


In real-world detection tests, free products missed 15.2 percent of samples, while paid products missed 10.2 percent of samples. This approach does require you to do your homework, though, and may be more complicated in the long run. For instance, you can start with Avast Free Antivirus, add PCTools’s Threatfire Free (which does a good job at bolstering malware detection), toss in one of the many firewalls available and a link-scanning utility to create your own custom security setup. You can augment a free tool’s basic security with countless security utilities. On the other hand, free products do give you some flexibility. And one company, Avast, says that its free product is intended for average users, and that its paid antivirus is for more advanced users. How about malware signature updates? The security software companies I spoke to tell me that they treat their free and paid products the same as far as signature updates are concerned, although there may be some under-the-hood differences between their free and paid products (as is the case with Panda’s software, for example).
#Bitdefender vs avira vs avast paid upgrade
Avast Free Antivirus has an upgrade link in the upper-right corner of the main window, and Avira AntiVir Personal will display an ad for Avira’s paid antivirus software. Avast does offer e-mail support for its free customers most others provide only a knowledge base or forum where users can go for help.Īnother tradeoff is that free antivirus products often have some sort of advertisement for the company’s paid product. While most companies offer some sort of phone support for paying customers, free antivirus users usually must fend for themselves. One of the biggest drawbacks to going with a free product is the lack of technical support.
