Antivirus Software 2018???

[TPF-Neville]

Hey there, 

 

After using Kaspersky Antivirus software for a number of years because it came free with a bank account. The bank in question said they no longer give this software to its customers as government legislation says they can’t have it any more.  

 

Anyway this has left me with a decision... do I renew at my own cost with Kaspersky ??? Look for a new free or paid antivirus software and which should I go for??? or rely on windows defender or whatever windows build in???

 

Is it essential in 2018??? Since I have many pc’s and laptops through the family what’s the best solution?

 

Any help would be appreciated...

[FunkmastaFlex]

I think Bitdefender would be good to look at.

[RyzenDoctor]

Windows defender is decent if you dont wander into the dark crevices of the web and don't grab illegitimate software

[xriqn]

7 minutes ago, RyzenDoctor said:

Windows defender is decent if you dont wander into the dark crevices of the web and don't grab illegitimate software

I don't even use windows defender, I just use common sense. People who need antivirus just don't have common sense when it comes to checking downloads.

[RyzenDoctor]

Just now, xriqn said:

I don't even use windows defender, I just use common sense. People who need antivirus just don't have common sense when it comes to checking downloads.

Honestly I just didnt bother to turn it off plus with 8 cores and 16 threads im not seeing much of an impact. but I agree common sense is the best antivirus along with regular back ups to an external storage thats not connected to your PC

[xriqn]

Just now, RyzenDoctor said:

Honestly I just didnt bother to turn it off plus with 8 cores and 16 threads im not seeing much of an impact. but I agree common sense is the best antivirus along with regular back ups to an external storage thats not connected to your PC

I'll be honest, I've never even backed anything up manually, always had system restore doing that for me and deleting backups when they get relatively old. 6 cores, 6 threads here currently (fx 6300) and for the short time I used defender I never had performance issues. Upgrading to an R3 1200 + RX 570 soon.

[Astrum]

i just use windows defender and once a month i maybe run free version of malwarebytes . i also dont torrent or download from anywhere i dont  know...

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Microsoft Security Essentials (the Win7 version of Defender) here, zero issues.

[Boomwebsearch]

1 hour ago, TPF-Neville said:

Look for a new free or paid antivirus software and which should I go for??? or rely on windows defender or whatever windows build in???

 

Is it essential in 2018??? Since I have many pc’s and laptops through the family what’s the best solution?

If you are careful on what you click on and what applications you run then relying on windows defender of the built-in protector for viruses should not be an issue with using although for more protection a different solution is recommended. AVG's anti-virus solution is good for a free solution although is not the best protection you can get. One of the best solutions you can get would be Bit-defender. Although others are almost as good, I personally use McAfee which I have an unlimited device plan with them courtesy of my cable internet provider. Although I have purchased a 3 device plan when I did not have that and it has been working very well with no viruses on any of my systems. McAfee has different plans depending on what devices and features you want to have, the paid plans are not that costly actually. What I would not recommend using would be not having any protection because that puts your computer at a significant risk of being infected with bad software which can cause a lot of harm to your system and information on it.

[LogicalDrm]

Kaspersky is probably best in terms of detection/misses/false positives. Others like BitDefender don't top charts as often if you look at sites which do the tests.

 

But if you are asking whether you should pay vs use free, it really depends what features you need. Free versions don't have such control for white/black listing stuff, they might not have option to choose whether there is or isn't active scanning. There might be obnoxious ads and warnings (looking at you, Avast!).

 

I'm fine with using free version. My current is BitDefender which I used as free before last Black Friday when deal was just too good to pass (€25/year/3 devices). The free had some issues with Steam and Firefox being blacklisted temporarily when ever either those software or detection databases updated. Before I had Avast!. In comparison BitDefender was much less distruptive and took far less resources. Besides those I haven't used any major in my personal PCs. On parents PCs have had F-Secure which is fine with detection, but really heavy. (I have had Norton for short period as it came with laptop, but false positives and heavyness cause me to move for Avast!)