ESET Antivirus

[JoyceManor]

Is this product even worth having on my computer? My school offers it for free for 1 year, should I download it or is it just a waste of storage space? 

[NinJake]

Is it a Windows machine? Stick to updating your machine regularly and use Windows Defender.

[Shimejii]

Anti Virus is pretty much useless now adays. Windows defender does pretty much what you need it to do. Being smart with where you go and not clicking stuff prevents the vast majority of potential. 

[Marko_98]

Honestly, if it's free, I'd give it a go. Windows Defender is good antivirus software, but it heavily affects performance. ESET might be better in that field and also offer excellent protection.

 

If you'll install ESET, just make sure Windows Defender is disabled, as well as periodic scanning. If you have Defender and ESET active at the same time, you could have some issues.

[Quackers101]

anti virus is NOT useless, but yes a lot of the marketing for anti virus is a bit of a scam.

Paying a lot more than one should or could get for free. Windows defender only gets you so far, not better if the anti virus does a worse job and when windows defender got a little bit better and if you enable the secure files/ransomware protection. Then you also got that about firewalls, routers etc, etc.

 

You can find some anti-virus tools that can be pretty nice to have, just dont download something wrong... and it being a virus in and of itself.

Also some depends on what you want to do too, the more you are a target like working in a business, then "stronger security" is approved!

Edited May 4, 2023 by Quackers101

[Marko_98]

The only plus of Windows Defender is that it can't cause problems because it's developed by Microsoft. But then, honestly, I'd also expect it to work without slowing down the system. 3rd party antiviruses can cause problems (they mostly don't), but they are better perfomance-wise.

 

I'm long time user of Windows Defender and am considering either turning it off and switching to another, less invasive antivirus.