Best Free Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware Protection?

[mirth]

Hell, you are high maintenance.

[Gusington]

I spent my gaming hour futzing. I hate that. But the damned thing works now. Harder to tell if it was AVG, Spybot and the mods, a combo or just one. Probably a combo of all of them.

So now I'm back to square one...I need antivirus that won't drive me crazy.

[Gusington]

How about plain old unsexy Windows Defender? It is not listed by Steam as av that interferes with its operation.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

[mirth]

Defender is okay. I wouldn't bet my digital life on it. Do you do everything from one machine? What I mean is do you game on the same computer that you use for online banking and shit? If so, err on the side of caution.

[Gusington]

I used to but not anymore. My gaming rig is used for games 99% of the time. The other 1% is porn.

[mirth]

Defender will do then. Call Bill Gates when you get a virus.

[Gusington]

He told me to call you.

[mirth]

He's an ahole.

[Gusington]

^He said the same about you!!

[Martok]

^  Dude, just about all of us here are.  :P 


Sorry you had possible issues with AVG, Gus.  It's honestly never been anything but good to me, so I'm baffled as to why it was messing with you.  It especially sucks that it was interfering with the (IMO) very fun Age of Charlemagne.  :-\ 

I've never had Spybot mess with Steam. What's going on?

I haven't a clue as to why, but I've had Spybot mess with shit on previous machines, which is why I've not installed it on this one (and never will again). 

[Steelgrave]

I used to but not anymore. My gaming rig is used for games 99% of the time. The other 1% is porn.

Same here. Well, except my numbers are reversed 

[JudgeDredd]

I told you - Microsoft Security Essentials is all I've EVER had (since it's release) and I haven't had a single virus. The only additional item I have is Malwarebytes and I run that once a week on a Sunday (as I do with MSE - full scan)

[OJsDad]

Attila will lock up after the splash screen. I had something similar happen with McAfee and Shogun 2, and finally fixed it after an hour of futzing around.

I removed AVG and Spybot and the game launched. Now I am futzing with mods and the new Radious mod for Age of Charlemagne also doesn't get along...so I am disabling that too.

I use Avast, and had an issue with save games for the Black Ice Mod on HOI3 crashing the game.  I found that I had to make an exception for the save game folder.  I know your just launching the game, but AVG or Spybot may have been causing an issue.

[Gusington]

^I think it was a combo of the av and the mods. I'm just going to get Windows Defender and call it a day.

[Sir Slash]

Does anybody know if the AV features in Windows 10 is good, bad, or enough by itself for protection-- meaning general use, games and the like?