Windows 10: Is paying for antivirus a waste of money?

I have tried Trend Micro(trial) and Bitdefender(free) and found relatively little difference to (then on Windows 7) MSE, and Defender is the same thing now, so...

 

I was using 360 Total then changed to ZA but found Boot and shut down was slower !

 

From what I've seen the big difference with a paid AV is the features that you get beyond the core AV tool and if those additional tools are what you really want/need then it's worth the money. But,. if you just want a good AV the paid really are no better than the free. In fact some of the 3rd party AV's will bog your system down. SO,, my thought is I would either use a free or just stick with defender. I use it and I haven't had a virus in over 6 years and I do my online bill paying and banking with zero issues.

YMMV
Jeff

 

They were probably doing a scan which caused the slower boot/shutdown time.

 

Hi there

You are missing the point of backups -- BIG TIME if you think it's only useful to recover from Malware and virus attacks - that's probably the LEAST useful function if like me you've never had any problems with viruses etc. I've certainly hosed a computer up in a myriad of other ways and glad I've had the backups to fix it with.

here are all sorts of reasons

1) software update doesn't work or re-install fails on new OS etc.
2) OS upgrade doesn't work
3) accidentally deleted data
4) system broken via messing around with it - e.g wrong or accidental registry or other setting tweak etc
5) HDD fails (or other hardware malfunction)
6) You want to change to a newer HDD
7) Computer gets stolen / lost etc.
8) You buy a new computer and don't want all the bloatware that usually is pre-installed on these things.

Can think of a few other reasons too but you should have got the drift -- Backup is NEVER a waste of time and should always be taken regularly

Cheers
jimbo

 

u know that "COMMON SENSE" in human that the one often fail

thats why paid AV isnt waste of time/money as it give layer of security
user might dont realize they getting malware, and Internet Security do its job by either preventing user or removing malware before it infecting system

afaik malwarebytes PUP isnt that stupid, i havent look into it very much (ie. how it works etc.)
but so far, i havent got any stupid/fail detection
and there are lots way to detect either its its legit programs or PUP... like SHA/MD5, filesize, file-property compare and that just basic stuff

if it even cant detect renamed legit program, then it mean its scan-engine also broken, because it simply detect filename, instead scanning into deep into the file
and if malwarebyte that bad, i believe it wont be popular either... people nowdays not that stupid

 

I just tried it, Cliff, and I guess it didn't find anything. At least it didn't tell me it did. Nor did it tell me it didn't. *Smile

 

Nope, not at all. In fact, until Windows 8/8.1, the general consensus was that you don't use two AVs at the same time. Now it seems it's OK. I'd guess the reasoning for this is that Microsoft's AV is getting better and better, so now AV apps are being built that will tolerate each other. *Smile

 

Thanks, Jimbo. My sentiments perzackly! Well said.

 

Long years ago, I reviewed the two most popular AV programs out there; Norton and Mcafee. If you think AVs find false positives in this day and age, you should have seen the tactics used back then!

Both threw up flags: Looky, looky, looky what I found! Lemme get rid of that fer ya!

From that point on, I only used what Microsoft provided; mostly beta AV. Yes, I've gotten a virus or three, but mostly through my own stupidity.

 

Would I trust Defender to conduct my financial affairs on line, experience tells me most certainly not.
Avira, Mbam and Mbam Anti-Exploit suffice.....all free.
Plus of course multiple security identity measures taken by these businesses.

 

@Wynona,
You could import this Windows Defender Logs custom View into Event Viewer, and see what Defender has done, or found, or just browse its history if you like.

WindowsDefenderLogs_CustomView.zip

Just download, unblock, and extract.

Open Event Viewer, click action, choose "Import Custom View"




It will open a box and you need to find the Custom View your just extracted.




After applying it will show up here(I highlighted it in red)

 

Never heard of that, so, thanks, Cliff.

Interesting to find a lot of warnings about quick scans that had stopped before completion. Sometimes it is better to not delve too deeply!!

 

You're welcome.
It could be you shut down/sleep/restarted while Automatic Maintenance was going on. It's no big deal really because when Win10 is clean installed and Real time protection is running, you really don't even need to scan every day. When you download, open, move files Defender is looking first!

 

I use defender with online banking/bill paying and I have no issues.