Choosing The Best Antivirus Software

When choosing antivirus its important to choose one which suits your own particlar needs! There’s hundreds to choose from and can all vary massively. So where do you start?

First of all you want to understand what type of computer user you are. Do you bank online? Download files from unverified sources? Are you a Windows or Mac user? Do you use your mobile for browsing the internet? All of these factors need to be considered when searching for the best antivirus.

All antivirus providers will come with a protection plan and a firewall of some sort. This will be the main feature of the software and will allow for scanning, removing and quarantining threats on your device. So if this comes on all security suites, how do you know which one to get? Well, you need to look out for a feature called ‘Real-time protection’ (RTP). This allows the software to run in the background and constantly monitor your device. Why is this necessary? Without RTP, threats could easily attack your machine without you or your antivirus knowing, so if the software isn’t constantly running it will have no idea about the system changes you could be making to the device, and therefore will allow you to install a malicious threat on your PC. Until an auto/manual scan has been run the antivirus won’t be aware of the virus attack and by this time could be well too late!

Extra features like internet browser protection, multiple device support, cross platform support (PC, tablet, mobile etc.) and system boosters are other popular and very handy tools. These can be vital for some users, especially with the massive rise in mobile device use, mobile protection has never been so important. This should help make you choose the best antivirus software.

Another massive point to consider is support. If the company you choose cannot provide quality support then you could run into serious issues from the word go. You ideally need 24/7 support in the form of live chat, email and phone, so if you were to encounter an issue you know that a support representative is only a phone call away.

We believe malware detection scores from independent test institutes such as; av-test, virus bulletin, and av-comparatives are important when selecting your virus protection. We have collated some scores for you, however we don't display by test scores alone, many factors are used.

Independent Test Labs

Virus BullitinAV ComparativesAV Test
The Top 10 AntiVirus

We do our best to keep all information up to date and accurate but cannot guarantee this due to the constantly changing antivirus landscape. We receive advertising revenue from some antivirus software we feature to showcase their products. This impacts the location and order in which the companies are presented, plus additonal banner advertising and site behavior such as direct download buttons. For more information please see here

Compare Antivirus
How we rank

So you can choose your perfect antivirus use our filters to choose the features you require. As default we list antivirus providers by top affiliated. You can change how we sort this list using the sort by filer and select; Most Popular, Top Featured or Lowest Price. Most popular uses total number of unique clicks sent to each antivirus over the last 7 days. Top Featured positions are chosen by the webmaster, we receive advertising revenue from some antivirus providers and this impacts the order which the webmaster chooses. Lowest price lets you list by lowest price first. We do not include every plan from each antivirus we use the price for the plan which we link to and this may not be the lowest price available.