Which antivirus to use?

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Today's is a really complex article. Not because we will use particular technicalities, but because the topic is complex and being able to summarize it without being misunderstood is perhaps even more so. Which antivirus to useHowever, it is a question we are often asked. So let's try to give an answer.

Important premise: anything that happens to your computer is your responsibility. Ours are advice, ideas and suggestions. Nothing we write should be taken unconditionally literally.

We have seen in the past that there is often little, very little to trust about free antiviruses. This is a good rule in general to follow: be wary of products that promise incredible quality and are at the same time free unless they are free projects created with passion and which you trust because you have been following them for a long time (like LibreOffice for example). For everything else the suggestion is: always doubt.

Which antivirus to use? Windows

If you are using a computer with installed Windows 10, for example, you could very well rely on the antivirus of Windows. If you are not already aware, we will reveal it to you Windows 10 There is already a pretty decent antivirus pre-installed ¹. About this: if you decide to use Windows Defender read and follow this guide (Archive link) which will help you set it for the best to make it even more secure.

So there's not much reason to install one free different from that (and we're not the only ones who think so).

Therefore, if we are talking about safety, we can possibly think of needing a paid antivirus. The most famous candidates are probably Bitdefender, F-Secure And Kaspersky. All excellent antiviruses, but what needs to be understood is: do we really need them?

As we often say: a Browsers decent, extensions that block ads, DNS that automatically block malware and with a little basic attention (always updated systems, don't open strange attachments, don't click on random links) it's generally really enough to put you at ease. We would also like to clarify something else that we have often read around: no, VPNs do not protect you from viruses or ransomware.

In order to work fully and be useful in any way, paid antiviruses must know a lot about you, the sites you visit, the files received and so on. ². Everything is analyzed for, obviously, our safety. It is not necessarily a bad thing but it could be avoidable given that often all you need is common sense and, indeed, the antivirus of Microsoft if you are using Windows.

Here, in our opinion, are some common sense rules to follow

• Don't put yourself in the hands of free antiviruses;
• read the conditions of use as much as possible and do not install everything that the antivirus offers. Install only the essentials and avoid things like “Browsers protected“;
• customize your privacy settings as much as possible. There is no general rule, but it is good practice to check that there are none traps.

More generally, however, there is good talk about the antivirus ClamAV which is Open source ³ and of Emsisoft which he supports ⁴ to care about the privacy of its users without tracers of any kind.

Obviously even the most famous ones like Bitdefender, F-Secure And Kaspersky they are excellent although on the latter you may want to do without them due to the latest developments between Russia and Ukraine ⁵.

Another program that is widely shared and talked about very well is MalwareBytes. However, it is not a real antivirus but an anti-malware, however it generally does a good job and removes a lot of junk.

In short, we are not telling you to abandon any type of antivirus but only to try to be more conscientious in their use. As we said at the beginning: it is a complex article to do and we hope we are not misunderstood.

Which antivirus to use? Android

The exact same thing also applies to Android, especially in the most recent versions. However it recently came out LibreAV, an antivirus Open source and completely free. If you really think you need it, try it before installing the more famous ones which often, unfortunately, also contain many tracers ⁶.

It also recently came out Hypathy created by the team of DivestOS and which uses the database of ClamAV. Seems to work better than LibreAV thanks for having reported it to us.

Online scans

Another piece of advice, since we're talking about viruses: the site VirusTotal will analyze any file for you. It is obviously not recommended to send files with personal data online but if someone has sent us a file and you are not sure whether to open it or not you could upload it above and wait for a quick response.

We would also like to talk to you about the project Any-Run but its cost (€90 per month) is really excessive. However, in the free version you can do a little something. How does it work Any-Run? In practice you can create "closed" versions of Windows where you can run any type of file in a totally safe manner and see what happens. There are also process and network tracing tools to understand what executed files intend to do.

Finally, if you have doubts about a site you can always use the tool URLScan to get more information about a site. In fact, it will tell you whether it is safe to visit or not.

If used Windows 10 you can also take a look at this guide of ours.

1. AV-TEST Product Review and Certification Report – Jul-Aug/2020[↩]
2. Is Your Antivirus Software Spying on You?[↩]
3. ClamAV Source code[↩]
4. We aim to make the most powerful yet light-weight protection[↩]
5. Tweet by Stefano Quintarelli, Nitter link[↩]
6. Kaspersky report on Exodus[↩]

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