Antivirus, Enterprise, Internet Security

6 Criteria to Choose the Best Antivirus Program

Computers have become the bread and butter in our everyday lives so choosing the best antivirus program is essential. These ‘computers’ come in many forms, today almost everyone owns multiple devices. This all leave us exposed on many fronts and causes difficult challenges when it comes to protection.

Published 9 years ago in
6 Criteria to Choose the Best Antivirus Program

Computers have become the bread and butter in our everyday lives so choosing the best antivirus program is essential. These ‘computers’ come in many forms, today almost everyone owns multiple devices. This all leave us exposed on many fronts and causes difficult challenges when it comes to protection.

There are many ways in which a device can be exploited, though the most common ways are through some sort of social engineering often leading to downloading or opening viruses or malware. In such a situation, you need the best antivirus program that will be able to delete, block and repair damaged files.

At a basic level antivirus software is simply a program that scans your device for any malware or suspicious files. If any are found the program will try to clean up (delete) the infected files from your computer with the aim of keeping your data safe and secure. Of course modern antivirus programs are very complex and use various methods to detect and clean up exploits.

The questions remains then, how do I choose the best antivirus software? It’s a crowded market with many antivirus providers to choose from. While each developer boasts of being the best, you need to think of an intelligent approach that will allows you to choose the best antivirus program.

With that being said, this article will highlight 6 criteria or tips to keep in mind when choosing the best antivirus software.

1. Compatibility

The first thing you need to think of when choosing the right antivirus is whether or not it will be compatible with your devices. Some Antivirus programs will cover Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone whilst others only specialise in certain platforms, you can often buy Antivirus packages which will cover all your devices and allow you to manage these through a cloud portal.

2. Performance

No one likes to admit it but antivirus programs can cause performance issues, especially if they are running a scan. If you’re running brand new mid to high end hardware you probably won’t notice it but if you have an ageing PC or phone you will likely notice it more.

Ensure you don’t have more than one antivirus program installed as this can cause a range of compatibility issues as well as general performance problems.

3. Price

Smart customers always check the price tag before purchasing a product. In the antivirus category, it’s essential that you first look at the price offer before deciding on what to buy. In some cases, reputable manufacturers will opt to offer freemium products. Other manufacturers will offer a trial period in order for your to evaluate the product.

4. Level of protection

Not all Antivirus programs are born equal and the feature list can be expansive and confusing. At a basic level you need cover which will detect and clean exploits from files, websites and email. Antivirus packages might also bundle firewalls, encryption and management through cloud portals.

Modern Antivirus programs will also be able to detect and stop crypto-malware attacks.

5. Speed of updates

Hackers are always inventing new exploits so its important that your antivirus vendor is quick to release updates. These are often called virus definitions and its not unusual for your antivirus software to update multiple times per week.

6. Support

The best authentic antivirus programs must offer a comprehensive technical support to all its customers. Such a program must be capable of offering both offline and online support. Always look for a vendor that offers customer support via email, phone or live chat.

To conclude on finding the best antivirus programs…

Before making any step to buy antivirus software, always take your time to study the market for a trusted manufacturer that offers the best products. To check whether a vendor is reputable or not, check product’s ranking on websites such as Whitch or AV-TEST to ensure that it offers the best security features for your device.

For some suggestions on choosing the best antivirus program for your needs, check out our article – Top 5 antivirus programs for 2018.

/ / /

Be the first to write a comment.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Antivirus

Bitdefender Family parental control review

If you’re looking for a comprehensive online security suite for your family that also includes parental controls, Bitdefender is one of the best options right now. It’s a well-known security provider offering an award-winning antivirus program, along with a password manager, VPN, and identity theft protection. But does its parental control offering, which is bundled

Published 3 days ago in
Bitdefender Family parental control review

If you’re looking for a comprehensive online security suite for your family that also includes parental controls, Bitdefender is one of the best options right now. It’s a well-known security provider offering an award-winning antivirus program, along with a password manager, VPN, and identity theft protection.

But does its parental control offering, which is bundled with its Family plans and not available via a standalone subscription or even a dedicated app, compete against the best parental control apps?

Read on as we dissect the various parental control features it offers, what they cost, how easy the dashboard is to use every day, and what the top competitors offer.

    Bitdefender Premium Security Family subscription options:

  • $99.99/year at Bitdefender

Bitdefender parental control review: Plans and pricing

Bitdefender no longer offers its parental control features as a standalone subscription. You’d have to get one of its four family plans. But note that its entire suite of parental control features is available with each of these four plans.

The Total Security Family plan starts at $79.99 for the first year and covers up to 25 devices across five family members. At this price, the cost boils down to around $16 per member per year, which is more affordable than many other parental control applications. Not to forget that, for the price, you also get 24/7 real-time antivirus protection for up to 25 devices, as well as a password manager.

Bitdefender Family pricing

(Image credit: Bitdefender)

Next is the Premium Security Plan, which costs $99.99 for the first year and also comes with scam protection, AI-based scam protection, and a VPN with 4,000+ servers in 50+ countries. The Ultimate Security Family Plan and the Ultimate Security Plus Family Plan cost $119.99 and $199.99 for the first year, respectively.

The former comes with dark web monitoring and identity theft protection features such as an identity protection score and real-time breach notifications, while the latter also includes $2 million in identity theft insurance, three-bureau credit monitoring, and other bank, credit card, and investment alerts.

Bitdefender parental control review: Features

One of the standout Bitdefender parental control features is the ability to set screen-time schedules for your children, who would only be able to access their devices during the allowed time intervals.

Along with this, Bitdefender also offers several preset routines: Focus Time, Family Time, and Bedtime, which you can customize as per your child’s daily activity and schedule.

Bitdefender parental control dashboard

(Image credit: Bitdefender)

There’s also a pretty handy internet time management feature, which allows you to control how much time your child spends on the internet during a day. A nice addition is the ability to reward extra screen time for your children for responsible online use.

In addition to internet scheduling, parents can also choose to cut off internet access directly on their child’s device using Bitdefender’s Stop Internet feature.

Bitdefender parental control dashboard

(Image credit: Bitdefender)

Bitdefender also offers predefined age-appropriate filtering categories to help you filter out inappropriate content such as porn, betting, or online gaming for your children. As with screen time, you can also fine-tune these filters to better suit your child’s day-to-day use.

Apart from category-level filtering, parents can also allowlist or blocklist specific URLs individually, in case you want to go beyond the category selection.

Bitdefender parental control dashboard

(Image credit: Bitdefender)

Parents can set up to five child profiles, each with the child’s name, photo, and birth date. Bitdefender automatically applies age-appropriate filtering as soon as the profile is created, which parents can then edit as per their needs.

Along with this, there’s also location tracking, which helps you know where your child is on an interactive map at all times.

Bitdefender parental control dashboard

(Image credit: Bitdefender)

Lastly, there’s Safe Search, which lets you remove explicit and harmful results from search engines, as well as YouTube restrictions, which ensure your child only views age-appropriate videos on the platform.

However, note that content filtering and safe browsing require an active VPN connection to function, as per Bitdefender’s listing on the Google Play Store.

Bitdefender parental control review: Interface and in-use

Bitdefender parental control works across Android, Windows, iOS, and macOS. That said, Windows and Android get full, unrestricted enforcement of every feature, whereas macOS and iOS are noticeably more limited, largely due to Apple’s own platform restrictions.

For instance, iOS content filtering runs through Apple’s Screen Time and not Bitdefender’s own engine. Parents have to create a child account through Apple ID, then Bitdefender’s app hooks into Apple’s Screen Time restrictions rather than doing its own independent content filtering.

However, the setup is pretty simple. You just have to download the app on your child’s own device. Unlike other parental control applications, you can’t download the app on your child’s phone remotely – you’ll need physical access to the device to do so.

One thing worth noticing is that, after the 2025 overhaul, parental control is no longer configured within the Bitdefender Central mobile app, but from the Bitdefender Central web dashboard, which can still be accessed through the mobile application.

Bitdefender parental control dashboard

(Image credit: Bitdefender)

Once you’re on this dashboard, day-to-day use is genuinely easy. Bitdefender’s Activity Dashboard is filled with several graphs and charts, which allow you to check your child’s phone activity at just a glance.

For example, there’s a bar chart showing their daily internet time over the past few days, as well as a pie chart showing their current day’s internet usage along with their remaining time. The dashboard also gives parents visibility into what’s actually being blocked and when.

Bitdefender parental control dashboard

(Image credit: Bitdefender)

The Prevented Content Access panel is a running log of every link blocked on the child’s device over the past 7 or 30 days. This allows you to see whether your filtering settings are actually able to catch anything, or whether your child is repeatedly trying to search for restricted websites on their device.

Bitdefender par

Read More

Continue Reading
Internet Security

Six Egyptian Men Arrested Following Abduction and Sexual Assault Video

Security authorities in Giza have arrested six individuals, including five students and a delivery worker, following the viral spread of a social media video depicting the violent abduction of a young woman in broad daylight. Investigators tracked down the victim, who lives in the Al-Ahram area…

Published 5 days ago in
Six Egyptian Men Arrested Following Abduction and Sexual Assault Video

Security authorities in Giza have arrested six individuals, including five students and a delivery worker, following the viral spread of a social media video depicting the violent abduction of a young woman in broad daylight. Investigators tracked down the victim, who lives in the Al-Ahram area…
Read More

Continue Reading
Antivirus

Microsoft Defender briefly decided Google Search was malware

You can pay every month for Office 365’s productivity tools, but you still can’t escape Microsoft Defender’s habit of turning everyday links into fake security alerts. On September 2, Office 365 subscribers ran into an unusual incident: Redmond’s endpoint antivirus engine began flagging Google Search results as potentially malicious URLs.Read Entire Article…

Published 2 weeks ago in
Microsoft Defender briefly decided Google Search was malware

You can pay every month for Office 365’s productivity tools, but you still can’t escape Microsoft Defender’s habit of turning everyday links into fake security alerts. On September 2, Office 365 subscribers ran into an unusual incident: Redmond’s endpoint antivirus engine began flagging Google Search results as potentially malicious URLs.Read Entire Article…
Read More

Continue Reading
Internet Security

PSA: In the latest GTA 6 leak’s aftermath, it’s not a good idea to download files with names like totallylegitgta6leakedbuild.exe

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Home News Grand Theft Auto VI PSA: In the latest GTA 6 leak’s aftermath, it’s not a good idea to download files with names like totallylegitgta6leakedbuild.exe Also beware anything dubbed certainlynotavirusthisisgta6myboy.exe Image credit: Rockstar Games

Published 2 weeks ago in
PSA: In the latest GTA 6 leak’s aftermath, it’s not a good idea to download files with names like totallylegitgta6leakedbuild.exe

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

PSA: In the latest GTA 6 leak’s aftermath, it’s not a good idea to download files with names like totallylegitgta6leakedbuild.exe

Also beware anything dubbed certainlynotavirusthisisgta6myboy.exe

A drug deal in GTA 6.
Image credit: Rockstar Games


Mark Warren avatar

News

by Mark Warren
Senior Staff Writer

Published on

13 comments

While scammers and other ne’er-do-wells leaning into the allure of playing GTA 6 as part of their efforts to spread malware isn’t anything new – cybersecurity companies have been issuing warnings about it for months – there appears to have been an uptick in such behaviour following the latest GTA 6 leak. With speculation rampant as to what exactly the hackers known as Cyberleek may have access to, now is not the time to be downloading any files claiming to be GTA 6.

(more…)

Continue Reading