Computers have transformed nearly every aspect of our lives for good, from helping students study, monitoring patients in hospitals and regulating critical manufacturing processes. The increased dependence on computer devices has also led to an increase in cyber-attacks, including malware, viruses and ransomware. Antivirus software is designed to detect these threats and stop them from causing damage to your computer or stealing your personal information.

When you are choosing an antivirus program it is important to look at its virus scanning capabilities and whether it comes with an firewall and how it does in independent lab tests. You might also want to examine its customer support, how often it updates, and the number of devices it can protect. Some programs, like Norton come with additional features to ensure your privacy online and stop identity theft.

The top programs provide various protection options that include heuristic detection, that looks for patterns of behavior typical of viruses or malware, and signature matching, which compares the files against a database of known malicious software. Some programs employ sandboxing in order to isolate suspicious files in a virtual environment that is completely sealed and safe from any harm.

Many of the best antivirus applications are free, though they may not offer as many additional features as paid options. Bitdefender’s premium edition comes with www.beastapps.net/kaspersky-antivirus-review parental controls, file shredder, and a password manager, but its free edition scored well and also comes with a firewall. In the same way, Malwarebytes’ free version earned top marks in AV-Test for 2023 but failed in our test for usability. Intego Mac Security X9 comes with an impressive set of tools, including VirusBarrier and NetBarrier, that detected and eliminated the most malware-related threats during our test.