Need Anti-Virus Recommendations

1Wolf

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
433
Hello.

I've purchased a new hybrid tablet/laptop for my mother for Christmas. It runs Windows 10 and I'll need to install some anti-virus protection for her so was hoping to get some recommendations.

I see there is a similar thread here about anti-virus recommendations, however, I have some specific requirements so I wanted to start a separate thread.

My mother is elderly and so the anti-virus package needs to be simple to use, largely invisible, and not too invasive on the machine. The updates need to be largely invisible, automated, and simple. The whole thing really needs to be simple for her. She doesn't know anything about anti-virus.

Free is, of course, great...however payware is fine too as long as the subscription model is easy.

Once installed, at a later date, if she wants to get rid of it I want it to not be too terribly invasive so it can be uninstalled completely.

On her current laptop, she had been running ESET NOD32. She isn't opposed to continuing to use ESET on the new machine, however she had a very bad experience with that company. They pushed out an update to her machine about a year ago and it borked everything badly. I don't know *what* it did to her machine, and I don't know if she played any part in it, but once that update was done it was really borked. I didn't know what it had done or how to fix it so she called their support and they were horribly un-helpful.

Thanks!
 
My mother is elderly and so the anti-virus package needs to be simple to use, largely invisible, and not too invasive on the machine. The updates need to be largely invisible, automated, and simple. The whole thing really needs to be simple for her. She doesn't know anything about anti-virus.

Free is, of course, great...however payware is fine too as long as the subscription model is easy.

Once installed, at a later date, if she wants to get rid of it I want it to not be too terribly invasive so it can be uninstalled completely.

I vote for Bitdefender. Lightweight, unobtrusive, and free. It just stays out of the way and does its job. Also uninstalls easily and cleanly in my experience.

https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html
 
Avira is another option if you are still looking!
Fairly unobtrusive and works pretty well for me
 
I use the paid version of Bitdefender. I’m not even sure how it differs from the free version...

You can usually get a year for $20 if you poke around for coupons. Or you can cover three devices for $30 year (with coupons as well).
 
I switched from Avira to GData a few years ago. It has bitdefender as one of its two engines. Out of the 800 or so endpoints i have deployed it on, none have gotten viruses or had problems of that nature. It catches a lot of stuff and actually does something useful about what it does catches.
 
Just wanted to say thanks for the recommendations and advice :)

I decided to give bitdefender a shot and so far, that really seems to be the ticket. It seems to have a small footprint, and its simple enough for my mother to understand. Its a nice simple panel when you need to open it and doesn't have a million cryptic settings that she doesn't understand.

Thanks!
 
Avast Free

Ive been using Avast on my kids and parents PC's for over 15 years. Its great, free, and they add features regularly. Its simple and doesnt slow down your PC like some other paid ones.

Many people don't know this but Avast bought AVG years back, if you were a fan of AVG, its DNA lives on in Avast.

They also have an android app I've found helpful on my Moms phone where my nieces/nephews tend to install junk on her phone.
 
Ive been using Avast on my kids and parents PC's for over 15 years. Its great, free, and they add features regularly. Its simple and doesnt slow down your PC like some other paid ones.

Many people don't know this but Avast bought AVG years back, if you were a fan of AVG, its DNA lives on in Avast.

They also have an android app I've found helpful on my Moms phone where my nieces/nephews tend to install junk on her phone.
Avast had a massive security breach of epic proportions with their CCleaner app being used as a Trojan horse for massive baddies and I have some trust issues with them now.
 
Avast had a massive security breach of epic proportions with their CCleaner app being used as a Trojan horse for massive baddies and I have some trust issues with them now.
never install optional components and download avast DIRECTLY from their site. stay with the core. ccleaner does not exist on my box.
 
never install optional components and download avast DIRECTLY from their site. stay with the core. ccleaner does not exist on my box.
Their own servers were compromised. It had nothing to do with optional installs or downloading from third-party sites. The infected application came directly from them.
 
ccleaner is not part of the antivirus suite, although some users have had ccleaner install the antivirus - I don't see any incidents in reverse where installing the AV pushes CCleaner.. This issue is from 9/2017 and was resolved. Also - this was the 32 bit version of CCleaner only.
 
ccleaner is not part of the antivirus suite, although some users have had ccleaner install the antivirus - I don't see any incidents in reverse where installing the AV pushes CCleaner.. This issue is from 9/2017 and was resolved. Also - this was the 32 bit version of CCleaner only.
I know it was resolved. I’m just stating why I’m a bit weary of the company. I used to use Avast exclusively back in the day because they had a really easy boot level scan method that many other suites didn’t have at the time.
 
I know it was resolved. I’m just stating why I’m a bit weary of the company. I used to use Avast exclusively back in the day because they had a really easy boot level scan method that many other suites didn’t have at the time.

Having had nearly 400 client end points on Avast for the last 15 years I never heard of an issue with any type of "data breach."

CCleaner is a piriform software program and not related to avast at all. Are you sure you didnt use a 3rd party installer like ninite that caused the issue.
 
thanks for the heads up, I was unaware and understand the apprehension. Got burned by OPNSense auto-update / hack but the fanaticism is strong here so I dont even bother mentioning it anymore really. Not worth it.
 
Having had nearly 400 client end points on Avast for the last 15 years I never heard of an issue with any type of "data breach."

CCleaner is a piriform software program and not related to avast at all. Are you sure you didnt use a 3rd party installer like ninite that caused the issue.
Piriform was acquired by Avast before this breach. They’re owned by Avast. This was a pretty big story in the news for a while.
 
Piriform was acquired by Avast before this breach. They’re owned by Avast. This was a pretty big story in the news for a while.

Wow, I honestly can't believe I missed that. In my defense I've been on contract for the last 2 years while my office is holding the fort down. I admit defeat, and applaud you for teaching me today.
 
You can open an Ally bank account(free) and they provide you a subscription free to Webroot. No minimum balance required.
 
Wow, I honestly can't believe I missed that. In my defense I've been on contract for the last 2 years while my office is holding the fort down. I admit defeat, and applaud you for teaching me today.
Interesting read if you missed it. This was the big reason why we had to remove Teamviewer, Logmein, and all other remote programs from our environments. To be fair, Avast bought Piriform and discovered it was compromised before it got bought, so it wasn't really a technical/developmental fault of Avast, but more of an acquisition due diligence failure. Some liked how Avast handled the issue and have stuck with them for AV.
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-unnerving-supply-chain-attack-that-corrupted-ccleaner/

Most recently, I've switched to picking something from Ninite during new installs, out of laziness/convenience and then use a backup system like backblaze to handle everything full downtimes. I've resolved to expecting family computers to crash/get infected at the most inopportune times and restoring from backup/new install is sometimes the fastest solution.
 
None all virus scanners suck.

I agree here thus why I just stick with Windows defender that's built in and can never really be totally disabled.. Loading up your browser with security extensions is a better solution than a whole sale scanning engine.

UBlock, HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger and No Script in browser and a thorough review of my OS settings when out in public before allowing anything outside in.
 
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