Free vs. paid security software

You're right - you get nothing for free. I'm not an expert but I've always gone with paying for things like antivirus, antispam (we use Norton). We also however use Spybot and AdAware both freebies and these do a good job. In general, pay the money for a reputable product and you should be fine. How do you find a "reputable product" - check reviews and forums like this one.

Renew your present security suite or go public domain? my advice is to stick with what you have. Presumably it works else you'd aleady have made your decision.

You know what you have and how it works. Anything from the "outside" will presumably work (you'll get it from CNet, right?), but you might not know how it's set up.

Stick with what you know.

I really only have experienced AVG Pro vs AVG Free but i can tell you that they both work extremely well and i`ve never heard anybody complain about either of them, the only difference i found was that with the pro version you can schedule updates and auto scans, with the free version this was done manually, having said that a friend has recently told me that even that has changed now, you might wanna check it out. One more thing that may help, i have helped a few people out when they have been victims to trojans etc and after having repaired their pc i have uninstalled the anti virus that came with the pc (which is normally a 12 month subscription) and replaced it with AVG Free, like i said "no complaints"

The short answer is "It depends..."

The first thing is to do enough research to dispel the myth that you always get what you pay for. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. There are good free security suites (e.g. Avast does just about everything that it does well) and bad commercial security suites (e.g. Norton's consumer version is a resource hog of questionable reliability).

But doing the research to learn this will also likely lead you to your answer. My wife and I both use ZoneAlarm, which starts out with a superior firewall, then adds anti-virus and anti-spyware tools. It's a good, well-integrated package that has served me well and I consider it well worth the subscription price. My daughter, on the other hand, uses Avast anti-virus and Spybot anti-spyware, both free, along with the standard Windows firewall. None of us has been the victim of a successful infection.

The only freeware security suites to actively avoid are ones with no discernible history. These may the products of fly-by-night operations or, worse, someone actively promoting virus and/or spyware infections. Quickly Googling such packages will quickly reveal which ones to be wary of.

The same could be said of commercial security suites although with them, the risk is less one of malicious software and more one of simply inferior software. Again, refer to Google, Ask, or your other favorite search engine to get a better picture of any package you're considering.

Hello Jasmin,

As a self confessed 'propeller head' and an industry professional for over 30 years, I've tried dozens of different utilities and nowdays always prefer the free products.

Firstly, lets define the term 'Free'. The companies such as AVG or Avast, Adaware etc all offer a 'no cost' solutions. There are however caveats attached to these products and in no particular order:

1. For personal use only. Some products, for example, will not work on a server.

2. Advanced features functions are turned off. In order to get these features you must purchase their commercial version.

3. Support: In order to get assistance you need to own a commercial version.

With all that in mind, why would you stay with Free. Usually, these products are 'lighter' than the commercial version and therefore run better than their commercial counterparts. One particular product is so resource hungry that you see a noticable difference in performance after installing it. Further, for example, the industry measures in percentage of accuracy for detecting virus'. AVG recently scored in the very high 90's whilste another very popular commercial version scored only in the high 80's meaning they missed detecting several thousand potential threats.

The final comment, is the proof. To date, I have been using two free products for years. I use Avast antivirus and have not been struck once, and have used it for my clients to clean serious virus where others could not (virus' look for potential commercial versions and know to avoid them!). I was using Adaware but recently switched to AVG because it has memory resident protection, automatic updates, scheduling, and root kit detection. Again, its been spot on and does not degrade the performance.

Give me free every time.

Larry

I have been told that one can't install any of these free security programs until McAfee is unistalled. McAfee came on my computer with a free trial period. I would like to uninstall it at the end of the trial period but have been told that this is very difficult. How can this be legal? Surely programs preinstalled on your computer should have an uninstall program too.
Also there is a 2 G flash drive available from Tigerdirect.com with Computer Associates security software on it which is virtually free after rebates. I was wondering if this is too good to be true. Is there any danger that one can install a (supposed) security program which is in fact a spy program? How can one guard against this?
Margaret K.

You get what you pay for. The free ones are stripped down and offer only a basic protection.

I am not an expert by any means, but I can offer some advice. In my area ( near Boston,MA) Comcast Cable offers free Anti virus and Firewall protection with your subscription to their high speed internet. I have used this service for about a year now on two of my three computers. My newest,came with three years paid of another security software. I previously had paid for the same McAffe services and found absolutely no difference in protection when I switched to the free account. My computer updated daily just as it had done before when I was paying. I was glad to save the few hundred dollarsand receive the same,safe security services.

I also know that AOL offers free anti virus too, but I found that although it was through McAfee, it was not the same as my free version through Comcast. I don't know why this was..I figured it should be the same,but to me it was inferior.

First off, if CNET says it's ok, than it is better than ok to use. I trust these people and all of their suggestions and reviews on everything for my PC's. I have been using the free program of AVG Virus ware since CNET put it out and I am very please. It stays up to date daily on the latest threats. You can feel safe and assured if it's from CNET. Do I sound like a CNET commerical or what.
Robyn Mann, Jacksonville,Fl.

It's frustrating to have a paid program expire and feel extorted to either send money or go without protection. It's insulting to have these programs embedded in your registry and not be able to remove them unless you are a computer nerd or expert. I have a Dell with the embedded Norton programs. I tried AVG Free a couple years ago. It works well and is free for non-commercial users. I bought a Dell Computer for my wife which was never used for anything except a few e-mails. It became infected with something that made it lock up, and operate slow. Nothing worked to clean it up short of wiping out the hard drive and starting over, except for something I saw on the internet. Ashampoo offered a free no cost trial version and to my amazement it cleaned the computer which although is a couple year old model is now fast like a Hot Rod. I subsequently subscribed to a paid version and have upgraded since then and bought a multi user license. I also ordered the optional back up disc which came to the U.S. from Germany. When it got here, it was broken. I sent them an e-mail and four days later, yes FOUR DAYS, NOT FOUR MONTHS, a new replacement disc came in the mail. I still use the AVG free. I really like it and have not had any infections on any of my computers. If you like it, send them a donation because they are community supported.

My hardware discovery product of choice is PC Wizard (2007), put out by CPUID, the same company that wrote CPU-Z, the ever-popular CPU monitor program. It's very powerful, rarely gets any false readings, and provides tons of information. My suggestion would be to run this program (if your computer is still functional) and save a log. Afterwards, repeat the process with the "new" hardware. Check product reviews of any changes. You'll know if you got ripped off.

Free IS sometimes better. I know it doesn't sound right. I used Norton for over 4 years before my IT boss assured me that the free software he was using, that being AVG antivirus, was an excellent alternative to the resource hogging Norton Suite. I gave it a shot and never looked back. I later tried AVAST and stuck with it as my primary line of defence as it had the features i was looking for, that being the ease of use, being able to change it's looks with the use of skins, and extremely low resource use. It also integrated into my Microsoft OUtlook for email scanning and does pretty much everything that Norton used to do, but for free, and i say again, using much less computer resources. For even better protection u can use both AVG and AVAST, they do not come into conflict (atleast for me on my XP), unlike Norton, which doesn't allow for any other antivirus software to run along with it. I sound like i am trying to bash NOrton, and i guess I am, because they deserve it. .... anyway, add Ad-aware and u should not have any viruses/adware sneaking into your PC, atleast I haven't had any since ... it has been nearly 2 years.

The best antivirus programs currently available (Kaspersky for known and Nod32 for unknown) are pay programs. But you can get "good enough" for free. Same goes for firewall software and anti-spyware software. The security software field is unusual in that there are quite a few out there that make their work available for free as a service to the community. Every quarter, http://www.av-comparatives.org does an antivirus survey: one quarter they test them for known viruses and the next quarter they test on "unknown" viruses. Kaspersky bubbles up and down within first to fourth place on known viruses (only a percentage point or two separates the top programs) and Nod32 has been tops on the "unknown" for a long time by I wide margin (I don't know why none of the others seems to ever come close). False positives is another indicator of quality - you don't want false alarms all the time.

Antivirus:
Best: Kaspersky and Nod32 (if I had lots of money, I'd buy both to get the best of both types of AV coverage. Kaspersky for dealing with viruses that are already in its database, and Nod32 for new variants that aren't in its database.
Good Enough (and free): Antivir, Avast, AVG. PC Tools antivirus from the same folks as Spyware Doctor was recently made free but I haven't seen a test on it yet. You generally use only one antivirus software plus you can use free online virus scans from Symantec, TrendMicro and perhaps others.

AntiSpyware:
Best: Webroot Spy Sweeper, PC Tools Spyware Doctor.
Good enough (and free): Lavasoft AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy.
It is good to use several antispyware softwares as one may catch what another misses.

Firewall:
Best: ZoneAlarm Pro
Good enough (and free): ZoneAlarm Personal Edition. A few other free ones are out there but I haven't seen a comparison test recently. Comodo for one has released both a Firewall and an Antivirus program that can be downloaded for free. You use only one Firewall.

If you want to get an all-in-one solution, the ZoneAlarm Security Suite is a good bet. This makes it easy to install and you go to one place for updates and support. The Antivirus in this package is based on the Kaspersky engine - I don't know who makes the antispyware function. I'd still use a couple of other antispyware softwares as well for best coverage. I generally go to http://www.majorgeeks.com to download the free security software. They either mirror or have links to any free security software worth having. Plus they frequently update their "Recommended Free Software List" to make it easy to find what they consider the top handful of security programs and utilities.

It is always best not to need to depend on the security software so learn how to recognize traps around the web. Never open spam eMails, never click on offers that are presented in pop-up windows, etc. And regularly visit a site that will warn you of new threats and how to thwart them - http://www.dailytech.com/ is one good one.

Good luck.
Bill Hill aka Zepper
Groton, NY

I have never payed for any firewall or antivirus programs and have never got a virus the whole time I have used antivir from avira http://www.free-av.com/ and avg anti virus and spyware the two programs are separate but they are free and work great. Just don't use two antivirus together. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 and also use Zonealarm for firewall http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en
They all work well together and you will not have any problems with viruses or anything and they don't use up very much system resources
You will find out its alot better to use these free ones instead of paying for expensive ones

Hi Jasmine!
I used to think just as you do that the freebies can't possibly be as good as the ones we pay for. However, I have learned differently. I used McAfee for a while but it was just too invasive. I switched to Symantec's Norton offering at $55 per year or so and it was great except when it came time to upgrade. I spent HOURS with them at several different websites, trying to find a record of my purchase, even though I provided date and order number. Eventually after two weeks of fighting with them and with my expiry date looming, I decided to install Grisoft's free program. I do a full scan nightly and it downloads new signatures nightly (Symantec sent them whenever they were ready throughout the day... only difference) My ISP has an AV filter so I rarely get infected email any longer but for checking downloads or a section of your hard drive ... just as simple as can be. If you visit the Grisoft website, you'll see how they survive. They have a ton of different offerings but many much more than a home/personal computer would need. Check them out. I highly recommend the freebie AV. The good part is there is no annual fee and no fighting to get renewals because there are none. The software is upgraded free of charge as well. So far as Spyware, I also use a freebie. I have AdAware and Spyware Doctor (think maybe I might have paid for that one!) Anyway, they both do just fine. And I just have my Windows Firewall. I don't know if that's good enough for others but it's good enough for me. Take a look at Grisoft and let us know what you think. Good luck.
Sheila

Once upon a time... I suffered from the delusion that virus protection could only be obtained by either unplugging one's computer from the internet and only doing internetting at work, -OR- by paying a hefty ransom to purchase a subscription to a software product (or "suite" of stuff one doesn't need) that will dig it's roots into your system's innards so deeply that it becomes permanently attached to your OS like a bad tattoo. UN-Uninstallable, I had to re-format my HD and re-install my OS in order to get rid of it, before discovering the simple truth: "The best things in life are free." AVAST, ye mateys! Get on board, and Czech them out: www.avast.com/eng/company.html This Anti-virus and firewall product is Better than the pricey alternatives, and ITS FREE!!! And IT WORKS!!! And there was much rejoicing. THE END.