Free vs. paid security software

These were recommended by a local business that has excellent staff and whose prices are low. These software programs were recommended after my computer was cleansed of ad-ware. Since these are free, some effort is required to run them periodically. They are easy to run and for an extra fee the higher level version is available. (This is a recommendation from someone on a fixed income who uses his computer every day and requires up to date information.)

I think too much has been made of this paid vs. free choice. I've learned to think of that last. First I will go to people I trust (CNet members among them) for recommendations, then go for the free trial download. If the software fits my needs, I will pay. I pay more willingly when I don't feel forced to buy bells and whistles I don't need. I used McAfee and Norton for many years then realized they were both too bulky for my needs (and my RAM). Norton Customer Service was pretty unresponsive as well. Two years ago, my laptop came loaded with CA EZ Anti-virus (one-year free trial) and when I renewed the subscription, I began to use Spybot (and liked it enough to make the suggested donation). I am trying out the Spyware program from the CA security suite but am keeping the EZ Anti-virus until the subscription expires. I am trying out the free AVG Anti-virus on the desktop. If I like it, I will download that to my laptop as well and buy multiple subscriptions. Thanks for asking the question, Jasmine. I look forward to the answers.

Our computer advisor has set these free ones for us over the years and all ok so far. I am interested in what other people will say in answer to you very good question. Julie S

Jasmine, I assume that your are interested in Free Security Software for your Home PC, not for a buisness.
Most Free Security Software is available only for Home/Personnel use & should be purchased for buisness use.

Generally, the Free Security Software is a Basic version of individual programs & not an integrated suite. You can find articles on Free AntiVirus, AntiSpyware & Firewalls in CNET.com. This is an 'It Depends' problem; relative, to your requirements for Security Software. An example, Free AntiVirus program, may require manual versus automatice update of virus definitiions or may cover your incoming email; but, not your IM. This is part of the difference between Free & Purchased Security Programs, in that the Purchased Programs will usually have more features - but, you know your own situation & have to determine, do you need the extra coverage provided in the Purchased versions. The same is generally true of Free Firewalls; however, AntiSpyware is a different story; currently, the three top Purchased Programs are better than any of the Free Programs; but, you don't want just one.

None of the current AntiSpyware programs [Purchased or Free] catches everything! It is generally recommended that you purchase one of the top three plus use two or three of the free AntiSpyware programs to approach 100% coverage. Another consideration is that integrated security suites from one vendor may not provide the best protection in each category; since, no one vendor has the best products in each of these categories [Oh! don't forget identiy theft & phising as additional security issues! that the suites or indiviual programs may or may not address and/or require additional programs for coverage.]

Relative to how the companies that provide Free programs make their money - generally by advertising with the Free samples - if you use a basic program then maybe you will upgrade to their more comprehensive purchased version; or if you use the free version at home you may recommend it to/for your buisness to purchase or in addition to the Free program, the company will advertise other of their software for purchase or advertise other company's software for purchase. Also home PCs are as a group the least protected; so, are the greatest spreaders of viruses & become zombies. So some of the companies are trying to incentives Home PC owners/users to at least minimally protect their Home PCs with Free Security Software to help make the internet a better place. Along this line of thinking, check with your ISP to see what they may offer you for Free [or discount]; since, SPAM, Zombies & Viruses can affect their operating volume/cost; so, it it in their best buisness interest sometimes to offer Free Security Software for Home PCs to reduce the spread/volume of SPAM, Viruses & Zombies. [Also you may have to consider Upgrade versus Renewal of your Security Suite - with some software companies you can purchase renewal of definition & update support for your current version; but, many times a specific version has a specific life, e.g. like OS Win9x support/update versus upgrade to WinXP, etc. which the company may not support after a specific time 'life' & you have to upgrade to a newer version or a different company's product.]

I hope this info helps with your decision.

Choosing a good security configuration can be the life or death of your computer, or at least the difference between minor fixes and total hard drive wipes.

In the area of security, price is not synonymous with quality. While paid security suites tend to have more bells and whistles, their protection is usually on par with the free alternatives. You may think that free means that they are not as good as other solutions, but this is often not the case. In many situations the antivirus companies provide the free edition to home users, because when they get used to using it they will recommend them when it comes time to purchase a new Anti-Virus license at their workplace. Business purchases are much more lucrative than home purchases. It is a good way to break into the market heavily dominated by a few major companies.

The most important part of your security suite is your anti-virus program. http://www.av-comparatives.org/ routinely evaluates the top contenders against the newest virii. There are several things to consider when selecting your anti-virus product. You'll want to ensure that it has a good detection rate. Anything listed in the av-comparatives tests have decent enough comparison rates to be considered.

While a good detection rate is important, it is not the only thing to consider. The two most common brands are Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus, and McAfee Virus Shield. If you buy a new computer it will most likely come with one of these. Because they are so common, you will want to avoid them. Virus makers target these two applications, just like they do Internet Explorer, meaning you will likely run into a virus that will kill that program eventually. It has happened to me several times. Go for one of the lesser known ones just to be a little bit safer.

Some other things that you will want are to ensure that the program is ICSA certified. If it is, they will display an image on their website. A virus-Bulletin top 100 award does not hurt either.

If you are considering a paid one, Kasperky Lab's Kaspersky Antivirus, or ESet's NOD32 would be my recommendations due to thier great normal and polymorphic virus detections.

If you ar looking at free alternatives, I would recommed Alwil's Avast Home Edition or AVG Free.

A security suite usually comes with anti-spyware technology as well. Anti-spyware programs are a lot newer than anti-virus programs, and also spyware seems to evolve more quickly than virii because of the advertising dollars it generates. Because of this, no one anti-spyware program is enough. Most tech geeks will recommend scanning your computer with 2 or 3 different ones (though the real-time protection really isn't needed in any of them. Scheduled system scans will remove most malware without slowing down your computer in the process). I can think of no way in which the paid programs are any better than the free ones, and thus will not recommend any of them, though I am sure that other people have their preferences. Currently their detection databases are more complimentary, so there is no one program beats all type thing. I, as most others, would recommend using the free Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware Personal, and Windows defender to scan your PC. Others might also recommend using Spyware blaster, but I have not used the program so I cannot recommend one way or the other oon it.

The third part of a security suite is the firewall. If you have a router (set up properly) it will act as an incoming hardware firewall. Windows Firewall that comes with windows XPSP2 or above is decent enough for the same purpose, but does not include outgoing protection to stop anything that gets in from phoning home with whatever it gets its hands on, so a good software firewall is recommended. The paid programs are numerous, but the most popular free firewall is ZoneAlarm's personal firewall.

These free programs should more than adequately cover the security needs of most home computer users.

FREE can be better then Paid ones. Just take this example Apache web server is Number 1 and its FREE. So free is better sometimes. Dont think by Paying you will always get better product. I recommend AVG free edition at http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free or Avast 4.7 free at http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html . For spyware i recommend Ad-Aware at http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html . Bye tc.

Hello Jasmine,
First let me qualify my response. I'm an independent computer technician and have been doing this for a number of years. I am in a position to be privy to the tech talk that goes on between the other local techs out there.

Several years ago, I was asked to assist a fellow independent tech at his shop due to the volume of work he had coming in. Up until then, I believed that Norton was the greatest thing since holes in doughnuts. I began to see how many machines that were coming to the shop with various bugs, electronic cooties (malware, viruses, adware, etc.) with fully functional and current (up to date)installations of Norton AV, internet suite, system works, etc. and all of the current (up to date)McAfee installations just as boogered up and in some cases non functional corrupted windows. The owner of the shop showed me several alternate, FREE AV and a few FREE spyware packages that he had adopted in lieu of the Norton's (symantec), McAfee's (network associates)failed to protect installations. I was flabbergasted at all of the stuff that gets by these so called high power, household name software packages. I was cured of paying annual renewal fees for token grade AV/internet suites.

I have been using (all available for free download here at CNET and other download sites)Antivir personal addition OR Grisoft's AVG free edition (either one but NOT both and NOT with any commercial AV still installed)concurrently with Safer-networking.com Spybot Search & Destroy (I was so impressed that I sent a donation for my use of their great program)for the last 3 years on all of my personal computers. I recommend these to my clients that express the same concerns as you did in your letter. I've only had one potentially dangerous cootie slip past on my desktop tower in all this time. The daily automatic update/scan caught and cured that one! I WILL install (after protesting)a commercial package if my client insists, but I tell them up front that in my judgement and real time experience, these 3 free packages do a much better job. Take that from a tech that has scanned, cleaned, and in worst case reloaded infected computers. It does seem that this is too good to be free. Antivir puts up a splash screen as one step in it's daily update. They really do want you to buy the for sale suite. Just click OK or the X (close window)and it goes away until the update the next day. So, it really is NOT totally free. You get a daily sale pitch from AVIRA Antivir. But for what I've seen these past few years, The free offerings are better than the $30-40 anual renewal packages that we are all familiar with. And here's another BIG point... The Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro AV and especially the internet protection suites really, REALLY slow your machine down. They have sooo much processor intensive overhead. Our test comparisons revealed 3 to 6 times longer (2-3 seconds without, 11-16 seconds & 100% pegged processor usage with... NO kidding...!!)loading a web page than with the free packages. Our tests were done on the shop work stations using 5-6 megabit cable broadband while using the built in processor allocation guage in task manager. Tests done back to back only enabling and disabling the protection. I recommend that you use the free ones before paying that BIG renewal fee again. If your machine is on broadband and will let you get online, http://housecall.trendmicro.com (no WWW)is the very best online free scanner that I've used. It will show you what security risks due to not having applied all free available Windows and/or MS Office updates and patches that are available at the Microsoft update site. You must first have a current Java and Adobe Flash player installed on your machine to use it. You will be AMAZED and probably dismayed at what it finds lurking around in your machine. Reboot and repeat the process until it declares you clean. If the housecall will not run, you may have a malware process stopping it from running. In that case I suggest you run Spybot S&D and one of the free AV scanners in Windows safe mode.

Ted R.

Jasmine:

"Free" vendors have an idea or concept that they develop, low-budget, and they rely on donations and advertising to fund the development. (This is often one person trying to establish a new program.)

Why distribute "free' or for donations??

So they can build up a customer base and become 'big' and start charging for it on a subscription basis.

Need I say more?

Could you please explain in easy details how to re-format a windows x.p computer.Before the windows system progs came to be it was a very easy task , But now it seems to be difficult , or is it .
Thank you for a very good , and interesting programme Mr H.E.Tyrell

I recommend AVG they have a free version of their software that you can download. They make their money by hoping that you will purchase the business version. It really is not worth it. If you own a personal PC the AVG free version is good enough.
Windows XP has it's own built in version anyway.
Norton anti virus slow down your computer and cost's

In most cases your assumption would be correct. With most types of products you can expect that the paid version will be better than the freebies, but this is an exception.

If you pay for your antivirus and anti-spyware protection you tend to get some nice features, but you usually don't get better protection and the reason is really simple. Viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, adware, and all the other malicious garbage that can attack your computer isn't just a threat to you-- it threatens everyone on the internet. This includes big companies and governments. It is in everyone's best interests to control these attacks, but that can't happen if the malicious code can hide in private computer systems because the owner can't or won't pay for the software needed to protect the machine. Therefore a number of private companies have committed themselves to providing free versions of their software for those who can't or won't pay money for it. A lot of this software is superior quality.

There is a catch, but it isn't any different than if you were buying the software. Whether you pay for the protection or get it free, make absolutely certain that you know what you are getting. Many companies also put out bad programs, and some of them actually cause the problems they are supposed to be detecting. There is no way to avoid the need to check a product out before using it, unfortunately. Many people have purchased or downloaded software believing that they were protecting their computers, only to be infected with viruses or spyware as a result. Never respond to a pop up that offers to "scan" your computer for free. This is one tactic used to sell inferior or even malicious products. Always check out the reviews of the product before allowing it to access your computer.

It is, fortunately, very easy to check out a product before purchasing or downloading it. CNET has a lot of information. Check out download.com, and don't forget to type the product's name into your favorite search engine and see what the reviews on other sites say. You can get a lot of information in a short period of time.

You should run one (and only one) antivirus product on your computer. You should run one (and only one) software firewall on your computer, and the one that comes with Windows is not the best choice. You should run 3 or 4 anti-spyware programs, but not in "real time." Run only the one you trust the most constantly, then run the others manually right after updating them (at least once a week). Be sure to disconnect from the internet while running your scans manually. This is also a good time to run a full antivirus scan and any other utilities that need to be run, such as a defrag program.

If you are still deciding which products to choose, and you are willing to pay for the products, I urge you to support those companies that offer free versions of their software. The paid versions aren't going to protect any better, but you should get some nicer features. Any company that will offer quality software for free deserves your business. They are doing their part to ensure that we can all access the internet safely, and we should appreciate them for that effort.

Also, don't despise some of the free software in other categories. Much of it is high quality. The open source movement is one reason. Also, some of the software is put out by individuals who create a program for themselves and then just want to give others access to it. Some of it is software put out by companies that also sell paid software, hoping that you will like the product and come to them for other software you might need. Take a look at it. You might find something you need for free or at little cost. You will probably find something that is just cool. Don't go wild! After all, there is a lot of junk out there as well, but do take a look and check the reviews. You will be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

Denise