Should I install free or paid anti-virus software?

According to the recent global antivirus software market share report released by OPSWAT, the software toolkit manufacturer, the top three antivirus products in the world can be downloaded for free. This is not surprising, because these free versions are mainly used by users and small businesses.
 
Most of the market-leading anti-virus software vendors (commonly known as anti-malware in the security field) provide free and paid products. However, this raises the following problems: is the paid version worth the money? Compared with the cost of anti-virus software purchased, there are potential cleaning costs after viruses or malicious attacks. Is the cost saved by free anti-virus software false? Or, if you switch to free software, it will not cause a significant reduction in overall security, so there is no need for enterprises to buy anti-virus software? This article will discuss why free anti-virus software is still popular. whether free or paid enterprise anti-virus software affects overall security.
 
Most users and network administrators agree that computers connected to the network must install anti-virus software. However, we cannot regard anti-virus software as a one-step security solution, but should regard IT as a layer of IT security in-depth protection methods, but some home users or small businesses do not realize they need a deep protection policy to protect their data. Currently, they only know how to install anti-virus software or some firewall. Similar to this lack of knowledge about anti-virus software, the usage of free anti-virus software has always exceeded the paid version: consumers do not pay for what they do not know.
 
Although the price of computers has been declining for nearly ten years, users still do not spend money to buy a paid version of software that a friend says they can have for free. Search on the Internet quickly, and you will find that there are thousands of pages of users who have high praise for free anti-virus software. However, countless PCs are infected with viruses and malware-Kaspersky Lab found 0.67 million computers infected with viruses around the world, only due to the recent flash-back Trojan attacks. This does not mean that free anti-virus software cannot work normally, but the operation of any form of anti-virus software may provide a false sense of security. Most paid packages are attached with additional security controls, such as software firewalls, anti-spyware, security password management, and rootkit protection. In modern malicious network environments, the threats to data and digital information have risen to an unprecedented level, and security control becomes crucial. In addition, when users have already purchased anti-virus software, they tend to be more inclined to monitor the product, which means to ensure that the virus update software has been installed.
 
Anti-Virus Software helps maintain system security by neutralization of known threats (such as Conficker, a worm virus) and identifying important components of new threats. Even security-threatening users may accidentally click a malicious link or open a file attachment that is cleverly named and infected with the virus. However, anti-virus software can only defend against some threats. Even if it can defend against major threats, it still cannot identify every recently designed and complex virus. These viruses can prevent early detection by anti-virus software. Some security managers and chief information security officers argue that the cost of anti-virus software is too high due to the lack of complete and independent protection, especially when suppliers apply the same core engine to their free or paid versions, free anti-virus software, such as Microsoft's security requirements and AVG, is more meaningful.
However, free anti-virus software such as AVG can only provide anti-virus and anti-spyware protection. However, those who have purchased an AVG version can benefit from the product features, such as webpage protection (screen download), rootkit protection, and free technical support. Other Free AntiVirus Products ignore some features and features, such as spyware protection, real-time scanning, and regular updates. They only run as scalable market tools with lightweight reviews. To make up for the vulnerability caused by the above ignoring, many users Recommend installing several free anti-virus software versions at the same time, which is equivalent to adding several more band-aids to the wound needing to be stitched. However, multiple anti-virus programs will also curb each other, resulting in slow system speeds and deadlocks.
 
Users cannot rely only on a single technology to deal with all security threats. This is why the anti-virus technology provided by mainstream vendors is only part of the anti-malware security package. We must also note that many free anti-virus programs are for personal use only and cannot run on the enterprise network. In this case, enterprises may need to use the upgraded version of the product for Quick repair. In addition, with thousands of machines, central management tools can more easily and effectively deploy and maintain anti-virus protection.
 
Finally, malicious software developers use the system to constantly develop new attack methods. From dynamic analysis (heuristic and proactive behavior analysis) to whitelist and various cloud-based methods, new detection technologies will always appear in the upgraded version of anti-virus software. This upgraded version of the product software also provides more comprehensive virus logs, which is crucial for analysis before and after attacks.
 
Although the anti-virus function is drowned in the multi-functional condom, the upgraded version of the anti-virus product is still an important part of the enterprise's multi-layer security defense policy. If regular home users or small businesses do not want to buy antivirus software, they should at least spend time learning how to securely use the Internet, how to maintain browser and operating system software updates, and how to invest in a good backup system.