what are the pros and cons of antivirus

[ZenKoiDragon]

so... antivirus... any reccommendations on an antivirus? hopefully cheap.. or even free and non intrusive... Norton IS a virus and i feel almost as strongly about mcafee.. What are some alternate avenues? is there an alternative to antivirus software? well.. thats all i wanted to ask really, but the thread Nazi below says im not being descriptive enough and is requiring me to add more detail before allowing me to post this thread....

 

[corroded]

I've used Avast Free for a couple of years... Yes, there have been occasional issues with false positives on various things.

That said. Norton and McAfee are 400lbs Gorillaz on your shoulders. You are safe, but unless you have a kick ass machine, you cannot move.

I've put the Avast Free on every computer I work on, including ALL my own. I've worked with the paid version, you do not gain much of real use.

It requires some tweaking to get it to work most efficiently, but it is Free, just an email address once a year.

 

[mikeynavy1976]

I also use Avast Free. It is a good balance between GUI, resource use, and performance (including solid protection scores). In the past I've tried Avira and Bitdefender (free versions) and while they were alright, I find Avast to be better. I'm curious to see what lab results show for improvements made by Microsoft on the new Windows Defender update in Creator Update.

 

[englandr753]

If you want free, corroded hit the nail on the head with that. I've only had 2nd thoughts about them due to them getting caught slip-streaming patches on their antivirus program that helps them collect data about your shopping habbits for their personal gain. That's been a handful of years ago so maybe they're ok now.

For me, ESET is the best out there. I had 2 customers that picked up viruses on their systems about every 2 weeks or so and that was using AVG free and a paid version of Bitdefender. I installed ESET and problem solved.

You can go to their website and download a free 30 day trial to see how you like it. If you don't then uninstall and put avast free in its place.

You should also download and install malwarebytes free too and run manual updates and scans once a week.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Try Comodo, it's free & you can have just the AV, just the FW, or both combined in a single interface. All free:

https://www.comodo.com/

I've been a loyal user of the combined package for 6 years now, it's all I've needed.
Never been hacked.
Never been infected.
Never had web-browser hijacked.

Some find it too complicated to use as it's got several defence strategies built-in, but I persevered & now it doesn't baffle me at all.

 

[ZenKoiDragon]

thank you guys for the input.. I might try Comodo.. I too have used Avast and had little problem, with one exception... I got a ransomware.. called Cerber... literally encrypted every personal, non-vital file in my system... all the programs ran and worked, but all documents, photos, music and personal file, saved games... etc. encrypted.. with a readme left in every folder that spoke over your system.. told you to visit a website... where they told you to pay for a decryption key.. about 3-400 dollars american ... and after 1 week, if i hadn;t paid... it doubled... i was stubborn and ended up never recovering(or even fully deleting) any of those files.. my stuff was unimportant.. i mean personally yeah, but compared to a business that got infected or even a student or author's body of work... crazy... anyways.. just thought id share.. i appreciate the info

 

[virat8586]

You may checkout this blog for more details.
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/anti-virus-software-pros-cons

 

[Themastererr]

Just use Windows Defender.

 

[Avast-Team]

I also use Avast Free. It is a good balance between GUI, resource use, and performance (including solid protection scores). In the past I've tried Avira and Bitdefender (free versions) and while they were alright, I find Avast to be better. I'm curious to see what lab results show for improvements made by Microsoft on the new Windows Defender update in Creator Update.

Thanks for the shout-out, we appreciate it. One of our main goals with Avast Free is to pair our protection engine with high performance that won't slow down your PC.

Keep in mind that even the free version of Avast is more than "basic" protection -- we've got behavioral AI and machine learning to help protect against malware, ransomware, etc., even if it's never been seen before. (See Behavior Shield and CyberCapture for details on how that works)

Also, AV-Comparatives is a good resource to see real world testing results as you're looking around for options.