You know, I should know better. I mean, I’m the guy, right? I’m the dork who spends far too much time dicking around with his computer, and should be well informed, make all the right moves, and certainly, when it comes to virus protection, should be prepared. But sometimes you take things for granted.
So, my Norton AV subscription ran out weeks ago. I should know better, but I’m thinking the existing virus definitions should be fine for a while. After all, I’ve never been infected, errrr, with a virus, so I guess I got a little complacent. However, after a few weeks of dismissing those annoying Norton AV “renew now!” pop-ups, I began to notice … something. Initially, I could not put my finger on the issue but a general slow down, and a little malaise. I began to suspect I had an issue. Tired of Norton AV prices (and, quite frankly, that annoying pop-up), and the interface, I decided to research other AV options and was surprised at my findings. PCWorld rated other alternatives very highly, as did TopTen Reviews. The two bright spots were BitDefender and Kaspersky. Ever heard of them? I hadn’t either but when PCWorld ranks them top of the heap, I pay attention.
I decided to go with BitDefender because they were highly rated, and they have a special right now where you can download and install the software which will protect two computers, for two years, which costs $40. Think about that. Norton is $40 per year, per computer, and it is ranked lower. No brainer. Best part? BitDefender finds 30 virus’ on my computer and kills ’em all. By the way, that was deep scan, not the standard basic scan. Yeah, now things are much, much better. As I’ve always said, complacency get you infected — every time.