Kaspersky Free Antivirus Review – Kasperky Lab is a big multinational company specializes in cybersecurity and anti-virus provider that based in Moscow, Russia and operated by a holding company in the United Kingdom. They have been operating since 1997 and experienced a big boom in popularity back in 2005-2010. Their software has been used by about 400 million users. Kaspersky has the largest market-share of cybersecurity software vendors in Europe and is now ranked fourth in global ranking of antivirus vendors by revenue.
Their free antivirus 2019 often declared as the fastest scanning engines to date. The free version has only basic features that should be enough to protect every computer and mobile phone in the world. Don’t be afraid to use their free version of antivirus. Their defenses and malware protection could be said as the best in the world. Features that are not present in the free version are: password manager, hardened browser and firewall. For comparison, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition has similar set of features with also similar amount of security and Avast Free Antivirus delivers slightly lesser protection with some extra niche features.
Getting the free version of their antivirus may be a little tricky. It’s not highlighted anywhere on their website, homepage or product section. You can only get the free antivirus on their “Free Tools” page and even that is not obvious. After you found that, it should be easy enough to install it.
That should be our first criticism for Kaspersky, we understand that they would prefer If you buy their products but hiding the free version is a bit slimy. Also, you need to create a My Kaspersky account in order to use the antivirus. My Kaspersky gives you more opportunities to secure important data, files, documents for you.
This feature is useful anytime and from anywhere, you can check the security status, change settings, and easily remove security threats.
Let’s talk about the features of this free antivirus in details and start the Kaspersky free antivirus review.
Kaspersky Free Antivirus Protection Software
Kaspersky Free Antivirus UI and features
Kaspersky Free Antivirus Review
At first glance this Kaspersky free antivirus review looks like its premium version. With 6 tools displayed on the main menu. Scan, Privacy Protection, Database Update, Safe Money, Parental control and Protection for all devices.
But as this is the free version only Scan and Database Update are available, as it’s shown highlighted while the other icons are dimmed. Though it’s nice to see right away what kind of features you can expect to be available in case you want to upgrade to premium version.
In the setting, there are six tabs available; General, Protection, Performance, Scan and Additional.
- In the General tab, you can choose what to do when malicious tools, adware, auto-dialers and any suspicious packagers are found and turn on or off the autorun.
- The protection tab can’t be changed at all with the free version.
- The performance tab and Scan tab are fully accessible. That’s a big plus for us. As these settings change a lot of important aspect of how the antivirus behave on your device. It’s not uncommon for any antivirus programs to be as annoying as possible when it comes to user interaction. Giving pop-ups about every single thing to drive users to upgrade to the premium version. With Kaspersky that stuff is not a problem.
- An additional tab is also accessible completely. It’s also a big plus, especially for advanced users.
The lack of features weirdly enough, can be considered a positive by some users. Other than really fast scanning times, it uses a light amount of system resources. Perfect for lightweight devices such as laptops, mobile devices or low-end computers. Read: Avast Free Antivirus Review
Kaspersky Scan
Kaspersky Scan
The best thing that this antivirus has is its ability to scan like a premium antivirus at faster speed than most competitors. With a few clicks, you can choose between a quick scan or a full scan. A full scan takes roughly 35 minutes, faster than 50 minutes scan time on other antivirus programs. And Kaspersky will utilize an optimization during the initial scan to speed up subsequent scans. so, the speed of scans will be faster in the long run. This feature is amazing as the full scan may take up to only 4 minutes. Much faster than the first run. You can also turn on “Scan only new and changed files” to speed it up even more.
The antivirus will recognize and handle most viruses and malware out there, better than even some paid programs in the industry. Many lab testers have tested the program by throwing malicious programs at it and it handles itself well. Independent antivirus testing labs have been evaluating the software many times and always got the best result from Kaspersky. In 2018 German lab AV-Test exposed the antivirus program with thousands of pieces of malware. The result was a perfect score. Windows 8 or Windows 10 are protected well by this program, even the most dangerous and “zero-day” malware.
The quick-scan rarely registers false-positive. Something that many users are scared of, as false-positive makes them paranoid. This result is much better than the competitor Bitdefender which had up to 19 false positives over the same test periods. Read: 5 Types Of Computer Viruses
Conclusion of the Kaspersky Free Antivirus Review
The final word from Kaspersky Free Antivirus Review are comparison between Pros and Cons.
Pros
- Very fast and reliable antivirus program
- 100% free
- Clean installer, no hidden additional unwanted software installed
- Not a bloatware, the installation takes a few minutes to finish and takes a small amount of space
- Clean UI, easy to navigate
- Big virus and malware database provided by Kaspersky
- Rare false positive
- Works in the background, no annoying pop-ups
Cons
- Barebones with no extra features
- No firewall
- No internet security
We could easily recommend Kaspersky Free Antivirus for anyone who wants a free and simple antivirus program. You don’t need to do something extra just download and install. The lack of other features in this software could easily be overcome by installing other pieces of software when needed. If you think about it, the lack of features could be a plus for people who hate bloatware with passion. Install other third-party software if you really need it. Hopefully, this Kaspersky free antivirus review answers some questions about this software.
