It also receives just a Good rating for data privacy. HitmanPro Alert, $55, posts some of the lowest scores in our ratings when it comes to malware protection, without offering any meaningful extras. Our advertising rating helps you determine how troublesome those pop-ups can be.īut opening your wallet does not guarantee you a better product. “They can be almost as annoying as adware that pops up on social media and other websites, and constantly bugs you to buy something,” he says. One paid Windows antivirus option, Trend Micro Internet Security, lost the recommended status it used to have because it did not protect users from as many viruses as it did in our previous test.Īnother benefit to a paid program? With one of these, you don’t get peppered with pop-ups asking you to upgrade from the free version, Fisco says. In addition to F-Secure Safe, paid options that score well in our ratings include Kaspersky Internet Security, Bitdefender Internet Security, Norton 360 Deluxe, Eset Internet Security, AVG Internet Security, and Avast Premium Security. Other paid products provide firewalls, spam filters, password managers, and email protections. Case in point: In addition to its top-rated malware-fighting abilities, F-Secure Safe offers a parental filter and banking protection, along with anti-ransomware and antispyware technology.

Shelling out money-generally $40 to $70-does get you additional protection, says Richard Fisco, who heads electronics testing at CR. The Windows 10 Defender software that comes installed on new Windows computers didn’t offer strong enough data security protections to receive CR’s recommendation this time around, but it did receive an Excellent rating for data privacy, primarily because built-in protection does not expose your personal data to any additional third parties. Our testers rate the company’s software Very Good, overall, for data privacy. The company says it has since ceased this practice. AVG Antivirus Free, Kaspersky Security Cloud Free, and Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition also perform well.Īvast, which also owns AVG-branded antivirus products, came under fire in 2020 when it was revealed that the company was using its antivirus products to collect user data, which it then sold. Avast Free Antivirus gets high marks from our testers for its ability to stop threats against Windows computers. You don’t have to pay for solid protection.

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