There are so many antivirus programs out there, that to list just a fraction of them would take the better half the day, and probably about a hundred pages, just to list the name of the program and the company who created it.
The fact is that antivirus software is a pretty hot market right now. Identity theft is on the rise, and everybody already hated viruses that simply make their computers run slow, that display popup ads on every, single, website you ever visit, and all those other assorted computer nasties.
So, of course, wherever there’s consumer demand, there will be a lot of competition to put the very best thing out there… or the very worst thing.
Sadly, a lot of antivirus programs are put out just to earn the company a quick buck. So as to help you not have to download a trial of every single one of the hundreds of antivirus programs out there just to see if it works, we’ve put together a brief list of the features you should absolutely demand from your antivirus software, no matter what…
User Friendliness
This, of course, goes without saying. The main reason you download computer virus killing software in the first place is to get your computer running a little faster by getting all of those viruses off of it. So a virus killer that takes half of a day just to figure out how to install it isn’t really saving you the time you were hoping to reclaim by downloading it. Likewise, you don’t want to spend dozens of hours adjusting your configuration or rebooting the whole computer every time your software gets a minor update.
A Nice Price
You don’t have to pay out the nose to get great antivirus coverage. Ideally, it shouldn’t cost more than around fifty dollars or so, and that’s only if your antivirus package also includes all kinds of things like pop up and spam blockers and so on. With so many good, free antivirus programs out there, there’s no excuse to pay more than the program is worth.
Effectiveness
Last, and most importantly, you need your virus killer to, well, you need it to kill viruses! A virus scanner that only gets every other virus is like an exterminator who only gets rid of half of the pests in your house, assuring you that “the rest of the rats are fairly harmless, don’t worry about them, just put a hunk of cheese out now and then!”
