When I decided to pay for an antivirus software last year, I used this site https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/ as a reference. I paid an annual membership for BitDefender, then decided to remove it within few days because it kept corrupting my download -I did more testing and confirmed this-, so I moved on to Avira.
After using it for few days and downloading a lot, it turned out to be better so I paid again for an annual sub. At the time they offered to install that safe shopping thingy to my chrome and I opted to do so since so it was made by Avira so I am sure it is meant for my protection only! LOL!
Then I noticed when I search for an item the plugin suggests places to purchase it from!!! What?! So I did remove it and continued using the antivirus pro. My membership did auto-renew few days ago, so I thought I will login to Aviras site because I wanted to ask if the antivirus does actually scans the registry for any suspicious entries. However, on the 1st page they gave me my health and security scores, and they were ~10% and ~30% and suggested to install a load of crap-ware -i.e., Software updater, that horrendous safe shopping extension, and their version of a VPN- to improve my score!
Seriously, 10% because I only use the anti-virus pro version. Funny thing is that I do have paid VPN providers -2 in fact-, so now I am not really sure about those guys, seems to me it is not about protection only…
P.S. I did test, and *I believe* paid for malwarebytes, but removed it within hours because it slashed my download speeds by half if I am not mistaken! I contacted them at the time, and they suggested installing a utility to investigate this, but I decided not to do so, I just did not have the time for that…
First of all don’t trust sites like av-test and similar. I also test AV software and get different results. I test malware few hours to 1 week old.
If you want lightweight antivirus with great protection then go for ESET Internet Security (assuming you want to pay).
If you want free protection then Kaspersky free with windows firewall and you can add OSArmor too
That’s the problem with free AVs. They now offer very good protection, even in the free versions, but are pushing the user to buy too many useless and overpriced products.
The popups and nagging are understandable with the free versions, however even when using their premium antivirus, they will try to sell you a VPN, registry cleaner, password manager and such at a high price.
If you’re going to pay for a security software, go with premium products such as Eset, Emsisoft, F-Secure, etc…
Honestly, as long as it provides the protection you need, and it doesn’t annoy you with pop-ups for their other products, who cares what score it gives you, of whatever.
Avira is just tooo slow. I am losing my patience. 5 min to open a pdf that was just downloaded? It became a nightmare to use the phone, the computer seems an useless mashine.
I am willing to pay. I used to have multiple premium eset accounts back between 2005 and 2013 for me and my family. I never complained about them, the issue is that they never scored high on the site I linked earlier…However, you are suggesting not to trust that site. They seems to be legitimate, can I ask you why you don’t like them?
You can’t compare testing and real life when it comes to AVs. I don’t know how they test software but if you google you’ll find similar websites to av-test and they all have different results. As i said before i test AVs myself with new samples so i can speak from experience. McAfee is top product according to av-test but in real life is probaly biggest joke of all product.
They gave bitdefender 6 for performance even though it is buggiest antivirus protection ever and it is very heavy.
I bought ESET internet security for my parents and they have it for years and they have never been infected. Right now ESET internet security use 50MB of ram which is nothing and it doesn’t nag you which is also important.