Any Virus protection program with multi-year contracts?

I was just wondering about this. Every year or so, my subscription runs out and then I have to find the upgraded Virus scan program to continue my protection. I hate having to pay for virus protection, as they are usually free after rebate. Do you know anyway to get a multiyear contract, where I don't have to worry about renewing each year? I am currently using NIS 2010 and absolutely love it. The only thing is that my subscription ran out and I am waiting for the 2011 version to come on sale for free after rebates.

 

Yup, eg., Emsisoft Anti-Malware (excellent suite) has 3 year contracts.
And many others.

 

Have you considered switching to a free AV such as MSE instead?

 

Yes, I have used free AV. They are ok, but I love NIS 2010. It seems a lot more powerful and can detect a lot of stuff, not to mention it has a safe surf feature, which warns me which web sites are potentially dangerous and steer clear of them. Does anyone know if NIS 2010 has a multi year contract option? Thanks.

 

You can just buy the NIS10 edition (free after rebate at Fry's at the moment) - Norton allows you to upgrade to the newest edition for free. For example, I never bought an NIS10 license, I only have a NIS09 one, but I upgraded to NIS10 for free when it came out. It was a very quick and painless upgrade.

 

Avira is what I use and it comes in 1, 2, 3 year increments. You also can buy 1, 3, 5 computer licenses. This is a pretty nice set of options.

Avira always rates pretty good as well. Check this site out for testing results:

AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Welcome to AV-Comparatives.org

 

Fire Snake-

I'm not a computer virtuoso by any imagination's stretch, but for what it's worth, I'm chiming in. For a decade since I acquired my first PC (which had a 16GB hard drive!), I have used primarily paid AV software. Each time my 1-2 year contract ended, I checked the latest AV ratings in PC World and Consumer Reports and I changed my AV software accordingly as the ratings order seemed to change frequently. As I indicated in a very recent thread on this topic, my McAfee 2-year contract just ended about 10 days ago and, based on responses to that thread, I decided to try out the free Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). Admittedly I was hesitant about using a free AV product, as I equated free software with low quality. Since I installing MSE about a week ago, I have been very impressed. It's much lighter than the paid AV products I've previously used (Panda, Bit Defender, Norton, McAfee) and my PC is not slowed perceptibly in both initial boot-up and routine use, and so far its detection seems superior to the McAfee AV that just ended; MSE seems to have already identified 25 viral threats since installation, 7 in real-time monitoring and the other 18 in a full scan I ran yesterday of MSE that I suspect were present but undetected when I was using McAfee. By comparison, during the McAfee period, I estimate only 1-2 viruses, if not less, a month were detected. I need to evaluate how MSE performs over 3-6 months for a more accurate assessment, but I intuit MSE is working very well for me. Installation is fast and uncomplicated and it works unobstrusively; I'm aware of its presence only when MSE notifies me it has identified viral threats or reminds me its virus and spyware definitions need updating.

I hope this provides some useful substrate to consider and good luck with your AV decision.