Free anti-virus: is it worth it?

With a range of free anti-virus packages available on the market, do you get what you pay for?

Developers of free anti-virus products generally rely on establishing a solid reputation among their free user base, which will hopefully upgrade to their full security packages in the future, or recommend the products for use in their business and corporate environment.

One may be wary of free offerings, with the old adage: “You get what you pay for.” We investigate further to shed some light on the issue.

In collaborative tests conducted by PC World and AV-Test.org, of the free anti-virus options available on the market, Avira AntiVirus Personal received top marks for its malware detection abilities and scanning speed, even though it didn’t have the friendliest interface.

Avast Home Edition came in second, but the interface also left much to be desired. AVG Free was the next best choice, slipping behind the previously mentioned options in detection ability, but offering a much neater interface.

PC Tools and Comodo Internet Security brought up the rear with a large amount of malware simply slipping past its defences. Microsoft’s free Security Essentials was not available at the time of the PC World/AV-Test analysis, but it performed admirably in the equally respectable AV-Comparatives test, with decent proactive scanning results, but poor on-demand scanning detection rates.

However, Con Mallon, Regional Product Marketing Director at Norton for Europe, Middle East and Africa, doesn’t put much faith in free anti-virus products. “We believe the false sense of security provided by these tools is almost as dangerous as having no security at all. Unique malware and social engineering techniques fly under the radar of traditional signature based technology employed by free security tools.”

“The latest generation of Internet security is real-time and reputation-based, operating immediately and not relying on a signature being produced and downloaded before the computer is protected,” Mallon continued.

When asked if Symantec has experienced noticeable competition from free anti-virus offerings, Mallon said: “[We have] seen no untoward impact on sales due to free AV offerings. Freeware solutions rely only on a single line of defence against malware and threats online. Customers actually need a full suite product with layers of protection that freeware cannot offer [and] understand you ‘get what you pay for.’”

MyBroadband recently investigated anti-virus products using data gathered from AV-Comparatives (AVC) and AV-Test. Mallon’s comments regarding the tests was that they “do not take into account any of the new protection capabilities provided by technology delivered from the cloud – in fact the tests specifically disconnect all products from the cloud.”

Many products, including those from Symantec, rely on reputation based analysis gathered from the range of product users via ‘the cloud’. “Because the [tests] are run in a disconnected mode, not only is the benefit of pure reputation-based security protection lost but also the more aggressive capabilities of our traditional engines,” said Mallon.

Judging by the test results and the opinion of Mallon, it would appear that while free anti-virus solutions can provide good protection, they might not be as comprehensive as their paid-for counterparts.