Best free antivirus for families in 2024

You don’t always need to pay for an antivirus to keep your family safe online. We’ve tested a variety of antivirus programs to narrow down the options. We assess everything from the protection they provide to their overall performance. Of course, we’re also looking for free antiviruses for families packed with features such as parental controls, content filtering, and protection from phishing attacks.

Short on time? Check out our list of the best free antivirus for families below.

The best free antivirus for families in 2024:

1. Avast One Basic: The best free antivirus for families. An advanced firewall and the ability to block malicious websites and downloads. Excellent testing scores.
2. Panda Free Antivirus: Useful features for families such as location tracking, app permissions management, and a gaming mode. Comes with a dark web scanner.
3. Avira Free Antivirus: This antivirus offers real-time protection and blocks ads, trackers, and malicious websites. It has very strong protection scores in independent testing labs and includes a free VPN.
4. Bitdefender Antivirus Free: Lightweight and discreet antivirus with user-friendly apps and live customer support. A near-perfect protection score in our latest testing.
5. AVG Antivirus Free: Alerts you to suspicious app activity. Strong protection scores across the board. Very easy to use with beginner-friendly desktop and mobile apps.

Criteria for the best free antivirus for families

If you’re looking for a free antivirus for your family, there are a few key criteria to look for. We prioritize all of the following when analyzing free antivirus programs for families:

• Genuinely free as opposed to a limited-time free trial
• Multi-device support across various operating systems
• Basic parental control features such as content filtering
• Real-time protection from malware and other online threats
• User-friendly app interface for non-tech-savvy family members
• Lightweight enough that it won’t significantly slow your devices

Not every free antivirus for families ticks every box.

Best free antivirus for families in 2024

Here’s our list of the best free antivirus programs for families:

Avast One Basic is the most feature-rich free antivirus on the market. It offers real-time protection from malware, ransomware protection for your files, an advanced firewall, and malicious website and download blocking. For family members who use social media, Avast One Basic has a Privacy Advisor feature for assistance with privacy settings. There’s also a VPN that encrypts your internet connection, securing it from hackers and snoopers.

It’s hard to argue with Avast Antivirus’ testing results. It achieved perfect scores in our extensive protection and performance tests and consistent full marks from the AV test. Avast One has apps for all major operating systems. It would be nice if it were possible to secure multiple devices under the same account, but it’s only a minor gripe.

You can use Avast One Basic via its Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS apps.

BEST FREE ANTIVIRUS FOR FAMILIES:Avast One packs a firewall, malicious website blocking, ransomware protection, and more into its free plan. It scored well in our protection and performance tests as well as in independent testing labs. Available on all major operating systems.

Read our full Avast One Antivirus review.

Panda Free Antivirus offers real-time protection against all types of malware, including spyware. Easy to install and set up, you can use it to schedule scans to suit your timetable or simply scan devices on demand. One family-friendly feature offered by Panda Free Antivirus is its game mode, which pauses notifications while you’re gaming or streaming so you’re not disturbed. Unusually for a free antivirus program, it also offers location tracking for your family’s devices.

Another useful Panda Free Antivirus feature, particularly for families, is its privacy auditor, which makes it easy to review and tweak various app permissions. A dark web scanner checks for your email and passwords on the dark web to make sure they haven’t been leaked. We were impressed with Panda’s protection in our testing, where it scored 99.75 out of 100. It bundles in a free VPN, but at just 150 MB of data a day, this is quite limited.

Panda Free Antivirus offers apps for Windows and Android.

FAMILY-FRIENDLY:Panda Free Antivirus offers real-time protection as well as many useful features for families such as location tracking, a gaming mode, and privacy auditor. It scores well for protection but is still lightweight enough that it won’t slow your devices.

Read our full Panda Antivirus review.

Avira Free Antivirus offers you real-time protection from viruses, ransomware, trojans, worms, and any other types of malware. Its Safe Browsing feature blocks harmful websites before they can load. Ad and tracker blocking are included. A Safe Shopping feature alerts you to secure money-saving deals and coupons when you’re shopping online.

Avira excels in malware protection, regularly recording perfect scores with AV-Test and an impressive 99.75 in our testing. Although its performance isn’t quite as good as some rival antiviruses, it won’t slow your devices too much unless you run a full scan. You’ll find the apps very easy to use, with the UI divided into key categories (security, privacy, and performance). A VPN is offered, but it’s limited to 500 MB a month.

Avira Free Antivirus allows you to download apps for Windows, Android, Mac, and iOS.

MALICIOUS SITE BLOCKING:Avira Free Antivirus helps keep families safe from viruses, malware, as well as ads, trackers, and harmful websites. Strong security is evidenced by its excellent protection scores. It’s easy to use and can be installed on multiple devices.

Read our full Avira Free Antivirus review.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free helps safeguard you and your family from many of the threats you and your family are likely to face online. It uses AI as part of its real-time protection to learn how you use your devices. This allows it to identify suspicious activity and isolate it immediately. Some threats Bitdefender Antivirus Free protects you from include ransomware, trojans, phishing, and malicious websites. Indeed, we gave it a 99.3 protection score in our testing.

When you consider that Bitdefender Antivirus Free does all of the above while consuming minimal resources and not bombarding you with notifications, it’s little wonder it’s one of the best free antivirus we’ve used. A big part of this is that it even provides live customer support to its free customers. This is not something we’ve seen from rival antivirus providers. It doesn’t offer as many features as some rival free antiviruses, but it’s still a strong option.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free apps can be found for Windows, Android, and MacOS.

BEST FREE ANTIVIRUS:Bitdefender provides a high level of protection from online threats, keeping families safe from viruses, malicious websites, and more. It’s lightweight enough that it won’t slow down your devices. Includes live customer support.

Read our full Bitdefender Antivirus review.

AVG Antivirus Free has multiple layers of security designed to protect you and your family from a wide range of threats in real time. Behavior Shield alerts you to unusual activity from apps, and File Shield blocks malware hidden in newly downloaded or opened files. With perfect protection scores in our testing and independent testing labs, AVG Antivirus Free is a secure choice for families.

When you open up AVG Antivirus Free, you’ll find an interface that’s easy to understand and navigate. Scans won’t significantly slow down your devices. AVG has received awards for its performance from AV-Comparatives. Parents and children can continue browsing, streaming, and playing online games during cans without noticeable performance dips. Of course, being a free antivirus, there’s only limited support available in the form of a community forum.

AVG Antivirus Free can be used on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices.

STRONG ALL-ROUNDER:AVG Antivirus Free offers multiple layers of security. It provides real-time protection and offers a firewall. The apps are very simply laid out and generally run quietly in the background. Option of a secure browser for blocking malicious websites.

Read our full AVG Antivirus Free review.

Finding the best free antivirus for families: Testing methodology

It’s not always easy to find the right antivirus for your needs. There are a lot of choices, and it can all come across as a bit complicated if you’re new to the topic. Fortunately, we have extensive experience in testing antivirus software and know exactly what to look for. Below, we go over our methodology which has served us well over the years:

• Malware and threat detection: We combine our real-world tests using test malware with independent testing lab results to make sure we only recommend free antivirus programs that offer a high level of protection. We’re looking for those with real-time protection and the ability to not only detect but remove known and new threats.
• Lightweight performance: Antivirus tools consume system resources, particularly during scans. We run performance tests before and during scans to understand the impact each antivirus program has. Ideally, we want antiviruses that provide sufficient protection without slowing your system.
• Ease of use: Nobody wants to have to spend all their time trying to figure out how to use their antivirus. When testing each antivirus, we’re evaluating just how user-friendly it is, from installation to the app interface, and, in the case of paid antiviruses, just how straightforward it is to turn off auto-renewal.
• Device support: All of the free antiviruses for families covered above support desktop (Windows and Mac) and mobile (Android and iOS). You can sometimes use them on multiple devices under a single account. This saves a lot of hassle and allows you to secure multiple family members’ devices.
• Family-focused features: Free antivirus programs don’t tend to include a huge number of extra features, but where possible, we’ve tried to find those that offer features to keep your family safe online. This may be anything from basic parental controls such as content filtering to phishing protection to safeguard emails and social media.

How to use a free antivirus for families

If you’re not familiar with how antivirus programs (free or paid) work, rest assured that the best of them make it easy to keep your device secure.

Here’s how to protect your family’s devices with a free antivirus:

1. Select your preferred free antivirus for your family. We particularly recommend Avast One Basic.
2. Download the free antivirus software from the official website and follow the installation steps.
3. You may be required to create an account to use the free antivirus. You can then open the app and run your first full system scan. Turn on real-time protection.
4. If the free antivirus includes parental controls, ensure they’re activated as needed. This may include content filtering or other web protection features.
5. Repeat the process for each family device you wish to protect. Note that not every free antivirus covers multiple devices.
6. Where possible, schedule full scans once or twice a week to automatically check your devices for malware. Run quick scans more regularly.

Free antivirus for families: FAQs