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kudzu9

Avast AV: free or paid?

kudzu9
13 years ago

My subscription to Norton 360 expired and I decided after many years of paying for either Norton or McAfee that I would try Avast. I have 3 computers; 2 are running on Vista and one is a netbook running Windows 7 Starter. I have a home network with a Belkin N+ Wireless Router with security enabled. I have Malwarebytes and the free version of SuperAntispyware installed on all machines and run these programs every couple of weeks. I have the Windows firewalls turned on. I've installed Avast on all three machines and, after a couple of days, like it a lot and like the interface of this latest version.

So the issue is this: I've looked at the added features that come with the upgrade to the paid version of Avast and am not convinced it adds a lot for me. Am I missing something? I spend a lot of time online and do a lot of random surfing, and more than once I have ended up doing a search and clicking on a link that turned out taking me to a questionable site, or even one trying to infect me, usually with a Trojan. Most of the time, my AV has stopped the attempt. However, I'd say that in the last 10 years I've probably gotten 4 actual infections that required some fooling around before I zapped them.

I am not naive about the possibility of getting infected, or what behaviors to avoid to minimize it. I realize that no AV is going to be perfect regardless of how much it costs. And I am also not going to keep myself from exploring all the fascinating things the Web offers because there are dangers lurking.

So, is the paid version of Avast going to provide a significant additional benefit to someone who is fairly knowledgeable about navigating on the Internet?

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