Introduction
An anti-virus is a program that you download onto your computer and is used to prevent, detect, and remove viruses and other forms of malware. An anti-virus is extremely important to have with the incredible advancements in technology being made, online threats have become far more dangerous as well.
Choosing the Right Anti-Virus
There are a lot of options on the market when it comes to anti-viruses. McAfee, Norton, Kaspersky, etc. They are some of the most common names associated to anti-viruses across the U.S. Each of them has certain pros and cons that make them stand out. McAfee is the most common anti-virus and is actually the largest anti-virus in the world. However, this does not mean it is the best anti-virus.
Anti-Viruses to Stay Away From
In today’s day and age, the anti-viruses of the past have begun to slow down and fall behind. Mostly relying on their name and smart marketing schemes, anti-viruses such as Norton & McAfee have slowly become one of the worst anti-viruses due it’s unreliable system and extreme resource use. Anti-viruses such as these take nearly 1/3 of your computers processing power and have failed in catching many forms of malware. Norton owns Symantec and between the two anti-viruses their data centers have been breached over a dozen times.
Then there are untrustworthy anti-viruses such as Kaspersky or Avast. Kaspersky has faced controversy due to its ties with the Russian government and was exposed of selling personal information to the Russian government. Avast has done the SAME THING but with Chinese officials and Chinese companies. Both Avast & Kaspersky are currently BANNED by the U.S Department of Homeland Security from all government departments.
Ontop of all that, nearly all these anti-viruses are very expensive and are always trying to sell you something more. They come jam packed with more bloatware and ads the second you install them onto your computer.
Recommended Anti-Viruses
The anti-virus we recommend is ESET. ESET is currently the best consumer anti-virus on the market and has worked alongside multiple companies such as Google and Microcenter by offering them the best protection and using little to no resources. ESET’s top of the line antivirus, the smart security package, takes 2.3% of your computers resources while Norton or McAfee require nearly 25%-30%. ESET has been accredited for breaking the major ransomware virus of 2017-2018 that held many hospital patient files on hold until payment has been sent. It is the anti-virus that we use here at Zari Computers and we swear by it.
The runner ups to ESET would go to Trend Micro and Bit Defender, both of those anti-viruses are great when it comes to stopping viruses and malware but are just very bulky and require a lot of resources to run. While they aren’t as bad as McAfee or Norton, they take nearly 1/5 of your computers power to run and are generally more expensive as well.
In Conclusion
The best way you can tell if your anti-virus is working is when you forget that is there. An anti-virus should always be working in the background protecting you while still allowing you to work and game. Therefore, our most recommended anti-virus is ESET. Zari Computers will only offer the best of the best to our customers and ESET is that. On our shop we currently have the lowest prices on the market!