#Pc mag best free antivirus 2018 install
#Pc mag best free antivirus 2018 full

Soon we'll test the Total Defense Premium Internet Security suite, which does include that web-based protection, and more. However, it omits web-based protection against malicious and fraudulent sites, and it earned a record low score against downloads of recent malware. The point of an antivirus is to eliminate existing malware and prevent new infestations, after all.

Total Defense Essential Anti-Virus skips the cornucopia of bonus goodies presented by some competitors, which is fine. If you do choose to rely on Total Defense antivirus, don't turn off the phishing protection built into your browser. Rather, they imitate sensitive websites in hopes of tricking hapless visitors into giving away their login credentials. These fraudulent sites don't contain malware. Note that the absence of web-based protection means that Total Defense doesn't offer protection against phishing websites. I'll run this test again when I evaluate Total Defense Premium Internet Security. With just 8 percent protection, Total Defense has the lowest score among all current products. Its defense necessarily relied on detecting the malware samples at download, and it seriously fell down on the job there. Total Defense is at a disadvantage here, because the standalone antivirus doesn't include the web-based protection component found in suite products from this company (and in most competing antivirus products). I launch each URL, discarding any that don't load properly, and note whether the antivirus diverts the browser from the dangerous URL, eliminates the malware download, or misses the boat altogether. For a view on how each antivirus handles current, prevalent malware, I start with a feed of malware-hosting URLs recently discovered by experts at MRG-Effitas. Gathering and analyzing a collection of malware takes quite a while, so I can't refresh those samples very often.

#Pc mag best free antivirus 2018 full

By default, Total Defense schedules a monthly full scan you can change that to a daily or weekly schedule if you prefer. In addition to the full scan, you can choose a quick scan for active malware, or a custom scan targeting specific drives or folders. That's pretty good, but an optimized second scan by F-Secure Anti-Virus did the job in just one minute. A second scan completed in just 7.5 minutes. However, Total Defense used that initial scan to optimize for subsequent scans. The initial scan took almost 80 minutes, rather longer than the current average of 45 minutes. I also timed a full antivirus scan on a clean test system. It detected and thoroughly prevented installation of all the samples, earning a perfect 10 points. Tested using an earlier sample set, Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus did even better. Cylance, F-Secure, McAfee, and Symantec Norton AntiVirus Basic all tied at the top, with 9.3 points. That's a decent score, but others have done better against this same set of samples. Overall, Total Defense detected 86 percent of the samples and scored 8.6 of 10 possible points. When I launched the surviving samples, the real-time and behavioral detection systems got a few more in a couple of cases they eliminated the malicious component while leaving the innocuous carrier intact. Total Defense's real-time protection sprang into action at this point, wiping out 79 percent of the samples on sight. This test starts when I open a folder containing a collection of malware samples I've selected and analyzed myself.

When the labs don't give me anything to work with, my hands-on malware protection testing is all I have to go on. As noted, your subscription lets you protect three devices, and the Devices page is where you manage them. A simple menu of icons at far left lets you choose the home, Scan, and Devices pages, or invoke settings or help.

A big status indicator dominates the left side of the chocolate-brown main window, with buttons for Scan and Devices sharing the right site. The product's very simple main window reflects its laser focus on antivirus protection.

#Pc mag best free antivirus 2018 install

Note, too, that Norton and Check Point ZoneAlarm Extreme Security reserve this guarantee for their suite-level products.ДЄfter a fairly quick install to a test system, Total Defense started a download of the very latest malware signatures. Of course, this commitment from Total Defense requires a similar commitment from you, in that you must sign up for automatic subscription renewal, but that's reasonable. If the malware proves so pernicious that the experts can't remove it, you get your money back. If malware gets past the antivirus, Total Defense techs will dig in to actively remove it. While not as well-known as Norton or ZoneAlarm, Total Defense matches the virus-free guarantee that these products offer.