Best Antivirus Software for Individuals and Small Businesses 2022
Are you looking for the best antivirus that can protect your computers from attacks? Everyone like to protect his devices such as computers, laptops and phones with the best antivirus software. But one may be prompted to ask the question about how sincere are these people to themselves. Why the question? It is actually funny when someone tells you that he wants the best antivirus software but he is not willing to pay. All what he is looking for is the free antivirus edition. This is laughable actually. I am not saying that free antivirus cannot help to an extent. But it only offers basic protection which is not adequate to safeguard your devices.
The truth is that, the threats to your laptops and computers are not limited to viruses. So, if you are just focusing on how to prevent viruses from attacking your system, I will tell you that you are not don’t enough. Apart from viruses, there are other threats such as Spamming, Phishing, Hacking, Pharming, Spoofing, Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS), Botnets, Malware, Spyware, Trojan Horses, Worms and Wi-Fi Eavesdropping. The risks involved in all these threats is much more than just having your systems corrupt. It can lead to security breach which can lead to untold financial loss.
So, if you can afford to buy a phone, laptop or computer, I don’t see why you should not take a step further to protect yourself by buying and installing a good antivirus software. I hope you understand the last sentence you just read. I didn’t say you should install antivirus software to protect your system. It is much more than that. You are actually protecting your system and most importantly yourself from computer related attacks.
So, going back to the topic, you may want to know the best antivirus software for small businesses. Well, there are many antivirus software out there that are good. But I will just simply answer the question by saying that the best antivirus software will never be a free antivirus edition no matter how reputed the antivirus company may be. You just need to ask yourself this question, if the free edition is sufficient, why do they sell paid edition? Free edition is just for you to have a fair idea about the benefits of having antivirus software installed on your devices. You should understand that those antivirus companies are into business too. They invested money to develop the software and they will expect to make profit too. So, don’t ever expect them to offer their best antivirus software for free. To certain degree, the price of a product reflects the value of the product.
For individuals and small businesses looking for antivirus software, Panda and Kaspersky provide good security and protection for your devices.
For Panda, there are three variants namely Essential which offer basic protection and it allows you to install the software on just one device. Next to this is the one that offers advanced protection and it allows you to install the antivirus software on three devices. The best option is the one that offers complete protection and can also be installed on three devices. I need to mention that there is still Panda Dome Premium which provide real time antivirus protection, ransomware attack prevention, safe online shopping and banking, blocking of dangerous websites, VPN for private, anonymous internet service. When it comes to reputation, Panda ranks very high. About 30 million people depends on Panda for antivirus services. These people cannot be all wrong. You may try to take advantage of the Halloween Special Offer when it lasts.
Kaspersky is another antivirus software you can rely on to protect your devices. Among others, the software block viruses, cryptolockers and other threats. If you use online banking, it protects payments with bank-grade encryption. It encrypts data you send and receive online-VPN (200MB of data traffic protected per device each day). Kaspersky helps secure passwords and images of personal documents. It helps guard your kids through the advanced parental control feature. And it stops webcam spies watching you in your home. It is worthy to note that 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky. Apart from the Windows PC Security, it has antivirus that are specifically for home security and small business security. You can find out the available options below:
Benefits of Antivirus Protection
Just as mentioned earlier, antivirus should not just be seen as avoidable cost. If you can buy a laptop, computer or other devices, how to safeguard them and the information you store in them should be paramount to you. It is not just about your devices, it is much more about you. Just as a recap, let me quickly highlight the benefits of having good antivirus installed on your devices.
- It protects devices from viruses, spyware and malware attacks. Antivirus software will not allow virus, spyware and malware to do any harm to your device. The software automatically detects the presence of threats and either quarantine or delete the same.
- It guards against phishing. Any time you connect to the internet, there is a danger that an unauthorized person can access your device with the intention of stealing or infect your valuable information. But with the presence of a good antivirus software in your device, such unauthorized access will be blocked.
- It offers web protection. You need to understand that not all websites on the internet today are safe. Some websites are built with the main objective to deceive unsuspecting people thereby using it to either steal their information or to defraud them. A good antivirus will help you block such websites. Alternatively, it can alert you about the security threats that such websites portend.
- It helps scan removable devices. Viruses are usually transmitted through the use of removable devices such as flash drive and external disks. If any removable device that is already infected is used on your device, your system can also be infected. But with antivirus, any removable device connected to your system will be scanned immediately to ensure that it does not contain viruses. In case the removable device is already infected, the antivirus will help you remove the viruses so that they don’t infect your system.
- It provides additional firewall. Every computer comes with firewall, I guess. But the number of viruses being released everyday demands that you have antivirus that is also up to date. Antivirus helps you check all incoming and outgoing mails and data for possible threats. Any suspicious threat that is capable of attacking your system will be blocked automatically.
- It blocks unwanted Ads. Possibly you have noticed some adverts pop up while browsing. At times, you may want to close them but it will just refuse to disappear. At times, you may even mistakenly click on the ads. Some of such ads are not genuine. They may be set up to steal your confidential information and this can lead to a huge financial loss. This is one of the reasons I mentioned that antivirus does not only protect your devices, it equally protects you.
- It protects your passwords. Your passwords supposed to be personal to you. If your password is compromised, the best thing to do is to quickly change it. But the problem is that you may not even be aware that your password has been compromised. Imagine an unauthorized person having access to your emails. This is better imagined but in real sense, it does happen. Best antivirus will help you protect the password that you enter into website. Before you enter your password into any website that is not safe, a good antivirus software will alert you.
- It provides control. Whether you are a parent or an employer that wants to control what websites your kids or employees can access, a good antivirus software will help you achieve that. You will also be able to monitor their activities on the web through the activity logs within the software. You can even increase your employees’ efficiency by blocking some social media sites that tend to waste their time during working hours.
- You enjoy speed. The reason why some computers are very slow is because of the presence of many unwanted files and folders. There are certain viruses that duplicate files on your system. Apart from the fact that these files and folders occupy space on the computer, it also slows down and hampers the functionality of the system. With a good antivirus, the in-built modules help delete such unwanted files and folders, thereby making your system to load faster.
Conclusion
If you have never given it a consideration to install antivirus on your device, the risk of attacks is becoming higher by the day. However, a stitch in time saves nine, they say. It should not be a case of penny wise, pound foolish. Surprisingly, you can enjoy best antivirus now without breaking bank. They are relatively cheap compared to the benefits they provide. For individuals and small businesses that want to enjoy protection at reasonable cost, Panda and Kaspersky can be a good option.
