The marketplace is flooded with anti-virus solutions, some paid, some free. This guide is designed to list some of the ones that are worth considering from both the free and paid options. Please note this is not designed to list every single option in the market and is not scoring them in any such order – it is simply designed to give you a brief review of the ones that we typically come across and have installed.
We would always recommend paid software if it can be afforded (at around £30 per year anti-virus is relatively inexpensive for that piece of mind) but if you really can’t afford the paid option then as a bare minimum ensure you have some protection.
Free
In our eyes still probably the best of the free solutions although the others are coming up fast. Has got more bloated over the years and does come bundled with other unnecessary add-on’s, such as it’s “tune up” utility but generally we find this is one that doesn’t interfere with your other computer applications.
Good application that provides similar levels of protection to AVG but have found it can interfere with sending and receiving email from time to time. AVAST and AVG have now merged and do share the same core database so over time you will see these become one application.
An application that is improving over time and worth considering. Has a good review score for dealing with threats but can be over persistent with pop ups.
Probably the lightest of all the applications in this guide (although not as light as Panda might claim). Ideal if you want some protection but want slightly less computer memory usage than some of the others.
Paid
An excellent all-rounder. Good for home and small to medium business. Kaspersky is generally not too memory hungry but still provides good protection.
An excellent application – more set for the business market. Can be more pricey than some of the others but it has an excellent reputation as perhaps the gold standard in anti-virus security.
An ok application designed for both home and small business. Generally offers good protection although can block genuine applications and email at times.
Norton doesn’t have the greatest long term reputation – going back over 10 years. Historically has always been a bloated and over protective application and whilst thing have improved, they haven’t improved enough to compete with Sophos or Kaspersky
An ever improving application that is well thought of and well reviewed. This offers excellent protection but can be slightly memory hungry but does offer a web protection plugin with it. New versions also come with a password manager.