Free or paid for antivirus protection?

whattochoose

I presently have Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 which I pay for. However, it shortly expires, and, having read good things about Avast Free Antivirus 2014, I am thinking about installing that, saving myself some money.
However, can something that is free ever be as good as something that incurs a charge, where antivirus protection is concerned?
Also, I'm presuming the level of protection one requires is going to be influenced by how they use their computer. In my case I'm a fairly simple user, don't play games, never download torrents, if I'm opening a website I feel might be suspect, I tend to open it in Sandboxie; also scan with Malwarebytes once a week to provide added reassurance that everything is OK on my computer.
Please can members advise whether they think free antivirus protection can be recommended, or do you think it's generally more sensible to go for the paid option?
Thank you.

wealdroam

Start by reading MSE's guide on the subject:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/free-anti-virus-software

Tiglath

I use AVG in conjunction with Malwarebytes and have never had an issue.

aerostar

Millions of users around the world are satisfied. Quite happy to use the free ones, currently using Avast.

No anti-virus, paid or otherwise are 100% .

Your own surfing habits contribute to how good they are - be a silly !!! and you can defeat any protection you have.

Make sure you uninstall your old one before installing the new one to avoid any conflicts.

whattochoose

aerostar wrote: »

Millions of users around the world are satisfied. Quite happy to use the free ones, currently using Avast.

No anti-virus, paid or otherwise are 100% .

Your own surfing habits contribute to how good they are - be a silly !!! and you can defeat any protection you have.

Make sure you uninstall your old one before installing the new one to avoid any conflicts.

Is this a silly question? - Could I get away with disabling it instead of uninstalling it,while I install a free one like Avast or AVG, and see whether or not I like it(them).
If I'm not happy with a free one, I'm thinking I could perhaps then uninstall that, and then reinstate my old one? Alternatively, if I'm happy with the new free one, I could then uninstall the old paid for one.
Thank you.

nickj_2

if you bank with barclays ,they do kaspersky free with online banking

RumRat

whattochoose wrote: »

Is this a silly question? - Could I get away with disabling it instead of uninstalling it,while I install a free one like Avast or AVG, and see whether or not I like it(them).
If I'm not happy with a free one, I'm thinking I could perhaps then uninstall that, and then reinstate my old one? Alternatively, if I'm happy with the new free one, I could then uninstall the old paid for one.
Thank you.

Not tried it with Kapersky, but, I've done it with others. I don't see why you should have a problem.

esuhl

As I understand it, most of the antiviruses that have both free and paid-for versions have the same core antivirus protection. It's just that the paid-for versions usually have a number of other security "features".

Some free antiviruses require the user to manually update the program, whereas the paid-for version updates automatically.

In my experience, coupling a free antivirus with other free security tools (Spybot, MalwareBytes, SpywareBlaster, Comodo Free Firewall, Secunia PSI, etc.) provides a better level of protection than just using an all-in-one paid-for solution.

I use Avast (free) on my Windows PCs, which is pretty good and updates automatically. I wouldn't want the paid-for version -- it's bloated with features I don't really want or need, and I already have other security software to supplement my antivirus.

jacobmarsh89

Paid versions provide some additional features but the free ones offers the basic security. So, both are good. Some of the best antivirus software that I strongly recommend are:

AVG
Immunet
Avira

Knarf44

Based on the independent testing done at https://www.av-test.org of the Free programs, Avira is currently giving the best all round protection closely followed by Panda Cloud and AVG then Avast.

I would actually suggest either Panda Cloud or the free version of Bitdefender. The latter uses the same virus engine as it's paid for big brother version which regularly tops the AV Test results along with Kaspersky. The advantage of the free version is being cloud based it's lighter on resources.

closed

The results of those tests are heavily skewed