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It's no secret that I'm not normally one to use "paid for" anti-virus programs as long as there are perfectly good free versions around for home use. And then, once I do find one that works to my satisfaction I'll stay with it until it becomes obvious that there is something better out there or more importantly, that whatever I'm using isn't doing the job.
This was the case for nearly three years that I used AVG's free version. Then they released an upgrade that included behavior that drove me nuts with it's infamous "LinkScanner" and the way it ate bandwidth. Since then I've been using Avast and have been satisfied with it. However, every once in a while I'm told how "free is worth what you pay for it" (which I don't necessarily agree with) and that I need to invest in a "real antivirus software package that will do a lot more than any free stuff.
For that reason, I occasionally check out the latest offerings to see what advantages there may be. Usually I'm not very impressed. Most of the time the price involved is entirely our of my range. The latest find that I've been looking over could possibly be a change in that however.
Recently Sun Belt Software has released a new package by the name of "Vipre Antivirus" for a surprisingly low $29.99 a year for a single user license and only $49.99 a year will get you a "home site license" that allows you to install it on every computer in your home on one license, which can be a real bargain if you've got several PC's online at home. That by itself is pretty attractive for a commercial A/V package and I don't believe that any other A/V software has a deal like that.
Beyond that and perhaps more importantly, reviews it's supposed to use less system resources than most of the other major A/V software on the market (although I didn't see any comparisons between it and free A/V packages). It also offers several new virus prevention technologies that others haven't started offering yet. Given hourly virus definition updates this could well be the first "paid for" A/V solution I've used since I painstakingly deleted Norton's bloatware manually nearly ten years ago.
Technorati Tags: vipre, anti virus, review, software, home site license
I hope you took advantage of this offer too ;)