Shall we pay for an Antivirus? Free Antivirus Software

Shall we pay for an Antivirus? Free Antivirus Software

The rise in the supply of free antivirus software makes you wonder - is it worth paying for antivirus at all? This question was also asked by the author of the article.

 

Every year, when it comes time to update an antivirus license, millions of users face the same question. To pay or not to pay for the license? The question is not whether to find a stolen key. This is a matter of principle. Free or paid antivirus to use? This is what it is.

 

free Antivirus software security

In this article, we will try to find the answer to it, or rather, I will give arguments in favour of my point of view, and you decide whether I am right or not. Of all the variety of paid products for protecting your PC from malware.

 

Security

 

From my point of view, a free product cannot provide you with the same level of protection as a paid one, because a modern antivirus is a very complex software that tens and hundreds of programmers and virus analysts work on every day. Do you think they can work all their time out of love for art, i.e. is free? I highly doubt it. This means that in this case the quality of the free product will be forced to fall. And it's easy to prove this by looking at the market leader in freeantivirus software, Microsoft. Microsoft's antivirus, Windows Defender, has been at the bottom of the benchmarks for several years now, or simply not participating in them. And although MS programmers do not work out of love for art, the company has enough other services that bring money to maintain and offer users a free antivirus. Rather, MS's problem is that they are not information security experts. There is a lack of expertise and resources that companies that purposefully deal with information security have.

 

Protection against unknown viruses


Currently, the production and use of malicious software have become a criminal industry. The number of emerging malware is already in the hundreds of thousands a day. 

Therefore, it is very important that your defence is able to cope with malware that is not familiar to it. How? In this case, a combination of methods based on proactive defence comes to the rescue. Despite the fact that it is very simple to describe its recipe (if an application behaves like a virus, then most likely it is a virus), it is very, very difficult to create high-quality proactive protection. 


The company's experts specifically write applications that do not perform a malicious function but try to do something "suspicious" bypassing the antivirus. Only a few products can reach the final level of difficulty. All products, mainly distributed free of charge, failed at the first or second level of testing, while Internet Security for all devices successfully reached the eleventh, highest level of complexity. 


If we translate these numbers into one simple sentence, then it will be like this - free antiviruses do not cope well with new unknown threats. And, we recall, there are more than 300 thousand of them per day. then it will be like this - free antiviruses do not cope well with new unknown threats. 


And, we recall, there are more than 300 thousand of them per day. then it will be like this - free antiviruses do not cope well with new unknown threats. And, we recall, there are more than 300 thousand of them per day.

The main argument in favour of free antiviruses is, of course, that they are free.

But are they really free?

Apparently, this is not entirely true. Now the main thing in the work of any antivirus is the team of its developers, virus analysts. These are highly qualified specialists, one of the main reasons for keeping them is high wages. Well, who in our time can, and most importantly, wants to work for free? 


Are you getting paid for your work? I am. Agree to work for free? Me not. Why then do you think that the programmers, the authors of the free antivirus, are working for the idea? Please note that if you are not paying for a product or service, then you are not a customer, but a product!

  

To be fair, it should be noted that those companies that offer free software for home users also offer paid corporate products, which, in fact, make money on. And the free versions are both PR and free testers around the world.

 

So let's think, where do you pay?

 In general, there are not so many options.

1. Payment through the use of third-party services, in particular advertising.

 

2. You are used as a beta tester to test new technologies that will then be used in the paid version.

 

Advertising in free antivirus software

Currently, all large firms that create free antivirus software actively advertise certain products or services to users, and most importantly, they provide so-called “personal data” (not personal, this is another term) to ad sellers. In fact, all major antivirus vendors install by default either the browser toolbar, or their own search page, or something similar.

At the same time, according to the advertisement, the toolbar conducts a safe search, i.e. Checks links in search results, preventing clicking on dangerous ones. But what is the antivirus advertisement silent about? 


That all user preferences and movements are logged and shown sponsored ads or sponsored search results. Moreover, in order for the user to see ads more often, the browser home page can be forcibly changed.

 

Of course, you can refuse all this at the installation stage, just find the button "Disable toolbar installation". But usually, users install antivirus with standard settings.

Removing an adware add-on to your browser is not easy. As a rule, the antivirus actively protects the panel from uninstallation.

  

At the very least, you will be frightened by the fact that you are no longer protected and now all the worst will begin. As a maximum, you will see a diagnostic message that the malware tried to change the system settings and was blocked.

  

However, it should be admitted that free cheese is very attractive to users.

 

Of course, you can compare the functionality of paid and free products. But, in my opinion, it is worth remembering that most free antivirus products are updated once a day. Is it a lot or a little? If about 300 thousand new malware appears per day, count yourself. And even if all of them are detected by your free antivirus, the malware will have at least a day to work. And no one will find him at this time. Fun, isn't it?

  

In addition, it should be noted that now free antiviruses are, in fact, only antiviruses, which as a class are already of little use, since Internet Security products are entering the market. In general, this is something like a publicity stunt - here's a free sample for you, if you want it to be really safe - pay.

  

And last but not least. What should a person do if the protection did not work? Where to run? In the case of a paid antivirus, there is technical support, and in the case of a free one, it is left to itself. The choice, of course, is yours, dear readers. But I made my choice. Miser pays twice.

 

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