Favorite anti-virus software?

[UsandThem]

Thank you.

I have Webroot and I hope that's enough. I also have MS Defender, but I'm no PC expert.

I don't think Webroot rates very well compared to some of the other options, so Microsoft Defender would likely be a better option than that.

Here's a website that tests various antivirus brands over the year, and at the bottom it gives a breakdown of each company's performance over a testing period:

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/real-world-protection-test-july-october-2021/

This one shows which products were the best performers over a whole year:

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/summary-report-2021/

 

[mikeymikec]

Thank you.

I have Webroot and I hope that's enough. I also have MS Defender, but I'm no PC expert.

Windows Defender gets disabled when third party anti-virus is installed.

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In addition to my previous post, here's my experience from yesterday as an example:

A customer got scammed twice in one month. First they received a scam e-mail telling them that McAfee *may* expire on their computer, so they gave a dodgy organisation their payment details and did end up with a legitimate install of McAfee. Second they got a full-screen web pop-up claiming that they were infected and needed to ring x number.

Neither would have been caught by anti-virus software. The first may get caught by security software with anti-spam / anti-phishing but only if the customer uses e-mail software (this customer didn't, just used webmail).

People with a malicious intent are mostly in it for a quick buck these days, this means quick scams.

 

[mindless1]

Second they got a full-screen web pop-up claiming that they were infected and needed to ring x number.

Neither would have been caught by anti-virus software.

Not necessarily, some of the "security suites" do add a browser add-on or IP filter that blocks (their, continually growing) list of malicious sites. However these all-encompassing suites, slow down a computer the maximum amount as well as maximum annoyance, and these malicious sites have to be live for a while to be detected, added to the list, and make the next round of updates.

 

[mikeymikec]

Not necessarily, some of the "security suites" do add a browser add-on or IP filter that blocks (their, continually growing) list of malicious sites. However these all-encompassing suites, slow down a computer the maximum amount as well as maximum annoyance, and these malicious sites have to be live for a while to be detected, added to the list, and make the next round of updates.

The concept of black/whitelisting 'harmful' websites is so obviously bad. There are likely millions of websites, and the very least thousand of small-time scammers all wanting their own 'phone us' page. Furthermore, a page may be considered harmful to visit for less than 24 hours (e.g. a high-profile website with a dodgy advertising banner, or a scam page that is purposefully taken down and moved elsewhere to evade detection). How long will it take for a big-name security product to add/remove a site to their blacklist?

Maybe some security suite might have caught it, maybe not. Clueless end users think this software *will* protect them. "Oh well, I'm not getting a warning from my security software, must be legit!"

IMO if the security suites are going to do anything at all wrt web browsing protection, then they should simply have a spam-type filter on web page content and if certain wording is detected that highly suggests the user is reading a scam, a warning should appear for them to use caution. But then, advising users to be cautious would fly in the face of the typical sales scheme used to sell this software.

 

[mindless1]

^ Attempting to analyze web page content in the client browser would be slower still. Then again there are the googlebots on the job to add to the block list since many browsers do their own malicious site blocking w/o any 3rd party security suite. Note that Ars Technica page linked is a decade old. I'm sure they find a lot more today.