have an question.. Can antivirus software protect you? or is it worth for a full-fledged A/V app? we look at the benefits and pitfalls of free and paid antivirus product.
depending on whom you ask, pays for anti-virus software is either a good investment or a total ripoff. In fact, neither view correct. You can find many good reasons to choose paid an antivirus product, and many good reasons to go with a freebie.
We did tests with security firm AV-Test to find out what you get - or do not get - with free anti-virus, and if it makes sense to pay an annual program.
Antivirus deconstructed
Four basic levels of anti-virus products are: free, paid anti-virus suites and "Premium" suites. As you move up the ladder of free antivirus premium suites, they normally other functions such as protection from identity theft, firewall, parental control and system performance tools.
Free anti-virus software usually provides a minimum level of protection. It will scan for malware and often can perform automatic scans, too. Some free apps, additional security tools such as a browser add-on that checks for bad links - and Comodo Internet Security is free Premium has a firewall. But such features are usually limited to paid antivirus products. Some free apps offer behavioral malware detection, the malware found on the basis of how it looks on your PC - a good way to detect brand-new malware outbreaks. (Behavioral detection is standard with paid products.)
Paid Antivirus spans a balance between the essential freebies and feature-packed security suites: they usually offer comprehensive security tools (such as parental control and protection against identity theft) and more flexibility than a free anti-virus package, but they are fewer additional features than suites, designed to only one-stop security shops will have.
One of the biggest drawbacks is a free product is the lack of technical support. While most companies offer some sort of phone support for paying customers, free antivirus user must leave the rule itself. Avast not E-mail Support offer its customers free, most others only offer a Knowledge base or forum may go to the user for help.
Another disadvantage is that free anti-virus products often have some sort of paid advertising for the company product. Avast Free Antivirus has an upgrade link in the upper right corner of the main window, and Avira AntiVir Personal ad paid anti-virus software from Avira view.
How about malware signature updates? The security software company, I said to tell me that their free and paid products be treated equally as far as signature updates are concerned, although there are some under the hood of the difference between their free and fee-based products (such as may be the case with Panda Software, for example). And a company that Avast says that the free product is intended for average users, and that his paid antivirus is for advanced users.
On the other hand, want free products to give you some flexibility. You can add a free tool, the basic security with many security utilities. For example, start with Avast Free Anti Virus, add PCTools's ThreatFire Free (what a good job making at strengthening malware detection), throw in one of the many available firewalls, and a link-scanning utility to create your own security setup . This approach requires that you do your homework, however, and can be more complicated in the long run.
InterfaceUser interfaces are usually as good (or bad) in free products, as they paid their counterparts. Avira and Avast, for example, the same basic interface for your free and paid versions, they are simply omitted, or certain features and switches as needed. Panda Antivirus (a freebie) is not a stripped down version of the paid Panda Antivirus Pro, but a completely different product with a different surface and different internals.
DetectionMost of the free products that we to identical or nearly identical values malware detection, the set made by the same company paid varieties tested. But we have some subtle differences. A notable example is Panda Antivirus: The free Cloud Antivirus and Panda made for-pay antivirus Pro 2011 approximately equal to the signature-based malware detection tests, but Anti Virus Pro does a better job in the "real world" malware detection tests that help determine how well a product to block all new threats.
(Note:. Panda recently released version 1.3 of Panda Antivirus The company says that Version 1.3 should be apparent increase in new malware, but the new version in time come for us to test our Roundup Look here for future updates. .)We found that, on the whole, paid anti-virus products have a slightly better job of detecting malware than their counterparts freebie. In the traditional signature-based tests for the detection, paid antivirus software that we tested 96.2 percent of the malware samples found in total. In comparison, free products' scores were ever-so-slightly worse, detecting 95.7 percent of the samples.
In the real world detection tests, missed free products 15.2 percent of the sample, while 10.2 percent of the paid products missed samples. When it is time to remove malware infections, again the results were close, but paid antivirus software instead of a slight advantage.
All the products we tested - both paid and free - saw all the test infections threw us the way, but paid products have a slightly better job for the total added to the elimination of the active components of an infection, in 74 percent success rate average. The same is true when we tested how well the products of all active and inactive components from an infection: Paid product removal rate reached 44 percent in this test, while free products, on average, a complete removal of 34 percent
SpeedAlthough you lose some effectiveness against malware with free anti-virus, you gain a little speed. The free products we have seen, on average, faster than the fee-based products in 9 of the 12 speed tests we are considering. Again, the difference was small - the largest speed difference was about 10 percent. Both free and paid anti-virus increases boot times: a test PC with antivirus software not boot in 40.1 seconds on average. is installed with the free anti-virus program, the test system began at 44.1 seconds, on average, and installed with paid anti-virus program, start times increased to 46 seconds. It is hard to grasp the exact reason for this difference, but here is the difference small enough that it is in fact not statistically significant.
The scan speed, however, are a mixed bag. In our on-demand scan tests, edged paid anti-virus programs for the freebies, scanning 4.5 GB worth of files in an average of 2 minutes, 25 seconds. Free products, by comparison ends the same test in an average of 2 minutes, 44 seconds.
Free and fee-based products were almost neck and neck in the on-access scanning tests how fast the software files for malware when opened or saved on the hard disk scan shows. With the same 4.5 GB of files free products on-access scan test completed in an average time of 4 minutes, 50 seconds. Colleagues paid their completion of the test 8 seconds later.
Top PicksConsidering how close are the two classes of products in terms speed and efficiency are the two most important factors features and support. With few exceptions, you get better customer service and more comprehensive security with a paid product, but if you are willing to do without this, it's definitely worth going free.
What free and fee-based antivirus products are best for you?
Avast Free Anti-Virus tops comes under free products because of its strong all round malware detection scores, bring good design and small system. Avira AntiVir Personal takes second place: It's put up solid malware detection scores, but the surface kludgy.
Norton Anti Virus leads the paid software package for its excellent malware detection, very good interface design and comprehensive features (help, new malware is faster), the file reputation analysis, a cloud-based scanners, and performance of the system includes analysis tools. BitDefender Antivirus Pro 2011 is a close second thanks to the powerful malware detection, but avoided slow scan speeds, and some interface problems it out first.
Check out our list of the top five free and paid five anti-virus products. Our conclusion evaluations of the two best free and paid anti-virus programs are below.
Top Free Anti Virus: AvastAvast Free Anti Virus couples good all-malware detection with a fast, well-designed packaging. We liked the easy installation, smooth interface design, and minimal impact on system performance.
In the traditional signature-based malware tests demonstrated Avast Free Anti Virus 94.8 percent of the samples which is neither good nor bad. It did decently, though not outstanding, job of detecting malware in the real world malware detection tests: it completely blocked 76 percent of the attacks (which is pretty average), and partially blocked 4 percent of the attacks.
But on the plus side, Avast Anti Virus Free incorrectly to a single "safe" file as malware, the only free product we saw that this has been achieved. Avast Free Anti-Virus also has a good job at disinfection a PC, it will remove all active components of malware infections 80 percent of the time that the pace of free products we looked at the set.
The scanning speed is also very good. His on-demand scanning speed of 90 seconds was a close second Avira AntiVir Personal, completed the test in 87 seconds. Free and Avast Anti Virus completed the on-access scanning speed tests in 3 minutes, 40 seconds, tops among the products we tested.
Top Paid Antivirus: Norton AntiVirus 2011Norton Antivirus 2011 ($ 40 for one year, single-PC license from 26/10/2010) leads the pack of 2011 paid antivirus products. It makes a very good job in detecting and removing malware and has a smooth surface, although its speed is decidedly average.
Installation of Norton AntiVirus 2011 is a snap: The well-designed installation program requires only that you click through two screens before the installation begins. Norton Anti Virus has a smooth, polished surface: the main screen showing on-off switches for its various protection functions, and a map of the world's Internet crime activity in the past 24 hours.
When it came to the malware detection and removal, Norton Anti Virus laid out a strong all-around scores. Norton AntiVirus 98.7 percent of malware samples using traditional signature-based malware detection. This is an above average score, but it trails Panda Antivirus Pro 2011, which found 99.8 percent of the samples.
Norton also put up high scores in the blocking of the real world malware attacks: Norton completely blocked 24 of the 25 samples we threw at him, but it did miss a specimen. Norton also identified all active infections in our tests, it removes the active components of infection 80 percent of the time, and was able to completely remove infection 60 percent of the time - both above-average grades.
Norton put up good marks in test our speed, but not great results. He completed an on-access scanning of 4.5 GB of files in 4 minutes, 32 seconds. Thus it is above the average of 4 minutes, 59 seconds, but still behind the top-performance product that completed this test in 3 minutes, 35 seconds. His on-demand scanning speed of 2 minutes, one second on average, but again, it trails the best-performing program by a good 30 seconds.
Posts
