The best Windows 10 antivirus programs protect your PC without too much fuss, providing very good defenses against malware, phishing and other attacks.
They often include a two-way firewall, a secure browser for online banking, ransomware defenses that can “roll back” encrypted files, and ways to spot and stop fileless malware, boot-sector infections, malicious websites and phishing emails.
What you generally won’t get with the best Windows 10 antivirus programs are creature comforts that have nothing to do with detecting malware, but do often get deep-pocketed customers to pay more.
These extra features, such as parental controls, unlimited-data VPN subscriptions, identity-theft protections or cloud-backup software, are indeed useful, but they won’t protect your PC any better than many regular antivirus programs will.
A couple of the best Windows 10 antivirus programs here do have unlimited password managers, which are never a bad idea. But we’re judging these mainly on their malware protections, impact on system performance and overall value. And we’ve got tips on which of the best Windows 10 antivirus programs is right for you at the end of this page.
The best Windows 10 antivirus you can buy
If you want the very best Windows 10 antivirus protection against malware, Kaspersky Anti-Virus should be your first choice. No other brand of antivirus software matches its nearly impeccable record in third-party lab tests.
The company’s entry-level package, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, covers up to three Windows PCs for $60 per year, or up to five for $80, though you’ll often get half off for the first year.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus doesn’t give many of you the extra bells and whistles you’ll find with more expensive security suites. There are no parental controls, the password manager holds only 15 entries and the VPN service is limited to 300MB per day.
But it does give you what you need: dedicated protection against encrypting ransomware, a filter against phishing emails, browser extensions to beef up web safety and a security scanner for your home Wi-Fi network.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus also has new protection against “stalkerware” spying programs that the company is rolling out across all its antivirus products.
Read our full Kaspersky Anti-Virus review.
If you do want some extra features with one of the best Windows 10 antivirus programs, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus offers a lot for its low pricing, which ranges from $40 per year for a single PC to $80 for 10 machines.
There’s an unlimited password manager (Windows-only for now), a secure browser with an onscreen keyboard for online banking and shopping, a file shredder and new web-privacy software.
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus also has a VPN service, but it’s limited to 200MB per day unless you pay extra. And of course, there are no parental controls. However, the program is easy to use, its malware-detection record nearly matches Kaspersky’s and it also rolls back ransomware and guards against fileless malware and rootkits.
Read our full Bitdefender Antivirus Plus review.
Norton sells nine different antivirus packages, but we’ll focus on the two cheapest here. Norton AntiVirus Plus protects one PC or Mac for a rather pricey $60 per year, but it does have a two-way firewall, an unlimited password manager and backup software with 2GB of online storage.
Norton 360 Standard may be one of the best Windows antivirus programs, but it puts you in internet-security-suite territory by adding an unlimited VPN, webcam protection, dark-web scans for your personal information and 10GB of online storage.
Still, at $85 per year for a single PC, it might a bit rich for some customers. Other brands cover up to 10 PCs for that price.
On the upside, Norton’s track record at finding and defeating malware is second only to Kaspersky’s. If you don’t mind paying a premium price for an entry-level antivirus package, you could do a lot worse.
Read our full Norton AntiVirus Plus review.
Compared to other best Windows 10 antivirus programs, ESET NOD32 Antivirus is like a street-racing hot rod — light, cheap, fast and effective, but with few extra frills.
It’s got the smallest drag on system performance of any paid antivirus product we’ve seen, it zaps malware with the best of them, and it’s got a unique per-device pricing structure than ensures you pay no more than you need to.
ESET’s extra features are under the hood. It scans a PC’s start-up sector, running memory and Registry for hidden malware and also blocks known malicious websites. But if you’re looking for user-friendly goodies like a password manager, VPN or firewall, you’d better look elsewhere.
Read our full ESET NOD32 Antivirus review.
McAfee AntiVirus Plus is a bargain among the best Windows 10 antivirus programs if you have a lot of computers and smartphones to protect. For $60 per year, you can cover up to 10 devices running Windows, Mac, Android or iOS, and McAfee doesn’t mind if you add a few more.
Windows users get a file shredder, ransomware rollback, a firewall and protective browser extensions. McAfee AntiVirus, without the “Plus,” delivers the same features to a single Windows PC for $40 per year.
McAfee’s malware protection hasn’t always been the best in lab tests, but it’s improved a lot in the past year. The only big downsides today are very heavy system slowdown during active malware scans, plus the fact that you can’t stop threat-data collection from your PC if you choose not to have it.
Read our full McAfee AntiVirus Plus review.
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. 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.
The downsides are that you’ll see a pretty heavy system slowdown during scans, so make sure to run them during off hours. 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.
Read our full Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security review.
Best Windows 10 antivirus: News, alerts and updates
— A new twist on malware infection involves a fake streaming site that wants to charge you $40 a month.
— The latest version of Chrome brings fixes for 32 security flaws, so update your browser now.
— A new malware strain steals passwords while pretending to be ransomware.
How to choose the best Windows 10 antivirus for you
As with all security software, you need choose Windows 10 antvirus programs according to your needs and budget. 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.
If you’ve got deeper pockets and only one single PC to protect, you might consider Norton AntiVirus Plus or Norton 360 Standard. Both give you an unlimited password manager, and Standard even gives you an unlimited VPN and dark-web personal-information monitoring.
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. But McAfee’s malware defenses are not quite as good as those of Norton, Bitdefender or Kaspersky.
Of course, if all you want to do is keep your PCs free from malware, then Kaspersky Anti-Virus is the best choice. It doesn’t do much but block malware, phishing emails and dodgy websites, but it does it better than the rest.
How we test the best Windows 10 antivirus programs
We evaluated each Windows 10 antivirus program based on its interface, performance, protection and extra features.
Was it intuitive and user-friendly? Did malware scans badly slow performance? Was the program effective at detecting and removing malware? Did the program come with any useful additional tools?
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.
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. The longer the task takes, the heavier the system impact.
For malware-detection performance, we referred to the results of tests conducted by three independent labs: AV-TEST in Germany, AV-Comparatives in Austria and SE Labs in England.
Each lab periodically subjects major antivirus programs to stress tests involving thousands of pieces of malware, including hundreds of “zero-day” samples that the software has to learn to recognize.