antivirus

In the past year, estranged antivirus kingpin John McAfee has been accused of being many things -- madman, drug addict, and murderer, just to name a few -- but as the video below proves, you certainly can't accuse him of taking himself too seriously.

In the very NSFW four-minute clip, McAfee slams the software he created (but has had not contact with for more than a decade, as he points out) for its tendency to update itself at the most inconvenient times and ultimately offers an, uh, unorthodox method for uninstalling it.… Read more

On Tuesday, Qihoo launched two major security products: 360 Internet Security and 360 Mobile Security.

360 Internet Security (32-bit / 64-bit) is a light weight security program that provides real time scanning, automatic updates, and some basic tools to protect your PC from viruses, malware, and other potentially unwanted or suspicious applications.

360 Mobile Security is the younger Android cousin, designed to provide malware protection for your mobile device and comes with a slew of useful system management tools to give you control over what apps have access to your sensitive data. Grab them both over on Download for an exclusive … Read more

360 Internet Security 2013's installer is a light 17MB, and though the overall installation time and duration was relatively fast, it's update process took longer than we had expected. Prior to installation, 360 will automatically prompt you to agree to their license and usage terms, something that's normally an opt-out process. And though it's more or less required to move on, those who are more keen on privacy details or interested in the terms of agreement should keep this in mind before they install the software. Still, the opt-out option might appear a bit suspicious, especially … Read more

Yesterday, Avast Software made news with its acquisition of privacy company Secure.Me, a small developer best known for its Facebook apps of the same name. Secure.Me protects users' Facebook accounts, monitoring all activity and photos, detecting malware links, and identifying content that is questionable or unsuitable for children.

Today, Avast makes news again with a minor update to its complete suite of Windows security applications--Avast Free Antivirus; Avast Pro Antivirus, Avast Internet Security, and the full monty, Avast Premier.

Avast version 8.0.1488.286 fixes some bugs in the interface, adds a progress bar to the … Read more

The increasing impact of malware on smartphones means that many users need protection software. Webroot Security & Antivirus performs the necessary functions of a malware protection program and is easy to operate, even for beginning smartphone users.

The program is available for free, but there is an upgrade available to a premium version with additional features for $19.99 per year. Download and installation through the Google Play store completed as expected, although there is a lengthy user agreement that needs to be accepted in order to run the program. The main screen, which provides an overview of the phone'… Read more

In one of the first independent tests of third-party security suites on Windows 8, nearly all antivirus and anti-malware software tested well. What may surprise you is that even without a third-party suite, Windows 8 is relatively resistant to modern threats like zero-day attacks, according to the report.

Independent German security suite evaluators AV-Test.org publish bimonthly tests that rate the effectiveness of the biggest Windows security suites out there and rated all 26 of the suites they tested on Windows 8 in January and February as "certified," including Windows 8 itself. This is because Windows 8 comes … Read more

AVG AntiVirus Business Edition 2013 continues the slimmer, flatter redesign from 2012, and brings the same interface improvements from its younger, smaller Free and Pro Antivirus counterparts.

The AVG installer will walk you through a few screens and present the option to install or omit additional products like Identity Protection, Email Scanner, and Surf-Shield. However, it also includes additional tools more appropriate for corporate IT environments, like Remote Admin. The AVG Toolbar is also offered, though, as opt-in as opposed to the opt-out setups found in the free counterparts. AVG does include Do Not Track, which some users may find … Read more

The risk that an Internet-connected computer is infected with malware will never be reducible to zero. It's just the nature of software that errors happen. Where there are software-design errors, there are people who will exploit those errors to their advantage.

The best PC users can hope for is to minimize the chances of an infection and to mitigate the damage a piece of malware can inflict -- whether it intends to steal a user's sensitive data or to commandeer the machine as part of a cyber attack on servers thousands of miles away.

Last week, Internet users … Read more

Now owned by Intel, McAfee All Access is a professional-grade personal computer security suite that comes with apps for Mac and Android. It's the premium security product from McAfee, but while its features are top-notch, its competitors do better at security-efficacy benchmarking.

Installation McAfee All Access doesn't have the fastest installation around, but it's not horrifically slow. From download to ready-to-use, the entire process took about six and a half minutes. By contrast, Symantec's Norton goes 0 to 60 in less than a minute.

McAfee appears to have fixed the suite's problems with oversensitivity toward … Read more