The best antivirus for games is antivirus that protects your PC without robbing your game of valuable resources. This may be Windows Defender and a half-decent malware protection app for regular reconfirmations, but you may want to take the more complex antivirus suite one step further.
Most of today’s top antivirus suites will be out of the way with the help of “game modes” or something for their effects. That way, they will inform themselves, like a faithful and well-trained watchdog, only if something miserable happens. Today’s antiviruses are much less system-intensive than they used to be, and at least the best antiviruses tested and listed here are:
Cyber attacks are constantly evolving and the best antivirus will be able to catch up with the onslaught. Dangerous pop-up ads, process injections, phishing emails and malware are waiting for a raid under the guise of a trusted site. For PCs that contain a large amount of personal data, it is beneficial to get proper protection. A single hit from clicking the wrong link can be irreversibly devastating if handled incorrectly.
We’ve reviewed all the major antivirus programs and summarized the recommended programs to protect your gaming PC. None are very expensive, and if you’re trying to save some dollars, there are even some free options.
There are many talented antivirus apps on the market, but the best antivirus apps for games do their job without disrupting performance or overwhelming daily use. What makes Bitdefender so great is that it goes into autopilot mode as soon as it’s installed. Autopilot makes all security-related decisions based on usage patterns, so there is no flood of alerts or notifications. But don’t worry. You still have plenty of control if you want.
One of Bitdefender’s favorites is the ability to scan for active vulnerabilities. It will show up in easy-to-read reports such as old software, missing Windows Updates, and even bad passwords. If you have kids using a PC, they have their own VPN and improved parental controls. Antivirus programs rarely go one step further like Bitdefender.
Like most antivirus programs, Bitdefender’s pricing is based on the number of years of coverage required for 5 or 10 devices.
McAfee has always been well known in the antivirus world. If you purchased your PC in the early 2000s, you may have McAfee antivirus software preloaded. Fast forwarding to this day, McAfee has created a game-specific antivirus. The process is streamlined so you can rest assured that you can continue to play Apex Legends without the performance degradation of security-related pop-up notifications.
McAfee Gamer Security (Opens in a new tab) It knows you’re in the game and will stop anything running in the background during play. This makes the game a priority for system resources, mute notifications, and other obstacles to fun. Great for anyone who wants to know online that they are protected from the usual malicious people, but who don’t want to mess with the settings. McAfee Gamer Security does it all.
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SecureAnywhere has always been, and still is, a remarkable outlier in AV. It uses only a few megabytes of disk space and uses about 5MB of RAM when idle. Task Manager shows SecureAnywhere using about 50MB of RAM and less than 15% CPU utilization during an active scan, but it only takes a few minutes to scan 150GB of data distributed across two SSDs. ..
Webroot has also created a special version of SecureAnywhere for gamers. Unlike the regular version, it provides a system optimizer tool that “analyzes devices and operating systems to detect system problems, erases all traces of online activity and makes deleted files unrecoverable”. .. In reality, it just deleted the temporary files to free up disk space. SecureAnywhere also stays in the background politely, so you don’t have to worry about updates or additional lag when playing the game.
SecureAnywhere is cloud-based, so it works best when you’re connected to the Internet. In the era of ubiquitous broadband, it doesn’t matter to many people, especially gamers. And despite its light weight and short local storage requirements, SecureAnywhere is surprisingly high with adjustable settings. They are well over 100 and you can export your settings to quickly and easily set up on another PC.When it comes to pricing, Webroot is currently $ 19.99 per year for one device (Opens in a new tab) (Ignore the countdown, it’s always its price).
From the levels of customization available, we chose Avira as a free option. It’s up to you to bow down to the software menu and start tweaking the knobs and dials, but if you decide to tweak Avira’s behavior, you’ll find the right tool chest options. One of the settings I highly recommend enabling is to search for rootkits before scanning. Scanning times will be longer, but rootkits are particularly tricky to dig hooks deep into the OS, so it’s a good idea to make a mistake in terms of safety.
Through heuristic analysis, you can also configure how aggressively Avira scans for zero-day threats. By default, it is set to a medium detection level. Raising it to the limit puts Avira in a very cautious state, but at the risk of false positives being reported. Lowering it has the opposite effect. Alternatively, you can turn off heuristic analysis altogether. This is not recommended.
Game mode is not available in the free version of Avira.And but Avira doesn’t cost money (Opens in a new tab), You pay for it through annoying ads. This is where the free version of BitDefender has its advantages. In contrast, it doesn’t use ads or bother users with pop-ups and pauses system scans during the game. This is a simple solution, but the downside is that there aren’t many optional ways and there are only two on / off switches.
Not only do you like Bitdefender, but there are other competent security suites. Kaspersky Internet Security is one of them. In this case, we recommend paying Kaspersky Total Security an additional $ 10. This is more than just fluff, it’s a more specific package with some useful utilities.
Inside the grab bag of additional goods is a file shredder that overwrites the deleted files. Therefore, it is almost impossible to restore them. It has the ability to create encrypted folders to prevent sensitive files from being stolen, password synchronization across multiple devices, PC cleanup tools and more. You can find a free alternative to all of this, but it’s useful to keep them all in one place.
We like Kaspersky because it consistently performs well in identifying and blocking malware and minimizing its impact on system performance. I’m not saying it’s perfect. I remember Kaspersky’s particularly nasty incident of having a potentially unwanted program (PUP) lock the mouse cursor into a box. It took some persistence (and safe mode) to fix the problem. However, in most cases Kaspersky is good at protecting your PC. Even if the problem occurs in rare cases, the problem is relatively minor.
Currently, new Kaspersky customers also save half the price, so they can cover three PCs in a year. (Opens in a new tab) $ 29.99.
- Kaspersky’s entry has been removed from the page due to a new policy in Future, as outlined in the statement below. However, the entry remains on the page and provides software details for those who are interested.“In the future, we have chosen to stop trading with Russian companies for affiliate links. We continue to work to help our readers procure and find the best products and impact. Offers multiple choices in the category you receive. “
What features do you need for the best antivirus for your game?
The best antivirus is more reliable than anything else, but the best antivirus for gaming keeps your gaming PC safe without interrupting your gaming session. You also need to lighten the load on your system, which is not always an easy task.
Is Windows Defender Enough for Games?
In general, running Windows Defender is all you need to solve the problem, but it also requires some common sense. Download the game only from trusted sites and avoid clicking random links. If in doubt, it’s worth spending a little money on an antivirus solution for peace of mind.
Does running an antivirus reduce FPS?
When it comes to the best antivirus, there is no noticeable difference, especially if it’s ticking in the background. However, running a scan can be another issue, so it’s a good idea to run it outside of game time.
What is the best free antivirus?
As long as you back up with common sense and don’t click on random links or dangerous websites, you can take advantage of Microsoft’s built-in virus and threat protection. If you need something a bit more robust, but don’t want to pay privileges, Avira Free Antivirus is a good option.