Where to find free virus scanners

Having a virus scanner is an essential part of online security as even trusted websites can be compromised. Many virus scanners also offer important features such as file scanning and email protection. That said, you may not want to pay for a virus scanner and fortunately there are a number of companies which offer free ones. This article provides a guide to finding free virus scanners.

Cnet

The easiest way to find a free virus scanner is to visit Cnet.co.uk. This is a technology-focused website which hosts virus and spyware free for downloads for thousands of computer utilities as well as reviews of most of them by both Cnet.co.uk itself and general customers. Therefore, you can quickly see what software is highly rated. To find virus scanners on the site, simply visit the homepage and type ‘virus scanner’ or ‘anti virus’ into the search box, then simply find a free one with good reviews.

The top three virus scanners

Alternatively, there are several free virus scanners which consistently produce excellent results. These are ‘avast! Free Antivirus’, ‘Avira AntiVir Personal’ and ‘AVG Anti-Virus Free,’ and all three of these can be downloaded either from Cnet.co.uk or directly from their own websites. However, unless you know and trust the site that you’re downloading them from, it is not recommended getting them from anywhere else just to be on the safe side.

Stay up to date

As virus scanners are constantly being updated and new versions being released, it can be hard to keep track of which one is currently the best. As such, a final suggestion would be to type something along the lines of ‘best free anti-virus’ into your search engine and find the most recent articles on the subject. These should give you a rundown of what are currently the most highly rated virus scanners. Once you find one that sounds right for you, head straight to its website or to Cnet.co.uk and grab it.

Getting it set up

Once you’ve got a virus scanner, setup is normally quite simple. However, you should make sure that you have it set to automatically update and either set it to do a full system scan at least once a week or make sure that you manually do one every week to ensure that you stay fully protected.