antivirus not equal. compare antivirus.If you think all antivirus software is created equal think again. I’m consistently surprised by how many people I meet and talk with that just use whatever antivirus software comes their way. This morning I was talking with an individual and as I do, I asked him what product he was using. He told me he was using Norton and had paid for it for a year. When I asked him why he was using Norton and why he had paid for it, he didn’t really have an answer for me. He didn’t know why he was using that product, and he didn’t know that there were FREE alternatives. Computer manufactures and antivirus vendors work together closely to suck people into buying their products. If you spend any time on my blog, you’ll find quickly that I don’t think any home users should ever have to pay for antivirus software. AVG Free is my primary recommendation, but there are other great antivirus products out there, all it takes is a little research.

Some AV products should be avoided!
Virus Bulletin
conducts independent malware research and analyzes a host of antivirus products on a regular basis. Recently the ran their comparative on a big selection of popular AV products, using a Windows XP platform (tests conducted in April 2010), you may be surprised how many failed. A brief mention of some of the failures includes,
Microsoft Security Essentials, Lavasoft, Norman, Checkpoint, Frisk, Fortinet, Sunbelt and Ikarus (there are others). See all the results, here.

Some AV products deserve awards!
And on the other hand you have products that are highly effective and deserve to be noticed. Virus Bulletin’s same test concluded that the following products make the grade: Kaspersky Antivirus 2010, AVG, Avira, BitDefender, McAfee, E-Set, F-Secure, and Webroot (just to name a few). You may notice the ones I mentioned are ones I also personally recommend.

Do your research
Again, I reinforce that home users should not have need to pay for antivirus protection. But don’t just use anything. Do your research, and find out what is the most effective antivirus program for you.