Computers have revolutionized almost every aspect of business antivirus software our lives including helping students learn, monitoring patients in hospitals and controlling critical manufacturing processes. The increasing dependence on computers and devices has also led to an increase in cyber-attacks, like malware, viruses and ransomware. Antivirus software detects these threats and prevents them from causing harm to your computer or stealing personal data.
When deciding on an antivirus program it is essential to consider its virus-scanning capabilities as well as whether it has a fire wall, and how it performs on independent lab tests. It is also advisable to examine its customer support, the frequency it updates and the number of devices it is able to protect. Certain programs, like Norton, include additional features that can help you avoid identity theft and protect your privacy online.
Top programs offer multiple protection options. These include heuristic identification which searches for behaviors that are typical of viruses or malware and signature matching that compares files to a list of known malicious codes. Certain programs employ sandboxing to separate suspicious files from a virtual environment that is sealed and protected from any harm.
A lot of the top antivirus programs are no cost, but they might not include as many additional features as paid versions. Bitdefender’s premium version includes parental controls, file shredder, and password manager, but its free version scored well and comes with a firewall. Malwarebytes, whose free version was a top performer in our AV Test for 2023, did not pass our usability test. Intego Mac Internet Security X9 has a solid combination of tools (VirusBarrier and NetBarrier) which snuffed out the majority of malware threats during our test.