What Windows antivirus do you use? (2019)

Internet Security
22

I prefer to use Norton Secure Antivirus because it is the first-ever company who introduced this software in 1991. Along with, it offers its own VPN services.

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23

Ah, the good old days. :sunny:

I used to use, and admired, Norton Anti-virus when it first came out but it wasnā€™t the first, not even for DOS/Windows PCs. Symantec, who bought Nortons in 1990, had an earlier AV for Apple Macs - interesting that Macs used to get hacked a lot more.

I remember McAfee having an earlier AV because I used their PC-Tools product. But I donā€™t remember the rest of earlier AVs which are still around today including G-Data, NOD and F-Prot.

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24

I used to be a great Avast advocate, but in the last year and a half, they have become spammy and invasiveā€¦ so I abandoned them and have been looking for an alternative ever sinceā€¦

At the time of this survey, I was one of the 2 Cylance users, but this proved to be a little ahead of its time and let me downā€¦ I am currently using MalwareBytes & so I am very happy to see how popular it actually is, and the confidence that people are putting into it :slight_smile:

Happy for any tips on other (full) firewall solutions, as much as I love Glasswire, I have had some minor issues with it and am about to raise a ticket on a more serious failure.

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25

As Remah said Ah" the good old days"

Any one remember or used SOFTWIN and sold as AVX. It then became Bitdefender. I used to run them or Norton on different boxā€™sā€¦Not now.

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26

I use Voodooshield with WhiteListCloud, together with Webroot and Heimdal. Emsisoft is used as an on-demand scanner.

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27

Hi Rauvin,
Avast caught selling users private data will shut down the division thatā€™s selling the data.

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28

@GlassWare

I wonder how many other antivirus companies do the same as Avast, but just havenā€™t been called out for it yet? Unbelievable.

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29

I could produce many articles that reference separate vulnerabilities in AV and other security software. Hereā€™s some examples.

The main issue from my perspective is using AV web browser extensions that donā€™t improve your data security or system security. These extensions are generally the main means to collect your data: Hereā€™s a 2017 article. The situation hasnā€™t changed much:

There are often articles about user-related tracking and history data by companies providing AV and other security software:

  • 2015 AVG
  • 2015 WOT - not an AV company but a web browser extension to display site ratings

The bigger issue is HTTPS interception including VPN and AV software getting access to your SSL/TLS data using proxies with their own SSL certificates.
This article has tests of three major AV products (Eset, Kaspersky and BitDefender) with HTTPS scanning feature enabled:

Hereā€™s other similar examples:

  • 2017 Kaspersky uses easily hacked 32-bit key
  • 2016 Avast web browser add-on vulnerability:
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30

Yes Remah, Ken, we are all leaving our digital breadcrumbs around, it just depends on how much smart tech we all use, what we do with it, and try to tighten down with some control.

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