Free antivirus kit comes at great security cost

It’s a free world out there. Free maps, free navigation, free calls on the Internet, free email addresses and free apps for smartphones and tablets.

But should you trust freebies for your digital security? Depending on whom you ask, paying for antivirus software is either a good investment or a total rip-off.

In reality, neither viewpoint is accurate. You can find plenty of good reasons to choose a paid antivirus product, or to go with a freebie.

Four basic levels of antivirus products exist: free, paid, suites, and “premium” suite antivirus. As you move up the ladder from free antivirus to premium suites, you typically get more features, such as identity theft protection, firewalls, parental controls, and system performance tools.

Free antivirus software usually provides a bare minimum level of protection. Such will typically scan for malware, and often can perform automatic scans, too. Some free apps may have additional protection tools such as a browser add-on that checks for bad links on the Internet.

Free programs often also include advertising — that’s their way of raising revenue. This is the trade-off you make — you’re nagged a little, but you don’t have to pay a yearly subscription fee. This can be negligible, but ceaseless pop-up boxes pestering you to sign up for the paid version of whatever you’re using can be quite distracting.

FALSE POSITIVES

Some free apps offer behavioural malware detection, which finds malware based on how it acts on your PC — a good way of detecting brand-new malware outbreaks.

However, because sometimes the apps’ behaviour may not accurately detect a malware, there are many false positives. A malware, short for malicious software, is any software that is used to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems.

These forms of malware pretend to be legitimate antivirus products but are actually malicious and doing nasty things in the background.

One noticeable difference between the free and the paid programs is when it comes to detecting some new threats, such as a website laced with newly created malware.

Paid products, with their more elaborate system-behaviour monitors, are more likely to pick those up and to warn you about other possible dangers.

Paid antivirus straddles a middle ground between the basic freebies and the feature-packed security suites. They typically offer more comprehensive security tools (such as parental controls and identity theft protection) and more flexibility than a free antivirus package, but they have fewer additional features than suites, which are intended to be one-stop security shops.

BIG NAMES

Choosing an unknown antivirus puts you at risk of getting infected. Stick with well-known, reputable antivirus software. Big names in the commercial anti-virus industry include Bitdefender, McAfee, Norton/Symantec and Kaspersky Lab.

One last issue to consider, though, is that while you can often add other free software to cover other issues that paid antivirus software offers, such as parental controls, or use those that are built into some browsers, mixing and matching of different apps can get complicated.

Whenever there’s a conflict with another program or a warning about a possible security threat, it can be difficult to tell which of several products you may be using is causing the problem, when multiple programs are in play.

Ultimately, if you do go the free route, don’t just click on the first “free antivirus program” button you see, whether it’s a pop-up ad or the result of a Google search.

Those are often malicious programs looking to infect a PC. Do some research or consult first to ensure that you download a legitimate product.

Sam Wambugu is a monitoring and evaluation specialist. Email: [email protected]