8 Criteria to Choose the Best Antivirus Program For Your Needs

There is no best antivirus program in general. You can make the best choice of your antivirus software depending of your goals, your needs and your environment. In order to choose your best antivirus software you should look at vendor information, independent antivirus certifying agencies reviews, as well as other sources. Here are the essential criteria for the right choice.

1. Compatibility

Antivirus program has to be compatible with your PC configuration. Your PC must meet hardware and software requirements of antivirus solution.

2. Range of Protection

Antivirus software should protect your PC from as many threats and on as many fronts as it can: viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, keyloggers, adware, rootkits, password stealers, phishing attacks, spam and others.

3. Effectiveness

Antivirus protection delivering by antivirus program should be effective and efficient. You may find and compare test results released by independent antivirus certifying agencies: Virus Bulletin, AV Comparatives, ISCA Labs, Westcoast Labs and others. If some antivirus solution was scored by these agencies high and consistently near the top, then you really can’t go wrong with this top rated antivirus software.

4. Easy Installation

Good antivirus program has a prompt and easy installation. Interface should be clean, easy, and intuitive to use.

5. Easy to Use

Most users want to “install and forget” their antivirus software. So the best antivirus solution should have default configurations acceptable for most users. And at the same time good antivirus program can be easy configured and tweaked by advanced users.

6. Features

The best antivirus programs have the large features set that may include:

– list of compatible versions of Operational systems and platforms,

– amount of used system resources,

– using of proactive protection without false positives and with effective utilizing of system resources,

– availability of laptop battery saving mode,

– bootable rescue disk,

– silent gamer mode, and other available options.

A comprehensive features set adds strength to antivirus solution.

7. Update

The best security solutions have Automatic Update option and automatically perform updates every hour or “as needed updates” to keep virus definitions and program code up to date.

8. Support

The best security programs have comprehensive online and offline technical support. The program vendor should provide online knowledge base, FAQs, tutorials, user forums. The best vendors provide 24/7 support so you can ask your questions by phone, email or chat at any moment.

The best for your needs antivirus program delivers you the best security and usability with a minimal outlay of your time, money, or your PC system resources.

Source by Anatoly Safonov