The best free antivirus for serious PC gamers

I used Avira for years, even the paid version for a time. But nowadays the free Avast! version does the trick. I like how lightweight it is, not sure how many viruses it blocks but I haven't had any problems so far.
 
I have also been using Avast for a few years with no problems, I will admit earlier renditions did tend to be problematic, but nothing in the last 2 or 3 years that I noticed, had more issues with paid bitdefender than free avast
 
Windows Defender ... The software is capable enough that if you are very careful about your system’s threat vulnerability, you might be able to get by without a standalone antivirus.
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I pretty much only use Windows Defender and common sense and I get by just fine. :cool: If I'm feeling paranoid I may run a scan with Malwarebytes, but since it never finds anything I tend to run it less and less these days.
 
I am doing just fine with Windows Defender but if I ever had to choose something else I would happily pay for Kaspersky. I have seen it perform miracles on systems riddled with malware and as a gamer it has great features to make it less obtrusive to my gaming experience:

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Irrespective of the anti-virus application you use. They're all crap IMHO. If they have an option to go "passive" when something launches full-screen it's ok to have on your gaming PC. However it's like wearing a bulletproof vest; it's heavy (consumes cpu, memory and IO time) potentially still slowing you down a notch. It's completely useless if you get shot in the head (targeted malware / day zero exploits).

Your best defense is essentially having some form of virus protection (hell even Windows defender is ok for this), make sure it's configured to run DAILY scans and at least one full traverse your entire file system type scan. Enable you bloody firewall and make sure you know what is allowed to speak IN and OUT from your system. Avoid trusting anything you download from the internet. Don't trust a media source (thumb drive, external HDD, CD/DVD, etc) that you don't own.

I have a Linux machine running ClamAV that I get people to stick their dirty drives into. It runs a scan activity every time a device is auto-mounted.

ClamAV databases are also by Immunet. You can get Immunet here
 
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