A good antivirus program is essential for a secure system; you don’t have to pay for one to get excellent protection. Below is my hand-picked list of the best free antivirus programs you can download for Windows today.

Kaspersky Free is a good choice for a simple program with a lot of features. I found it easy to use during testing, and I like that it offers a lot of advanced options, which you might want to look into.

It is also useful if your computer is low on system resources, as it can automatically postpone scans and reduce display animations if the CPU is running too high. The program supports idle scans for when you are away and lets you choose performance over protection by changing the overall security level.

A feature called Self-Defense is included, which blocks any attempts to modify or delete Kaspersky processes, registry items, and installation files.