Serious question about free antivirus vs paid after my scare last month

I've been using free Avast for like 5 years but last month I clicked a fake shipping link and my laptop got hit with that ransomware that encrypts your files (I lost like 30 photos from my trip to Austin). My buddy who works IT said free antivirus misses stuff paid ones catch and he showed me how Bitdefender caught a test virus file while mine let it through. Has anyone else seen a big difference switching from free to a $30-ish paid option?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_young922d ago

Yeah I read somewhere that free antivirus mostly relies on a database of known threats. Paid ones use behavior detection which catches stuff that hasn't even been seen before. That ransomware you got was probably a newer variant that just slipped right past Avast's database. I switched to Bitdefender last year after hearing similar stories. Night and day difference honestly. The free tools are fine for casual browsing but if you click links or download stuff regularly you're basically gambling with your files.

foster.tessa2d ago

Gonna push back a bit here and say @charles_young92 I actually had the opposite experience, my paid Norton missed a basic trojan last year that Malwarebytes free caught on a scan. I don't know, sometimes it feels less about paid versus free and more about which one's having a bad day with their updates.

shane_park922d ago

I mean, free Windows Defender has behavior detection too and it's caught stuff for me.