Poll: *** The All New Windows AV Thread - Keep All AV Questions in Here ***

What AV do you use?

  • Total voters
    812
Ive tried a few free options over the years but i keep going back to Avast, the issue with Avast is, its now to pushy on getting you to upgrade to the paid option and a little bloated.
I've not tried anything in else in the last 2-3 years but I can think of anything either, Bitdefender free was ok a little limited but ok

Any suggestions ?
 
It's been better for many years now^^ There's literally no need to use anything else unless you have a substantially low spec machine that needs lite versions of most apps like AV etc.
 
mrk said:
It's been better for many years now^^ There's literally no need to use anything else unless you have a substantially low spec machine that needs lite versions of most apps like AV etc.
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I have a decent spec PC, and some lower spec i5 like 2400, I've just been installing Avast ive gotten that use to it because its alway on the top of the Av-test, i've tried a few of the other option in the last 2-3 years like avira, avg so on, but still end up going back to Avast but like I've said its become bloated and become a bit of a advert, always pushing on a upgrade which has become annoying. I did look at this site in the past but it did mark it down defender so i was not sure https://www.av-comparatives.org/ https://www.av-test.org/
 
when I was looking online I did find some alarming info on the Avast side,

NortonLifeLock Merges With Avast to Form New Company Called 'Gen'​

The merged company will maintain the Norton, Lifelock, Avast, AVG, CCleaner and Avira brands, though.​


All the main free software's are owned by one company now.

The FTC conducted its own investigation and found that Avast subsidiary Jumpshot had been selling users’ browsing data from 2014 to January 2020 to “more than 100 customers.” In addition, the antivirus provider managed to amass “more than eight petabytes (8000TBs) of browsing information dating back to 2014,” none of which was ever deleted.

uk.pcmag.com

FTC Bans Antivirus Provider Avast From Selling Users' Browsing Data

The federal regulator is also fining Avast $16.5 million for promising to protect users' privacy when it was actually harvesting their data to sell to third-party companies.
uk.pcmag.com uk.pcmag.com

How have you found Defender compared to the other like Avast, I am considering moving but not sure to what yet,I dont want to just jump over without looking into it first, is the Real-time Protection and firewall as good.
 
In the past I used to bounce between BitDefender/Avast and a couple others each year just to see what's new etc an see how they compare with what I'd normally use anyway which is Defender.

After a week always went back to Defender. The last test was last year in fact trying BitDefender free again when it got an update and it didn't do anything that Defender wasn't doing anyway, and Defender gets the same daily updates sometimes twice daily. Defender is more integrated into Windows too and I trust it isn't going to install a database update that flags core Windows files as an issue and suddenly I can't boot into Windows like has been the case with 3rd party Vs numerous times before.

The gist of it is that for many years now Defender is all that has been needed for 99% of users, this is still the case, and Defender has had some significant upgrades to its functions in recent years too.

Also keep in mind that the vast majority of ransomware etc will be blocked before the resident AV even catches wind of it if you are using an adblocker on your browser. uBlock Origin has default lists that manage control over blocking known ransomware and malware URLs, these lists are internally updates automatically as well so that's the first line of defence leaving the AV to do its thing for locally launched files, apps and LAN activity.

Example:
OGZ3ETU.png


Also keep in mind that no AV installation is 100% perfect, it is simply impossible to catch 100% of everything, if that was the case then that software would instantly become the only AV used by anyone and everyone.
 
I've started using Defender, easy to use some of the options, not as simple to use other and still dated like the firewall.
should I enable the controlled folder access, it does make this more secure but at the same time bit of a headache. I've still kept the Malwarebytes as a 2nd option.
 
Elevon said:
Yes I believe so, been using it for a few weeks now and not had any issues, very light on resources etc....
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With so many company selling our info (Avast) I'm not sure I want to make it easier for them by using a cloud based software.
 
Armageus said:
A russian government sponsored one, no less :D
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You forget there are many cloud based AV programs in Europe/US as well ,also not like Microsoft or other companies/websites don't spy on you, if you are that worried stick to Linux and don't use the Net ,remember your tin foil hat as well ;) .
 
Switched from Kaspersky to ESET AV, been using ESET for years on my business PC’s always found it to be a very good product, also have a lifetime sub to Malwarebytes if I ever felt the need to run it.
 
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