You Don’t Need to Buy Antivirus Software

April 21, 2020

Excerpts - full article url below.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/best-antivirus/

We set out to do a standard Wirecutter guide to the best antivirus
app, so we spent months researching software, reading reports from
independent testing labs and institutions, and consulting experts on
safe computing. And after all that, we learned that most people should
neither pay for a traditional antivirus suite, such as McAfee, Norton,
or Kaspersky, nor use free programs like Avira, Avast, or AVG. The
“best antivirus” for most people to buy, it turns out, is nothing. Why
we don’t recommend a traditional antivirus suite

It's insufficient for a security app to just protect against a single
set of known “viruses.” There is a potentially infinite number of
malware variations that have been crypted—encoded to look like
regular, trusted programs—and that deliver their system-breaking goods
once opened. Although antivirus firms constantly update their
detection systems to outwit crypting services, they’ll never be able
to keep up with malware makers intent on getting through.Windows
Defender, Microsoft’s built-in tool, is good enough for most people.

Performance: Antivirus software is notorious for slowing down
computers, blocking the best security features of other apps (such as
in the Firefox and Chrome browsers), popping up with distracting
reminders and upsells for subscriptions or updates, and installing
potentially insecure add-ons such as browser extensions without
clearly asking you for permission.

For these reasons, we don’t recommend that most people spend the time
or the money to add traditional antivirus software to their personal
computer.
========
In my opinion based on a few years usage, the following is easier,
cheaper and a lot less trouble than any AV or Security Suite - and
MORE effective.

http://www.toolwiz.com/lead/toolwiz_time_freeze/

A simple as heck freebie sandbox. Time Freeze is simpler than the
freebie Sandboxie or any other.

Click to turn it on, and any malware that somehow enters your machine
is gone bye-bye on reboot. It's also great for installing new
programs you'd like to check out. When you reboot, they're gone.

If you want to install them for real, you can reboot Windows with Time
Freeze off and install the program again for real.

Just be damn sure to check anything downloaded outside the sandbox
with VirusTotal's 70+ virus checks first.

https://www.virustotal.com/#/home/upload