How to Understand Virus Protection Reviews?
Virus protection reviews are usually part hard fact and part opinion. Usually the way to make the most of them is to understand the hard facts in the reviews, so you can quickly skip past reviews of products which are clearly unsuitable for you personally and focus your attention (and time) on products which are at least feasible potential candidates for your situation. With that in mind, here are some must-have features in virus protection products. If you see a product without these, then you probably want to avoid it, even if it’s free.
Robust Protection Against All Malicious Software
The term “virus protection” is basically used for marketing purposes, because it’s shorter (and easier to understand) than the term “malicious software”, which is far more accurate. It’s been many years since viruses were the only threat in the online world. These days, the range of malicious software includes adware, cryptojackers, lockware, ransomware, spyware, trojans and worms and more new forms are being invented all the time, some of which are hybrids of existing forms, some of which are completely new.
It’s therefore very important to look at the details of virus protection products and make sure that the product actually offers all-round protection against malicious software, especially spyware as this is very difficult to detect without the help of a security program. Spyware is exactly what its name suggests and, if left unchecked, it can do all kinds of damage. In particular, it can allow your identity to be stolen by cybercriminals and setting that right can be a painful and expensive experience.
Regular Updates
This is basically an extension of the previous point. The volume of malicious software is growing all the time and so cybersecurity companies have to keep updating their products so that their users continue to be protected. Some companies do actually state the date of the last update on their website, however, this is becoming increasingly rare, especially since the best cybersecurity companies now generally use cloud-based antivirus systems.
If you can’t see when a virus protection product was last updated, then look at the brand, look to see if they participate in any industry schemes and/or have won any meaningful awards. Also, take a quick look for user reviews. You don’t have to read through them all in detail, just check to see if you can find a decent number of reviews from happy users. While you’d prefer to see these reviews stretching out over an extended period, it’s very reassuring to see recent reviews from happy customers. This suggests that the virus protection product is actively maintained.
Cloud Hosting
Modern virus protection products need access to huge databases of information in order to be effective and these databases are getting bigger all the time as they are continually updated. Hosting these databases locally, in other words, on the customer’s computer, is quite a burden even for powerful PCs (and Macs). It can be horrendous for budget/lower specced devices and lead to major performance issues. This is the main reason why many people dislike running “traditional” virus protection, in other words, virus protection which needed to be downloaded and installed on the host computer.
When you use cloud-hosted products, the user’s computer does the absolute bare minimum, it essentially connects with the cybersecurity company’s servers and lets them do the heavy lifting. If you’re still using “old-school” software, you might be amazed what a difference it makes, plus it means updates become active, literally as soon as they’re ready, plus this approach eliminates the possibility of user-error at the customer’s side.
Integrated Ad Blockers
This may seem an odd “must-have” for a virus protection product, but the fact is that these days, adverts are a serious security threat as they are often used to spread viruses and you do not necessarily have to click on one to get infected.
The Backing of a Reputable Brand
You wouldn’t just hand your house keys or car keys to a random person in the street, so you shouldn’t hand over your “digital keys” to any random company on the internet, even if one particular reviewer is positive about them. You want to be sure that you’re using virus protection from a company with “skin in the game”, one which has a track record of keeping its customers happy and which looks like it plans to keep on doing so for the foreseeable future. Comodo has been looking after people for over 20 years and is trusted by millions. Click here now to get Comodo virus protection for your computer.
