Avast! Free Antivirus

Avast! Free Antivirus Avast! Free Antivirus is my new top pick for the best free antivirus software in light of recent developments. Avast has steadily been improving its detection rates over the past few years and now ranks with the some of the best. Avast has the most features of all the free antivirus with full real-time capabilities including web, e-mail, IM, PP and network shields, boot-time scanning, and a behavioral blocker. The new version 6 brings even more features including an internet site ratings plugin, script malware protection and a limited (non-configurable) sand boxing feature. Although the sandbox is a very useful semi-automated security feature, the default settings involves a pop up to ask whether a software should be sand boxed for not - for the typical average user this can be slightly confusing though it can set to sandbox the software automatically. Lastly Avast is relatively light on resources.