March 28th, 2011 
sahlan 
Some of antivirus companies usually group their antivirus products for end users into this class: free antivirus, commercial antivirus, and security suites (sometimes, they named it with premium security or internet security). The different between those products is additional features included, for example: firewalls, parental controls, identity theft protection, and system performance tools. The more features included and better performance, come with higher price you have to paid. So, which one is the best for you? Is free antivirus good choice? Do we have to use the commercial version?
Free antivirus designed to provide minimum level of security protection. Even though it lays on the basic level, it still can protect your computer from virus, worm, malware, Trojan, and others malicious programs. Most of it can perform automatic scans, but some only can do on demand scan. Some free antiviruses have additional protection tools, such as browser add-on, firewall, sandbox environment, mail protection and firewall. However, that features usually only available in commercial antivirus/security suites products. Almost all free antivirus only licensed to personal user and non-for profit organization.
Commercial antivirus lies in the middle level of security protection between the basic free antivirus and the full feature security suites. It usually equips with more comprehensive security protection tools, better performance (faster scans), and more flexibility than a free antivirus. Some has subtle different features with free antivirus, but it licensed to for profit organization. Commercial antivirus has fewer additional features than security suites.
One of the biggest disadvantages of free antivirus is the lack of technical support. While you become fee-based customer, you can have phone support. Free antivirus users, usually only can get support from their forum or solve it by their self. Another tradeoff is that free antivirus products often have some sort of advertisement for the company’s commercial product by giving link in their interface or some even giving pop-up ads.
Here are some comparison point between free antivirus and commercial antivirus:
- Virus signature updates Most free antivirus and their commercial version has same virus signature updates. Even though there may be some slight differences, between free and commercial antivirus.
- User interfaces Free antivirus usually has the same basic user interface with commercial antivirus. The different is that in commercial version, are showing more menu or features. With similarity in its interface, user will not get confused when they move from free to commercial version.
- Detection Most of the free antivirus tested, give nearly equal result in detecting malware compared to the commercial version. Commercial antivirus still have better performance at detecting malware, remove malware infections, and at removing the active components of an infection.
- Speed In fact, free antiviruses were faster than those commercial versions in system startup times. In scan speeds, commercial antivirus has faster result. In the on-access scan tests, free antivirus completed the on-access scan test little faster than those commercial versions.
Knowing that some point of comparisons you now can decide which one suit for you. Test result showing that the two classes of products have the same (or slight different) in matter of speed and effectiveness. Free antivirus even can have best performance if it combined with other free products, like firewall or antispyware. The two next factors to be considered are features and customer support. With a commercial antivirus, you will get better customer support and more comprehensive security features, as fair as money you commercial. Last think you have to consider is your need and your budget. If your computer dedicated to internet transaction, you have the budget, and you want make it have better security, choose commercial antivirus. If not, using free antivirus are good enough.
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In the very detailed and informative review above, I agree with the author on the vast majority of his opinions but personally have not experienced any greater level of support with any of the paid versions of software available, with Kaspersky being the one and only exception.
In fact, you will find that Norton does not list any support contact information whatsoever on their website other than for their Enterprise clients. The home user is directed to an obnoxious and quiet RUDE-lol-virtual assistant named Nathan. I guarantee Nathan holds the all-time record as the virtual assistant whom has been “cussed out” more than any other. The unlisted magic phrase of “Nathan, please connect me with a customer service representative.” is the only way that you will be provided a link in which to do engage in the Norton “online support chat”. Unfortunately, as with virtually all others except Kaspersky, if your query is related to malware removal, there is an additional fee which actually costs more than the purchase price of the software!
As the author mentions, many of the free anti-virus products test as well as the paid versions. In fact, the Avira Personal free version tests higher than the paid versions of literally ALL of the other manufacturers, according to Virus Bulletin in their recent comparative; http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/latest_comparative/index
With a detection rating in the high 90s percentile the Avira Personal free version absolutely STOMPS the paid versions of Norton, McAfee, AVG, BitDefender, Webroot, Sophos, Lavasoft, PcTools and all other commercially available products including the Symantec(Norton) Enterprise products!
Only the Avira Pro/Gdata(same engine) paid versions, Kaspersky Pure(all other Kaspersky products test lower than Avira Free), and Coranti test higher.
Coranti is a new product that actually utilizes 4 different scanning engines built by other vendors, and that by themselves, all test lower. With 3 of the 4 engines all scanning simultaneously for virus detection and the other engine scanning for spyware; the additional system resources used and the money spent, in my opinion, are detractors in choosing Coranti over Avira Personal Free for the insubstantial gain in detection ratings.
Merely setting the Avira Personal Free’s heuristics scanning to “high” level will more than close the gap; you will enter the false positives realm and have to “rescue” any program that even rhymes with malware-lol- from Avira’s quarantine cell.
Coupled with the Zone Alarm Free Firewall, which includes a slightly scaled down version of Checkpoints commercial browser protection called ForceField; which offers a virtual clone of your browser as a very effective sandbox solution; while lacking back up and other utilities available for free elsewhere, you will enjoy as much protection (actually MORE than 95%) as offered by any paid Security Suite available.