Computers have transformed the way we live our lives in every aspect, from helping students learn and monitor patients in hospitals, and controlling critical manufacturing processes. This increased reliance on computer gadgets has also brought an increase in cyber-attacks, such as viruses, malware and ransomware. Antivirus software is designed to detect these threats and stop them from causing harm to your PC or stealing your personal information.
When selecting an antivirus program it is essential to think about its virus-scanning capabilities in the event that it has a fire wall, as well as how it performs in independent lab tests. You should also take into consideration the quality of its customer service and frequency of updates and the number of devices it can secure. Some programs, like Norton include additional features that safeguard your privacy online and help prevent identity theft.
Top programs offer multiple protection options. They include heuristic detection which seeks out behaviors that are typical of viruses or malware as well as signature matching, which compares files against a list of known malicious code. Some programs employ sandboxing in order to keep suspicious files out of an environment that is secured and where they cannot do any harm.
Some of the best antivirus software is available for free. However, they may not have the same features as paid-for alternatives. For example, Bitdefender’s free edition performed well in our tests and comes with a firewall, and its premium version includes parental controls along with a file shredder as well as a password manager. Malwarebytes, whose free version scored top marks in AV Test for 2023, failed our test of usability. Intego Mac Internet Security X9, however, provides a powerful combination of tools (VirusBarrier and NetBarrier) which snuffed out the most malware-related threats in our test.