Which AntiVirus is the Best?

To build suspense, we’ll start with what we don’t recommend.

First up? Free anti-virus software.  We’re always hoping for a free solution to come along and dominate the market.  But, unfortunately, it still hasn’t happened.  We’ve tried a host of options including the big “free three” AVG, Avast and Avira.  Unfortunately, they all fall short on comprehensiveness.  They simply don’t cover all the areas (vectors) that can be exploited on a PC.  Neither AVG, Avast, or Avira’s free option offer a firewall as of this writing, but we’re still holding out hope.

McAfee covers all the vectors but for some reason, we’ve seen more McAfee protected PCs come in with more viruses than any other anti-virus.  To be fair, it does out perform expired anti-virus solutions.  Yeah, sorry McAfee.  We can’t confidently recommend your product even though we’d make more money if we did.  That’s what you get more folks who are more Computer Technician than Retail Merchandisers.

Norton does a great job covering the vectors.  However, it’s a resource hog – meaning it is guaranteed to slow down your PC.   Additionally, Norton is the #1 selling AntiVirus!  Yeah, Norton…until you read the statistics that show Norton is also the #1 exploited AntiVirus.  The bad guys don’t like the really good guys.  So Norton will take more resources and come back bigger, better and stronger…until it’s exploited again.  And the vicious cycle never ends.

So, our current recommendation and winner of this article’s Best AntiVirus goes to…Trend Micro.  It covers all the vectors, doesn’t eat alot of resources, doesn’t come back to our shop with viruses or malware and the bad guys are too busy with Norton to target Trend Micro.