Free vs Paid antivirus/malware/spyware/adware programs

Which in general are better paid or free? What do the paid ones offer that the free ones don't? I know that some of the ads must be gone with the paid ones, but what about detection accuracy, resource usage etc?

I have avira free edition, any point in going to something paid like Norton 2009 or Mcafee?

You would think the paid versions would be better, correct?

 

You know I have made to myself that exact same question, my university carries different symantec products for free, I asked in this forums and they all suggested me to stick with the avira free that I am using. So I went to the avira site to see if there was an advantage by paying for the premium edition to have an upgrade over the free one. I found that they offer more features, but again all those features that they offer you could find free substitutes.

 

I'm not really sure how to answer your question. In general, with your Avira free by itself, you will be fine.

Most of these product sites list the "advantages" of paid vs. free, but the differences aren't worth the cash IMO. I have used AVG Free for years and it has never once let me down.

 

Taking into consideration that free programs are free, I don't see a need to buy programs. Even the best paid consumer programs don't offer much over the free products.

 

First of all, I would never consider McAfee even if they PAID me to install it. Secondly, I've tried both paid and free AVs, and I haven't found any major differences in performance between them as long as you stick with the top tier free AVs like Avira or Avast. Stick with Avira Free and spend your money on something else.

 

Well, even among "paid" antiviruses, you can often find rebate deals that make them next to free. Fry's Electronics constantly offers rebates on Norton Internet Security 2009 (a very good lightweight yet secure antivirus + firewall - even more lightweight than NOD32) to make it a total of $0.00.

Recently, I've also seen a few such deals on Kaspersky and McAfee as well, although I have had horrible experiences with the latter.

 

Fry's Electronics is a Security Software Company or ??
It is lighter than Avira and superior than Avira in term of detection rate?

 

Fry's is a company that sells electronics and has brick and mortar stores as well. They are not a security company.

 

From what I've read, they make their money more off of the virus/protection subscriptions, than the actual program. Hence, they can usually offer their program for free.

 

Yea you often have to pay a yearly fee to keep receiving new definition updates.

 

Well I must say that I don't mind paying for software if it handles my needs well, so thats not the problem. I am running Avira free edition and it seems pretty good but my impression(not based on fact) is that the free versions are ok, but not as good as the paid versions such as Norton, Mcafee etc. In fact I always ran Norton or Mcafee for many years and was pretty satisfied with them till last year. I was running Norton antivirus 2008 and it was a disaster. I had a 3 license pack and it didn't work on all 3 machines. It was this experience that made me look elsewhere and more specifically to the free editions.

When I say that I thought that the paid versions were "better" than the free versions, I meant with atleast the detection aspect. I figured the money we pay each year for renewal was to pay for the accurate and great DAT file.

Is this not the case? Don't the paid versions have better DAT files, hence better detection rates?

 

there is a nasty virus that avira and avast CAN'T remove but kaspersky removed it nuff said

 

Would you care to tell us the name of this "nasty virus" that Avira and Avast can't remove? Consider it a psa to the rest of the NBR community.

 

A lot of good responses but I don't think I got a definitive answer. Wouldn't a paid version be better in terms of detection rates just do to the fact that so many people are paying for the DAT file?

 

Not necessarily.
If money was the only issue, a whole lot of AV's simply would have to be better than Avast, yet they aren't.
Most security software companies choose to spend money 'only' on heavy advertising, others choose to make (limited) free versions to build up their customer base.