Is paying for antivirus a waste of money?

I agree John which is why I mentioned Nod32 as an exception along with a few others.

 

I think AV Comparatives is a good indicator of your AV's real world protection. Independent Testing.
I hate False Positives and a lot of AV's suck for this very reason.IMO
I can see some standouts in the crowd there.
Bottom yellow line are False Positives.

 

Some useful information here also: https://www.av-test.org/en/

 

I love Nod32 but have to admit they have some of the highest false positives. I was a bit surprised at Dougie's chart showing Emsisoft rather low in false positives
as I am a reseller but have been critical of false positives with it at times.

 

The thing I don't like about false positives is that the average user will think they are infected when in fact they are not. We can see the difference easily, but they cannot.

 

According to the chart NOD32 has one of the lowest false positive ratings. Emsisoft was higher if you believe the chart.

 

The only computer that is safe is a computer that is unplugged! It's as simple as that! Today, most folks are networking. Protecting your network is just as important as your antivirus application.

"Is paying for antivirus a waste of money" I would say NO. In most cases. It all depends on the user and
how many computers on the network. So, which one is right for you? That's a difficult question with no ready made solution. To draw a conclusion of which antivirus is best for your needs and your family members needs as well.

But If you're looking for a free solution, it's hard to beat Avast free. ( false positive in their data reporting has improved) IMO. Microsoft continuously improves its security tools. Windows Defender is one of them. I keep hearing good things about WD! Having WOT (Web Of Trust) With Avast free or WD is a big helper. There are many antivirus solutions. And all of them have reviews as some of the other top members mention here.

I use by AV-Comparatives. It's a PDF download
Summary-Report December 2015

 

TG someone is paying attention I read the F-Secure in place of Nod32...oops!

 

I put WOT on every pc I touch, of course most of the time I coe back I find it disabled and have to reenable it.
By WD if you mean from Windows 8 forward I have to agree Kenny it has improved because prior to that I never saw it do much
of anything. Avast though for me has too much eye candy between that marvelous British accent and all the multi colored circles I think there is too much system drag there
and the problem also with the free ones is they try so hard to stuff unnecessary and dangerous toolbars up our butts!
That is where I would rather see the paid ones as they don't need the money!

 

Hi Rich. With Avast you need to uncheck the entire centre row (custom install) and then Avast is not a huge drag and behaves quite nicely.
Avast is not British if that's what your thinking.
WD is getting better all the time and originally on my machines it couldn't catch ZIP.
Some free AV's actually perform quite well.
This thread will never have closure as we all swear by the AV we use.

 

Avast free has a option for google toolbar as you opt out. Rich, Avast has Avast Browser Cleanup. Get rid of dangerous and annoying extensions, toolbars, or hijacked searches. They have developed some helpful tools for malware clean up in past 2 or 3 years.
https://www.avast.com/browser-cleanup

 

I agree,Kenny.
The link Amd_ Man gave (AV-TEST .org) which also has a good name in the industry gives an indicator whether your AV is improving, staying static or actually slowly losing the plot. It shows clearly WD is improving.
For those that are not sure where to find this information, if you click on the small right facing arrow at the end of each performance chart you get a lot more information about the AV.

 

Windows Defender was awful after MS purchase it from GIANT AntiSpyware. We told users to disable it!!

 

I have a quick question for the security professionals. Not worth creating a thread.
As part of my maintainance on my computers every month, I run ADW Cleaner religiously after getting the latest version each month.
My question is it good practice or overkill?
Thanks.

 

I think you would be the best one to answer that question. When you run it does it find anything? If so what and how much? I think you can judge from the findings whether to run it or not.

 

AdwCleaner by Xplode can be ran every week or month. This cleaner will not cause any harm to your PC no matter how many times to run it. Yes, it's very good practice. Ås some adware leads to malware and /or other infections. That's one of reason the helper wants to look at the log posted to give him/her on what type of infections was generated in some cases.

 

Funny, no that was not meant to be a slap at the British, I actually love the Avast voice as the accent is perfect!

 

Good to know Kenny, I need to take another look then!

 

Before Windows 8 I always disabled it!

 

I run adwCleaner once a week Dougie and as stated, it won't do any harm. Better to be too safe than not safe enough in my opinion.