Free AV vs non-free AV

HistoryFan · External Since: Nov 11, 2004 Posts: 25

I often wonder why home PC users pay good chunks of money for McAfee,
Norton, PC-cillin and other fee-based AV programs when there are free, good
ones available, specifically Avast, AVG, and eTrust (assuming you are a Road
Runner subscriber.) Perhaps the word just hasn't spread around enough yet?
The free AV programs may not be powerful enough for large businesses, but
they seem to do a fine job for the average home user.

Richard S. Westmoreland · External Since: Nov 19, 2004 Posts: 10

"HistoryFan" wrote in message

> I often wonder why home PC users pay good chunks of money for
McAfee,
> Norton, PC-cillin and other fee-based AV programs when there are free,
good
> ones available, specifically Avast, AVG, and eTrust (assuming you are a
Road
> Runner subscriber.) Perhaps the word just hasn't spread around enough
yet?
> The free AV programs may not be powerful enough for large businesses, but
> they seem to do a fine job for the average home user.

Marketing. It certainly isn't because of the "good support".

Rick

HistoryFan · External Since: Nov 11, 2004 Posts: 25

<< I often wonder why home PC users pay good chunks of money for McAfee,
Norton, PC-cillin and other fee-based AV programs when there are free, good
ones available, specifically Avast, AVG, and eTrust (assuming you are a Road
Runner subscriber.)>>

To answer my own question, I would imagine it's a lack of knowledge.
Plus the fact that new computers come with McAfee or Norton pre-installed.
People get used to those programs and are nervous about switching to other
AV software....so they keep paying those companies money to upgrade and
renew.

burris · External Since: Sep 07, 2003 Posts: 2

HistoryFan wrote:

> << I often wonder why home PC users pay good chunks of money for McAfee,
> Norton, PC-cillin and other fee-based AV programs when there are free, good
> ones available, specifically Avast, AVG, and eTrust (assuming you are a Road
> Runner subscriber.)>>
>
> To answer my own question, I would imagine it's a lack of knowledge.
> Plus the fact that new computers come with McAfee or Norton pre-installed.
> People get used to those programs and are nervous about switching to other
> AV software....so they keep paying those companies money to upgrade and
> renew.
>
>
Your last statement is interesting because all my friends did get these
two voracious programs with their PCs and when I help them, I find that
they have no idea that updates are necessary, not that they would even
know how to do this, and I uninstall them to free up their resources.
I then simply install AVG, set it to auto for those on 24/7 and explain
to the dial-up people how to update manually.
Haven't lost one yet....

burris

optikl · External Since: Jun 12, 2004 Posts: 336

HistoryFan wrote:
> << I often wonder why home PC users pay good chunks of money for McAfee,
> Norton, PC-cillin and other fee-based AV programs when there are free, good
> ones available, specifically Avast, AVG, and eTrust (assuming you are a Road
> Runner subscriber.)>>
>
> To answer my own question, I would imagine it's a lack of knowledge.
> Plus the fact that new computers come with McAfee or Norton pre-installed.
> People get used to those programs and are nervous about switching to other
> AV software....so they keep paying those companies money to upgrade and
> renew.
>
>

I think you are over-simplifying this, maybe based on your own
experience. Clearly, not everyone lacks the knowledge you think they
need to make an informed decision. I suspect there are many reasons why,
your opinion being just one. To assume you have the answer as to what
goes on in everyone else's head is self indulgent.

HistoryFan · External Since: Nov 11, 2004 Posts: 25

>>To assume you have the answer as to what goes on in everyone else's head
>>is self indulgent.

I never said I knew what was inside people's head. I was just
speculating.

A.Melon · External Since: Nov 24, 2004 Posts: 3

In article
"HistoryFan" wrote:
>
> I often wonder why home PC users pay good chunks of money for McAfee,
> Norton, PC-cillin and other fee-based AV programs when there are free, good
> ones available, specifically Avast, AVG, and eTrust (assuming you are a Road
> Runner subscriber.) Perhaps the word just hasn't spread around enough yet?
> The free AV programs may not be powerful enough for large businesses, but
> they seem to do a fine job for the average home user.

Have you ever considered the possibility of a 'suite' of such detection
software being created by the same outfit or several outfits cooperating
with each other. each agreeing to not detect certain 'features' of the
other's softwares?

How about the possiblity (strong in my opinion) that the makers of commercial antivirus, firewalls, anti-trojan, anti-spam and other anti-malware also producing actual malware/spyware of various kinds, that their 'repair' software will not 'find'. now take this one step further and group these companies together and you've got a bunch of outfits that are seeing to it that their products have a market by producing and releasing into the wild, the very sort of stuff that they are marketing 'cures' for.

conspiracy theory? maybe.

paranoia? definitly, but any bets there's a chance there is actually CAUSE for that paranoia?

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PhotoDan · External Since: Nov 20, 2004 Posts: 2

You appear to be a little "self-indulgent" yourself with that comment. Well,
there's always a cop around to keep things going in the right direction. The
guy voiced an opinion and one that I agree with as a matter of fact. Jeez!
Maybe I'm being self-indulgent.???

The fact of the matter is that companies like Norton and McAfee, through
huge ad blitzes and payoffs to HP, Dell, etc., capture a large share of the
security software business, not through the excellence of their products but
through their marketing departments. Nothing wrong with that (maybe) but, as
for me, I'll go with AVG. I consider it to be easily as good or better than
Norton or McAfee and, the definitions come as fast as, or faster.

Well Heck! I hope I didn't offend anyone.

Photodan

Roy Coorne · External Since: May 24, 2004 Posts: 20

A.Melon wrote:

....
> Have you ever considered the possibility of a 'suite' of such detection
> software being created by the same outfit or several outfits cooperating
> with each other. each agreeing to not detect certain 'features' of the
> other's softwares?
....
> conspiracy theory? maybe.
....

Yes, a nice idea! So you may wish to have a look at the
countries/cities where the AV software companies' HQs are located:

Moscow (Dr. Web; Kaspersky), Prague (Avast), Bucharest/Romania
(BitDefender; RAV), Tettnang/Germany (H+B EDV AntiVir), Cupertino,
CA/USA (Norton/Symantec), San Diego, CA/USA (NOD32), Santa Clara,
CA/USA (McAfee), Reykjavik/Iceland (F-Prot), Bilbao/Spain (Panda),
Abingdon/UK (Sophos), Tokyo (Trend Micro (founded in CA/USA)) ...

So, who - in your opinion/dreams - is the Father, the Big Brother
controlling a network covering all that?

I agree, it is much more comfortable to dream conspiracy theories than
to gather facts;-)

Peace!

Roy