Do you use : No Antivirus , FREE Antivirus , or PAID Antivirus and why?

[spooky2th]

PCMag Antivirus - Reviews and Price Comparisons

Jan. 2015

http://www.pcmag.com/reviews/antivirus

There's a few that I have never heard of here.

 

[Skylyne]

Ewww.... PC Mag. I mean, i take their reviews with a grain of salt. I'll actually reference them for certain software reviews. Would I ever take their reviews too seriously? Not a chance. I'll look there, then follow up with a few other places to see what checks out. The only real issue I have is that not too many places really release their actual testing procedure, so it's difficult to duplicate them, or see what "issues" arose.

 

[Skylyne]

I use free one. It's Qihoo 360. I think it works fine. At least it is fine up till now. Maybe I've kept a good habit on using computer but it does help me with potential threats especially from removable device.

I've tested Qihoo, and I'm not entirely sure about it. Have you had anything get flagged ye, as far as removable media, key loggers, or webcam hijacking? Definitely would like to know if it's actually caught anything for someone...

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Qihoo NEVER TESTED IT , Skylyne how did it perform for you?

 

[Skylyne]

Since my samples were limited at the time I tested it, I wasn't able to do any thorough testing. As I've said a number of times before on here, and in other threads... Qihoo only managed to flag a .txt EICAR testing virus when it was manually scanned. I believe I even was able to open it up, look at the contents, save changes, and so on, all without anything ever throwing a red flag. The only way I remember it actually throwing up a flag was by manually scanning the file, and only then would it show as a virus to Qihoo.

In my books, that's pretty crap, as that type of virus has been around for a long time. Am I worried about .txt viruses these days? Not really... but there's also no excuse for not actively protecting against their existence in the first place. If memory serves me, every AV I've used (outside of Qihoo) has found the .txt EICAR test file as a virus without any help. It's pretty sad, in my opinion. Does it actually do very much to protect you with other measures? Not entirely sure. I didn't have any keyloggers, webcam hijackers, and all that extra stuff to test it out with, but I'm sceptical of all the claims it makes; especially when it fails a basic EICAR test.

It caught all the other test files I threw at it, though.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Thank you for the insight on Qihoo , I'll have to check it out for myself in the near future.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Currently running no virus protection. Works great! I do mostly gaming and on this machine once in a while a webpage or two.

 

[spooky2th]

Microsoft Flunks Antivirus Tests. Who Aced Them?
By Paul Wagenseil
January 22, 2015

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/avtest-win7-ratings,news-20343.html#xtor=EPR-8886

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Microsoft never passes.

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

You are joking right? Excuse me while i go laugh. I'd run almost any free antivirus before I'd trust my computer to McAfee. I've seen so many machines with mcafee that were messed up or infected. Just my personal opinion.

 

[Skylyne]

I use McAfee antivirus because it is more secure than others.

Pardon me while I take a minute to catch my breath... I'm still laughing too hard to really think of a comeback.........

Okay, I'm somewhat fine now. Let me just say that McAfee is crap. While it does perform better at basic testing than MSE, it's still a terrible AV solution. If someone is using McAfee, I'd tell them to just go with Avast... and I would never recommend Avast. Avast actually performs better; even though it has a lot of false flag problems, it still does a much better job than McAfee could dream of.

The only reason I support McAfee (as a brand) is because John McAfee is actually dedicated to user anonymity and security. While the AV software isn't too great, there are other things that they are working on... like D-Central. While it may still be a product that is not yet ready for release, or may even be a discontinued project (since there's been little press about it since 2013, and I believe nobody has actually published a solid release date), I still like that ambitiousness. I haven't seen many other companies openly avoid NSA snooping, or even attempt such security for their users, so that's a big bonus in my books.

Even still, it doesn't make their AV remotely worthwhile.

 

[zthomas]

I use McAfee antivirus because it is more secure than others.

Pardon me while I take a minute to catch my breath... I'm still laughing too hard to really think of a comeback.........

Okay, I'm somewhat fine now. Let me just say that McAfee is crap. While it does perform better at basic testing than MSE, it's still a terrible AV solution. If someone is using McAfee, I'd tell them to just go with Avast... and I would never recommend Avast. Avast actually performs better; even though it has a lot of false flag problems, it still does a much better job than McAfee could dream of.

The only reason I support McAfee (as a brand) is because John McAfee is actually dedicated to user anonymity and security. While the AV software isn't too great, there are other things that they are working on... like D-Central. While it may still be a product that is not yet ready for release, or may even be a discontinued project (since there's been little press about it since 2013, and I believe nobody has actually published a solid release date), I still like that ambitiousness. I haven't seen many other companies openly avoid NSA snooping, or even attempt such security for their users, so that's a big bonus in my books.

Even still, it doesn't make their AV remotely worthwhile.

This tread is getting kinda stale.. as I said long time ago.. I am a Norton Subscriber.. and pay my yearly dues.. I for one is a happy camper. Four years and NO hiccups .. as the Norton program runs silently in the background.. Sure do what ever, and run the free stuff.. or subscribe to one.. just depends how you want to protect your investment.. your choice.

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Agreed. My personal opinion is for home use, why pay for av when the free ones are about as good as long as you use common sense.

 

[Ubrales]

'Common sense' is not so common!

 

[Skylyne]

This tread is getting kinda stale.. as I said long time ago.. I am a Norton Subscriber.. and pay my yearly dues.. I for one is a happy camper. Four years and NO hiccups .. as the Norton program runs silently in the background.. Sure do what ever, and run the free stuff.. or subscribe to one.. just depends how you want to protect your investment.. your choice.

Hey, I was just pointing out the error in judgement, based on actual facts and not opinion. And yes, everyone will have their personal choice... but there is a BIG difference between being protected and thinking you're protected.

Most of the people in this thread think they are properly protected, and make recommendations off of very poor speculations. I just wish people actually gave enough of a damn to stop recommending security software when they genuinely have no idea how well the one they recommend protects a computer. I have a rule of thumb that is easy for beginners to follow, and yet no one ever adheres to it: If you don't have facts to back up a claim about your security software, DO NOT RECOMMEND IT. Sure, you can say that you like it, and that it has worked well for you... but saying that, and then telling people that it works because "it found/prevented X amount of viruses," is the most naive thing a person can do. It's like saying a mechanic is being trustworthy, because he always knows what your car needs fixing, and you happily pay for every repair he claims. Why is security software more trustworthy than the auto mechanic? It isn't, yet it has this huge illusion... probably because people are still in serious denial about computer security in general.

Agreed. My personal opinion is for home use, why pay for av when the free ones are about as good as long as you use common sense.

The only problem with that is very simple: there really is no such thing as "common sense." Common sense usually seems to stand for "This is something I can easily understand, and most people I know understand this, so you should too." It's more of a cop out than anything, especially with computers lol. Not to mention, unless you keep up with all the security news going on, you won't have a clue what to watch out for... Shouldn't that be common sense? Well, it isn't.

 

[leigh76]

Malwarebytes & AVG, because they are free, and fully functional and work just as well as anything else.

 

[Guest]

for what it is worth i really don't think it matters what a pc user uses as i have removed virus after virus from computers that have used free or paid antivirus. the best antivirus is what has already been said that safe web habits and smart web surfing habits is the best antivirus that there is. that requires common sense and there is alot of people using computers that are at a loss for that and i have never been able to find a download for common sense.

this is just my own opinion that is based on my own working on other peoples computers and i am also not an it professional.

poorguy

 

[PhatLloyd]

I use Windows Defender but I recently noticed that I'm gettting a lot of false positives. I know this because I scan with 2 other antivirus (AVG and Bitdefender) Windows Defender is up to date but this is still happening.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Windows Defender has failed certification for the past few years.

 

[Ubrales]

Windows Defender has failed certification for the past few years.

Why can't Microsoft solve this issue? They are almost a monopoly; definitely an oligopoly!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I agree it doesn't make sense.

 

[FALC0N]

Makes perfect sense. The Microsoft AV products are not meant to compete with commercial AV products. They are there to provide herd immunity. If you want a quality AV, then get a quality AV.

 

[lightcloud]

I reckon Avira is one of the better ones after tests according to AV-Test and Malwarebytes are great for those malwares. Both go hand in hand for free antivirus softwares.

 

[Guest]

I use Paid antivirus because I don't want any weird gimmiks.

Some Antivirus programs just fake success so people pay then money for it.

I have Avira and I'm happy with it.
Tested it already and it works well

 

[PhatLloyd]

I scraped Windows Defender and am now using AVG. Seems it picked up a few "threats" that Defender hasn't found. It also doesn't warn me about false positves that Defender gave me.