Choosing Anti-virus Software

Choosing which antivirus package to use can be a daunting task. But that’s not a good reason to delay getting antivirus software onto your PC. Any antivirus software is better than no antivirus software.

Which Edition

Antivirus software falls into two basic camps, corporate and home-user/small office. The corporate versions usually have less bells and whistles than the home-users version, but are designed to be managed centrally, with settings and virus updated distributed from a central server. If you only have a small office, with no-one to manage your IT day-to-day, then the standard home editions are recommended as they are designed to be run by end users and are almost self managing.

What to look for

When choosing antivirus software, it's important to check out what features each package offers.

Many antivirus vendors are now bundling their home-user/small office editions with firewall, anti-spam and browser protection software, making them very good value for money. We are only going to cover home-user/small business editions in this guide.

Free or Payed for Software

There are Antivirus packages available that are free for non-commercial use, as well as the standard payed for packages (such as Norton or McAfee). Some are written by individuals, others by companies, and all offer differing levels of features and support. Generally, those packages that are provided by companies who charge for commercial use of their antivirus software will have the resources to provide hopefully faster updates and more features in their free versions, than software written by individuals. We would recommend evaluating free antivirus software with the same criteria as payed for software before making a decision.
Related Links
What is a trojan, virus and worm
Antivirus Guide
Updating Your Anti-virus Software
Why You Need Anti-virus Software

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