Are EXPENSIVE ANTIVIRUSES worth it, or are the free ones just as good?

Question

Are EXPENSIVE ANTIVIRUSES worth it, or are the free ones just as good?

Answer 1

In the world of security, you get what you pay for!

Larger companies are able to be more proactive in developing signatures for the latest threats.  Every day, new viruses are created or morphed from old ones that a whole new definition has to be written for.  

If you pay for your AV, your getting a PAID staff to stay on top of things.  Free AVs have to go about other ways and enticements to get their money to survive.  

It all depends on what you do with your computer.  Do you use it to surf p**n?  Do you care about your information?  Do you use it for sensitive information?

THE most important things you can do (besides running AV) is to ensure that the OS is fully patched, all of your software has the most current version, and that you do your everyday things with an account that does not have Admin Privileges!

EDIT - Andrew... If you connect an unpatched machine to the WWW, you will have multiple virus in less than an hour!  They are WAY more prevalent than you are leading on.  It all comes down to (how important is the information on the machine, my privacy, and how long / expensive would it take me to rebuild my machine!)

Answer 2

The best free antivirus program is antivir

The best paid program is AntiVir pro

To learn Windows Secrets go to my profile and click the link under "Windows Secrets"

Answer 3

Stick with the free avast home edition, it works just fine.

Answer 4

you only need an expensive one if you have tons of important information on your computer (i.e. you run a home business, work for the government, etc).  If you are like 99% of all people you use your computer for casual purposes (writing an English paper, surfing the web, or maybe playing counter strike).  You will need little to no virus protection.  Viruses, worms, and trojans are not as common as you would think.  However, spyware protection is very important.  For that use Spybot Search and Destroy, its a very good program.

Answer 5

The expensive anti-viruses are worth it because they have the besst program that you can find. The free ones are OKAY but not good because they just download but they don't do the proper work. So i would prefer the expensive anti-viruses