Antivirus

K7 Antivirus Premium

K7 Computing may not have the profile of the big-name competition, but there’s more to the Indian company than you might think: 25+ years of antivirus experience, VirusTotal and OPSWAT partners, a range of home and business products, and more than 20 million users around the world.K7 Antivirus Premium is the starter product in the…

Published 7 years ago in
K7 Antivirus Premium


K7 Computing may not have the profile of the big-name competition, but there’s more to the Indian company than you might think: 25+ years of antivirus experience, VirusTotal and OPSWAT partners, a range of home and business products, and more than 20 million users around the world.

K7 Antivirus Premium is the starter product in the range, but don’t assume that means it’s short on features. There’s antivirus, exploit protection, a firewall, device control, USB vaccination, basic system clean-up tools and a virtual keyboard.

  • You can sign up for K7 Antivirus Premium here

There’s also a notable omission, though, in the lack of any URL filtering. Many antivirus packages will try to detect and block access to malicious or phishing websites, but not this one.

Single user pricing is good, with the package costing a mere $25 for a one device, one-year license. Kaspersky Anti-Virus doesn’t have all the functionality of K7 Antivirus Premium, but it’s noticeably more expensive at $32.50 (£25).

Add users and years and it’s a little different. A five device, two-year license for K7 Antivirus Premium is $100; an equivalent Kaspersky license is a near identical $104 (£80). K7 still looks like good value for the features you get, but the price advantages fade if you opt for a multi-user license.

If you’re intrigued by the lengthy feature list and low price, a free 30-day trial gives you a risk-free way to find out more.

Setup

Setup

The K7 Antivirus Premium installer looked very simple, just a ‘View EULA’ link and an ‘Install’ button, with not as much as a ‘choose your installation folder’ option to get in the way. So, we tapped Install and watched as the setup window disappeared, and – didn’t return. No ‘Done’ message, no ‘Please reboot’ advice, nothing at all.

Task Manager didn’t show any running installer, but the process didn’t seem to have finished properly, either (there was no K7 shortcut on our desktop, nothing on the Start menu, no K7 icon in our system tray.) 

We rebooted, and a K7 icon appeared in our system tray. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t respond to our left or right-clicks, just displaying a tooltip of ‘Activation Pending.’ After a few minutes, pop-ups asked us if we wanted to activate and update the package, but when we clicked ‘yes please’, warned us that the update had failed, and we should reinstall.

While this sounds easy, it really wasn’t. Just as had happened in our last K7 review (though for different reasons), our first installation was broken. When we ran the installer again, it told us K7 Antivirus Premium was installed already and we should uninstall it; when we tried to run the uninstaller, it told us the process had failed and we should reinstall. Deadlock.

Activation

We went to work, finding and running K7’s cleanup tool ourselves, cleaning our temporary folders, rebooting, closing all non-essential apps, trying K7’s installer again, and – this time, we appeared to be in

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Antivirus

Your antivirus is probably slowing your PC more than protecting it

Antivirus is one of the first things most people install on a new PC. After all, nobody wants malware ruining their PC or, worse, stealing their data. And to be fair, most popular antivirus suites do a decent job of protecting your PC. But the problem is, they aren’t exactly optimized to be lean or

Published 3 weeks ago in
Your antivirus is probably slowing your PC more than protecting it

Antivirus is one of the first things most people install on a new PC. After all, nobody wants malware ruining their PC or, worse, stealing their data. And to be fair, most popular antivirus suites do a decent job of protecting your PC. But the problem is, they aren’t exactly optimized to be lean or lightweight. And things have become even worse ever since antivirus suites have started bundling extras like VPNs, parental controls, and browser add-ons.

All of this leaves the apps and games you actually use with fewer resources, which causes frequent slowdowns and even lag. So the uncomfortable irony is that the software meant to protect your PC ends up being the very thing holding it back.

How antivirus software can slow down your PC

When constant protection becomes constant pressure

TippaPatt</a>/Rawpixel</a>/Shutterstock””>

person using antivirus scanning tool-1
Miker Rivero/MakeUseOf/TippaPatt/ShutterstockRawpixel/Shutterstock
Credit: Miker Rivero/MakeUseOf/TippaPatt/Rawpixel/Shutterstock

Antivirus softwares love to present themselves as silent protectors. Always watching, always keeping you safe, and never getting in your way. Sure enough, part of this is true. They work in the background, but it’s not without any impact.

Antivirus programs work by scanning files as they are opened, downloaded, copied, or modified. That means every app you launch and every document you touch triggers a quick inspection. There are also the scheduled scans, which often run when you least expect them. So if your PC has ever felt slow, even when you’ve got nothing running, it’s probably the antivirus program combing through your files in the background.

Now, the performance hit isn’t the same every time. During light, routine scans, the impact can be minimal, anywhere from 0 to 20 percent. However, during full or partial scans, this can rise up to as high as 50 percent. The impact also varies depending on the antivirus program you’re using. Some are lightweight and efficient, while others are far more demanding.

Most of the time, you may not even notice this slowdown. But as soon as you start gaming, editing videos, or running any resource-intensive apps, the story will change. That’s when both your app or game and antivirus program start to compete for the same system resources, and the performance takes a hit.

To make matters worse, modern antivirus rarely sticks to just antivirus duties. Most of them come bundled with all sorts of extras, like VPNs, password managers, and system optimizers. All of these extras run separate processes. So yes, it’s not just one program you’re dealing with. Your PC is actually running multiple different software under a single name.

You can verify if the antivirus is the bottleneck

Be sure before you act

!–>

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Antivirus

If you’re struggling to play tactics sim Menace, it could be because your antivirus is randomly deleting files

This week saw the early access launch of turn-based tactics game Menace, created by the piss-swigging misanthropes behind Battle Brothers. Julian has been having a wonderful time playing it and learning about the importance of spare ammo and adequate reconnaissance. It could have been worse, Julian…

Published 3 weeks ago in
If you’re struggling to play tactics sim Menace, it could be because your antivirus is randomly deleting files

This week saw the early access launch of turn-based tactics game Menace, created by the piss-swigging misanthropes behind Battle Brothers. Julian has been having a wonderful time playing it and learning about the importance of spare ammo and adequate reconnaissance. It could have been worse, Julian…
Read More

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Antivirus

You don’t need to pay for third-party antivirus software to protect your PC anymore

Summary Most consumer devices already come with strong default security measures equivalent to or better than third-party software. Common vectors of attack for malware are already blocked by modern systems before they even reach your antivirus program. Individual consumer PCs are not a primary target for cybercriminals, and cyberattacks are often conducted by exploiting vulnerabilities

Published 4 weeks ago in
You don’t need to pay for third-party antivirus software to protect your PC anymore

Summary

  • Most consumer devices already come with strong default security measures equivalent to or better than third-party software.
  • Common vectors of attack for malware are already blocked by modern systems before they even reach your antivirus program.
  • Individual consumer PCs are not a primary target for cybercriminals, and cyberattacks are often conducted by exploiting vulnerabilities against third-party software, not the computer OS itself.

Do you still pay for third-party antivirus software like Norton or McAfee? You may be surprised to learn that there’s no real benefit to doing so. Software like this is mostly obsolete today.

Who pays for third-party antivirus software, and why?

It might sound like a bold claim, saying that you don’t need third-party antivirus software anymore. After all, recent statistics show that roughly half of American consumers use such programs. Interestingly enough, those same statistics also show that users over 65 are more than twice as likely to subscribe to paid antivirus software than those under 45.

Why is that? Well, there is certainly more than one reason, but a big one is simply misunderstanding and tradition.

In the past, having third-party antivirus software was prudent, almost mandatory to keep your computer safe. Some people who grew up in that era are comfortable with the idea of paying for these subscriptions, not realizing that things have changed: your computer protects itself just fine these days.

Not only do computers come out of the box equipped with incredibly good security these days, but most malware threats aren’t even targeting individual consumers. But you don’t have to take my word for it right away. Let’s dive into this in more detail.

Default security measures are more than enough today

All of your consumer devices come with default protection right off the shelf. With iOS and Android, their official app stores weed out malware and keep you safe. Mac has been using XProtect anti-malware for more than a decade, and it has an excellent record.

A screen showing an update for Windows Defender on Windows 11. Credit: Microsoft

Windows has Microsoft Defender Antivirus, which has consistently aced security tests run by third-party organizations. Since around seven years ago, Defender Antivirus has consistently earned perfect or near-perfect scores in protecting your PC.

Needless to say, that’s as good as it gets, and the program comes free with your Windows computer. There’s no paid antivirus software that can outperform this free, default option from Microsoft. They may offer more features, but not more practical benefits. But even beyond these built-in systems, there are other re

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Antivirus

AV vendor goes to war with security shop over update server scare

eScan lawyers up after Morphisec claimed ‘critical supply-chain compromise’ A spat has erupted between antivirus vendor eScan and threat intelligence outfit Morphisec over who spotted an update server incident that disrupted some eScan customers earlier this month.……

Published 4 weeks ago in
AV vendor goes to war with security shop over update server scare

eScan lawyers up after Morphisec claimed ‘critical supply-chain compromise’ A spat has erupted between antivirus vendor eScan and threat intelligence outfit Morphisec over who spotted an update server incident that disrupted some eScan customers earlier this month.……
Read More

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