Anti virus Free vs Paid subscriptions

[Rwy in Sight]

I bought a lenovo laptop that come with a month free susbcription to the McAfee antivirus program. I generally use the free version of the Avast but there is an offer from Mc Afee for 25 € for a year subscription.

Is it worth buying or should I remove the McAfee and get the free Avast?

Also does anyone know what happens if I let the expiration day passes without renewing?

Rwy in Sight

[mixture]

Rwy in Sight,

Paid ahead of free any day of the week.

Simple reason being you are paying for their teams, both in terms of software development and rolling out virus definitions pronto. It takes money and good teams to do anti-virus properly .... good analysts don't work for free when the basic starting salary is easily £50k/$70k per annum upwards depending on experience ! (plus generous benefits)

If you think about it, with paid stuff, as well as the software developer's own teams, you're also getting the benefit of viruses being identified early by corporate and government customers !

The latest AV comparatives confirm it, with Avast averaging 96.6% detection, which doesn't sound bad ... but bear in mind that puts them in 12th place well behind the commercial guys such as Kaspersky who average 99.4% detection, or current leader Trend Micro at 99.8%. And with anti-virus, well... I'm sure you'll agree, the closer to 100% the better, because one missed one can do a lot of damage !

Avast also scored lousily in false-positives ... 120 false positives vs 6 false positives at Kaspersky or 7 false positives at Fsecure.

BUT .... steer clear of McAfee.

FSecure is great, it uses multiple scanning engines and they've got a great team behind them. Quality product.

Kaspersky is also great, super fast on getting out new virus definitions, one of the fastest in the industry .... but depends on your personal geo-political preferences in terms of dealing with a Russian company.

[ExSp33db1rd]

........ that puts them in 12th place

Can I see the table ?

I use ESET Nod 32 on one machine, and did use Trend Micro on my laptop until it died and the replacement came with Norton, which My Man Wot Does said was the best, as do New Zealand Consumer Reports.

Ask two people ................. etc.

[mixture]

My Man Wot Does said was the best, as do New Zealand Consumer Reports.


What I suggest comes from a source that knows a bit more about AV testing than "man what does" and "NZ consumer reports". They've won multiple awards for the quality of their testing too their website is here (http://www.av-comparatives.org/)

The 12th place to which I refer is their "Real-World Protection Tests".

You will not find Symantec/Norton featured there, because they apparently tried to be arrogant and pick and choose which tests they would permit AV Comparatives to run on their products, rather than allow the whole suite.

ESET came in at 7th place with 98.6% detection.

[Loose rivets]

Barclays give Kaspersky to some of their customers. I suppose you need a few bob in the bank, but I'm not even in the 'comfortable' league anymore. Wife and I get three seats each.

Two things: If Russia was planning to take over the world, one's entire computer could already have been sucked into their cyber vaults. Paranoid, moi?

The other is the tendency to suddenly get a full sceen Secure Tab/browser (not sure what happens) when dealing with some transactions. Okay, seems sensible, but then absolutely b$%^er all happens. To the point I have to disable Kasper and start again. Main problematic issue? Dealing with Barclays Visa and their little security code generator etc. :ugh:

[mixture]

The other is the tendency to suddenly get a full sceen Secure Tab/browser (not sure what happens) when dealing with some transactions. Okay, seems sensible, but then absolutely b$%^er all happens. To the point I have to disable Kasper and start again. Main problematic issue? Dealing with Barclays Visa and their little security code generator etc.

Sounds like you need to talk to your Barclays Digital Eagle who is also trained to train old fogeys how to use Skype... :}

[gemma10]

Any idea where AVG comes in the list? Thats the A/V I use.

[mixture]

Any idea where AVG comes in the list? Thats the A/V I use.

11th Place at 97.5% detection

[Warmtoast]

Barclays give Kaspersky to some of their customers
Free if you use Barclays Internet Banking.

[sharksandwich]

I have used Microsoft Security Essentials (free) in our three Win 7 machines for the last 5 years or so with no problems.
If a pup is downloaded by mistake(very rare), I use (free) Malwarebytes to zap it.
Internet banking is protected by Trusteer Rapport (also free, it seems like a pattern with me).

[Blues&twos]

Originally used Norton (a few years ago now), but had infrequent but irritating issues with it crashing and having to re-install. Also seemed a bit resource hungry, so I swapped to Kaspersky, with which I have been entirely happy. Easy and relatively quick installation and it has picked up and dealt with a few nasties over the years. I also like the user interface


Previously had Trusteer Rapport, but heard lots of bad reports (although I didn't notice any problems) so didn't install it on my new machine. Kaspersky offers me an on-screen keyboard and "Safe Money"...I think it's called.


Have heard almost universally less complimentary reports about McAfee, but haven't used it myself.

[ian16th]

Warmtoast

Quote:
Barclays give Kaspersky to some of their customers
Free if you use Barclays Internet Banking. How do you get it?

[Warmtoast]

ian16th

How do you get it?Here's what Barclays say: "As a Barclays Online Banking customer you are entitled to free Internet Security from Kaspersky Lab - For Your PC, Mac or Mobile"
...so:
If you're in the UK setup your account for online banking. Once setup log-in to your account and choose Products/Support Tools/Kaspersky Online Security and then choose from the following offers:

1. Kaspersky Total Security - Multi-Device - £9.99 for 5 Devices for 1 year*
2. Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 - Free for 3 PC's for 1 Year
3. Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac - Free 1 MAC for 1 Year
4. Kaspersky Internet Security - Multi-Device 2015 for Android - Free 1 Device for 1 Year

* Barclays say about this offer: "In addition we would like to offer Barclays customers access to our Ultimate Security Solution - Kaspersky Total Security - Multi-Device for only £9.99 per year. That is a huge £60 saving!"

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/Kapresky%20Protection%20-%20as%20at%20Feb%202015_zps1aqutqm4.jpg


I hope this helps.

[GHEVY]

Some positive feedback on Avast. Have been using it for the past 3 years and very pleased with it. Using it on all 3 laptops in our family. Once in a while I use Malware Bytes to run a scan as well, just to ensure no spyware - malware has sneaked past.

[Rwy in Sight]

A short update:

McAfee still runs. I am not sure I would invest in a paid software yet given the apparent extension I have.

Mixture why do you say "stay away from McAfee"? Also I am fairly ok with the false positive ids. I am more concerned about the false negative.

AVAST seems a good choice if from previous experience.

Thanks for the efforts you all put in this thread.

Rwy in Sight

[mixture]

Mixture why do you say "stay away from McAfee"?

To be honest I can't remember where I first got that idea from.... :eek:

What I do know:
- They don't rank particularly highly in comparatives these days
- They've never ranked particularly highly in comparatives historically
- They demonstrated poor QA back in 2010 when they killed Windows XP by removing a critical system file they falsely identified as a virus

And if Wikipedia is to be believed....
In 2012, when asked if he personally uses McAfee anti-virus he replied by saying "I take it off," and that "It's too annoying."

"he" being Mr McAfee, the original founder (although he resigned only a few years after forming the company).

[Loose rivets]

A strange man. Still remarkably articulate given the image of him staring wild-eyed looking out of the thing he was hoping to escape in.


Talking of a disc strip (to get back to W7 clean) One thing I'll be glad to be truly free from is Kaspersky. I put it to Barclays today, that I was horrified just how it has become so utterly entwined with my system. Even when 'Paused' it will be active in other functions. (I pause it to make transactions since it's so intrusive it bulks most bank work. How daft is that?)

It occurs to me that in a time of international upheaval one man could order the collapse of millions of computers and financial dealings.

Stuff of James Bond? I'll believe anything when my 'Protected' Barclays page still suddenly appearers in a totally unrelated process. Still being after the update to match W10. What's more, it requires the closure of the browser to put it away again - no matter what other sites you might be involved with.

If so many people are satisfied with it, I must be doing something wrong. Four seats and new installs, still the same. What I wonder, could it be. :uhoh:

[str12]

A lot of the big corporates use Symantec.
Avast have decided to sell your personal data for profit.
I use MS Security Essential on home PCs with no problem for years.

[FlightDetent]

A lot of the big companies use Microsoft. For those running W10 on a home unit, there is little benefit at all against using the integrated solution.

Unless you require some specific feature, the chances are high you'll just become a part of revenue stream. Why pay for something what you already did in the OS?

Find a way to back-up regularly, and do not install things you do not understand . That does the trick succesfully enough.

[Loose rivets]

I think I might have mentioned this in passing, but I've spent a LOT of hours with Barclays and Kaspersky in the last few days.

Kasper, finally, were great. Exe file with a pre-release version that was written to cope with Firefoxe's erm, not add-ons, something I've written on one of the hundred pieces of crib sheets lying on my desk - along with the piece with the time written on it.

Sorry, Spike. :\

My battles was fought with Barclays, who finally sent me a letter from the . . . roll of drums . . . "Decision maker." How cool is that. A sub heading on that page is, Our Decision. Our? Wait, I've got a letter from the Decision maker, who are the other people in, 'Our'?

Now, here's where Flying Lawyer would have stood back and gasped in admiration. Well, perhaps not, but I think he might have grunted in approval. Without missing a beat, I put forward an assertive argument why Barclays, who give the program out, should be more proactive in working with their customers to resolve what are significant issues. I had been told, verbally and in a TXT message, that there was no problem with Kasper and I should resolve my issues with the software company.

Put it this way, today, I was told that in addition to the £25 that I was paid the other day, I was about to receive another £25 for . . . well, words to the effect, of effort put in, and inconvenience I'd suffered during this logged series of communications. I'll drink to that - with a better wine than I normally buy.

In simple terms: if a bank gives AV software to customers to guard their accounts, they should not pass the buck when it simply does not work with a leading browser. The failure to work was in a clear statement to me from Kaspersky.

It seems that FF's sudden change of programming technique, caught them off guard. A frank . . . not admission, because as they explained it, no one could have seen this coming.

I'm not quite sure I understand why FF didn't fully communicate with a world-leader AV company. I hope I'm not heading back to con-trail theory.