To gauge each program's impact on system performance, we used our custom Excel test, which measures how long a PC takes to match 20,000 names and addresses on a spreadsheet. Our tests were performed on a Lenovo ThinkPad T470 with a 2.5GHz Core i5-7200U processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of solid-state storage containing 43.3GB of files. Was the program intuitive and user-friendly? Did malware scans badly slow system performance? Was it effective at detecting and removing malware? Did the program come with any useful additional tools? We evaluated each Windows 10 antivirus program based on its interface, performance, protection and extra features. How we test the best Windows 10 antivirus programs It doesn't do much but block malware, phishing emails and dodgy websites, but it does these things better than the rest. Of course, if all you want to do is keep your PCs free from malware, then Kaspersky Anti-Virus is the best choice. To get the best Mac antivirus software or the best Android antivirus apps as part of a bundle, you've often got to upgrade to midrange antivirus software, if not the premium tiers.

But McAfee's malware defenses are not quite as good as those of Norton, Bitdefender or Kaspersky. If you've got Macs and Android devices to cover as well as Windows 10 machines, McAfee AntiVirus Plus will take care of you at a bargain rate - $60 covers 10 devices. Both give you an unlimited password manager, and Standard adds unlimited VPN service and dark-web personal-information monitoring. If you've got deeper pockets and only one single PC to protect, you might consider Norton AntiVirus Plus or Norton 360 Standard. The best bang for your buck lies with Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, as it's fairly inexpensive and has an unlimited password manager, a file shredder and its own secure browser. How to choose the best Windows 10 antivirus for youĪs with all kinds of software, you need choose Windows 10 antivirus programs according to your needs and your budget. Read our full Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security review.

You may also get a lot of false positives, or benign items flagged as suspicious, which may indicate that Trend Micro's malware-detection engine is a bit overtuned. The downsides are that you'll see a pretty heavy system slowdown during scans, so make sure to run them during off hours. For $40 per year for one PC, you get a gaming mode, a secure web browser for online banking, ransomware rollback and an email screener to guard against phishing attempts. Trend Micro does very well in some lab tests, but its Antivirus+ Security package is even more Spartan than ESET's among the best Windows 10 antivirus programs.

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