I assume it works okay :)

[Andy Giddings]

I purely use Microsoft's built in capability for anti-virus/anti-malware and firewall and have been doing that since Win7 first arrived all the way through Win10.
+1 on Windows Defender and Win 10 - we still have to use Win7 on our work laptops which is a real PITA :-)

[Justin Ludwig]

I'm happy with Bitdefender.

[Bruce Page]

+1 on Windows Defender and Win 10 - we still have to use Win7 on our work laptops which is a real PITA :-)
I'm still using Win7 primarily because my 3 year old CNC router uses Win7 and WinCNC as the control software. I use my office PC to write programs for the CNC and have heard of compatibility issues using Win10, thus my reluctance to update. That, and the fact that Win7 has been bullet proof.

I have decided to stay with Avast Pro despite the occasional "Buy Me!" nags that drive me crazy. It has performed well over the last 3 years.

[Bill ThompsonNM]

I've been through almost all anti virus. For the last 7-8 years I've been using Vipre Antivirus because it always gets great results in the competitions and seems to impact my computers the least. I have it on two machines at home. One machine at one workplace and 15 machines at my major workplace.

For my home machines, they offer a "lifeTime" version. A little extra but upgrades are forever free.

Bill Thompson

[Yonak Hawkins]

It's possible Vipre Antivirus is not available on a lifetime basis anymore. At least, although there was such a link on Google, there didn't seem to be the availability on their site after checking, at your suggestion.

[Tony Gomez]

Talking with the network guy that just help us install a new server, he pulled up data which had Kaspersky and Bitdefender really well rated and microsoft relatively poorly rated. I've used AVG free in the past. It's fast but I hate the popups so I got rid of it. Norton really bogged down my system when I had it. McAffee worked well and had a moderate system impact, but nothing major. We now use Bitdefender. It's impact is low on the system and there have been no issues. We use the Gravity Zone Business one here on all computers. While it is administered through the net, I imagine it would have the same resource impact as the home version (minimal). When I need a new one for home,that's the route I'll go. I'd also have no hesitation with Kaspersky.

[Michael Rector]

The AV I recommend to people is based purely on their computer habits.

If someone is a savvy computer user and is judicious about what emails they open or websites they go to then Windows Defender is more than sufficient.

If someone has a tendency to randomly open strange emails or browse the web in the less savory parts of town I recommend a combination of Kaspersky and MalwareBytes.

[Mike Null]

I'm a long time user of AVG Free. It has done the job flawlessly on 4 pc's for at least the past 12 years if not longer. The pop-ups aren't so frequent as to be a serious nuisance.

[Mike Baker 2]

I use Avast. It catches pretty much everything. Was using Norton for the first few years I had a PC, but I had to basically wipe my computer and start over at least 5 times in as many years because it missed something really bad that could not be extricated from my computer any other way.
I have been using Avast for a very long time. I don't like that it scans everything, and it also slows down boot up. Takes about 3 minutes for my laptop to boot up completely, and when I go to task manager, Avast is the culprit.
But ,having said all that, it keeps my computer safe. Period. And if I had problems like I had with my old XP system, but in Windows 8, there is no way I could get into the registry and other places I would need to in order to weed it out of the system, much less wipe and start over.
So I will keep Avast, warts and all.

[Ole Anderson]

My concern is my (any) virus protection going to protect me from the most recent outbreaks. How quickly do they write the protections and how quickly are they automatically updated on my computer. WannaCry is just the most recent example. I have Norton Security Suite (free with my Xfinity/Comcast internet provider). A few years ago I got hit a few times with ransom ware, I was able to bail before it encrypted any files. It took a while for Norton to be able to react to it. I hope they are on top of it this time. My computer runs slow (still on Win 7), but not sure I can blame it on Norton. When new it ran fine even with Norton running. Norton seems to be in the background, very seldom do I ever get any pop ups from them, usually just a reminder if I don't do a backup.

[James Tibbetts]

I've been online since 1982 using Norton products exclusively. I have never had an infection in my systems, but dozens of alerts about blocked attacks. Currently my machines, (3), are running Win7 on a quad core processor with no discernible loss in speed. For the $20 a year or so per machine I'm not looking anywhere else.

[Jim Becker]

Ole, be sure you've applied the Microsoft fix to close the loophole that the WanaCry uses to spread from machine to machine on the same network. Otherwise, this kind of threat vector is normally from opening an attachment in an email...something I hope you don't do for anything you were not expecting to receive, even from friends.

It's not a good thing to try and depend upon any kind of AV application to deal with "everything" since many threats are focused on human behavior to spread... ;)

[Tom Stenzel]

....It's not a good thing to try and depend upon any kind of AV application to deal with "everything" since many threats are focused on human behavior to spread... ;)

^THIS!

Here at Fort Stenzel I rely on Microsoft's stuff. 100% of the problems I've had to fix were from my daughters downloading "free" software and ending up with spyware, junkware, toolbars, all manner of stuff balling up the machines. I've been lucky that I haven't had to wipe a machine and start over although it might have been easier.

Sorta like when I took the minivan on a off-road misadventure, you have to be careful where you go and what you do when you get there.

-Tom

[Ole Anderson]

Ole, be sure you've applied the Microsoft fix to close the loophole that the WanaCry uses to spread from machine to machine on the same network. Otherwise, this kind of threat vector is normally from opening an attachment in an email...something I hope you don't do for anything you were not expecting to receive, even from friends.

It's not a good thing to try and depend upon any kind of AV application to deal with "everything" since many threats are focused on human behavior to spread... ;)

Thanks Jim. Windows defender is showing me this (never looked before, relied on Norton). looks like I am not up to date.
360266

Edit: Ran the update, now I am good. Hopefully, if it runs parallel with Norton...
360272

Safe to say you can verify it really is your friend's email by looking at the address, not just the name?

[Jim Becker]

Even if something comes from your friend's actual email address...verified and all of that...it doesn't mean that the email attachment was something they intended to send to you. "They" could be infected. This is very much part of the "social engineering" that nefarious folks use to spread their 'warz...they take advantage of the fact that so many folks will assume that since something is from a friend, it's ok. Not!

If you were not expecting an attachment from said friend, do not ever open it until you actually confirm with them that they intentionally sent it to you.