Computers have impacted everything in our lives for students, from helping them learn as well as monitoring patients in hospitals, to regulating crucial manufacturing processes. The increasing dependence on computers and devices has also led to an increase in cyberthreats like malware, viruses and ransomware. Antivirus software here can detect these threats and prevents the computer from being damaged or stealing your personal information.
When selecting an antivirus program it is important to look at the capabilities of its virus scanner as well as whether it has a firewall, and how it performs in independent laboratory tests. It is also advisable to look at its customer support, the frequency it updates and the amount of devices it will protect. Certain programs, like Norton have additional tools that can help prevent identity theft and protect your privacy online.
The top programs offer a variety of protection options, including heuristic detection, which is a method of identifying patterns in behavior typical of malware or viruses, and signature matching, which compares files against a database of known malicious software. Some programs employ sandboxing in order to isolate suspicious files in a virtual environment that is secured and in a safe place where they are not able to do any harm.
A few of the top antivirus software is available for download. However, they may not provide as many features as paid-for alternatives. For example, Bitdefender’s free edition performed well in our tests. It also has a firewall. However, its premium version comes with parental controls as well as a file shredder, and a password manager. Malwarebytes which is free and was a top performer in our AV Test for 2023, did not pass our usability test. Intego Mac Security X9 comes with a powerful combination of tools which include VirusBarrier and NetBarrier, that identified and eliminated the majority of malware threats in our tests.