I’ve been using this for years and I need to renew my antivirus. Is this still a solid selection? I know bit defender is popular but any other recommendations?
OP, your question relies on any Anti-virus being “trustworthy” (your definition can and will vary depending who you ask).
TBH that’s a personal choice. Consider it like this; no matter what AV you use (if any), you’re allowing it full access to every nook and cranny on every drive installed and that you connect in the future. Most of them also monitor what’s stored in RAM at any given microsecond. Just about all of them allowed in the US (making an assumption you’re a US citizen, apologies if not, but you can replace US with almost any countries government) has an agreement or backdoor for legal authorities to a degree.
Personally, I just use the built-in Defender system in Windows itself; I haven’t had a single issue with it, insofar as getting any type of malware (the broad definition: any malicious software, to include viruses, ads, etc). Combined with adblock plugins for the browsers, cheap VPN (we use Windscribe), not clicking random email attachmemts, and simply not going to shady-ass sites, should be a perfectly fine combo for most users.
ALL OF THAT SAID!!! I can’t say as though I have heard of Kaspersky being any worse-off than other major vendors, despite their suspected ties. It comes down to your own choice. I would def echo a sentiment someone before me posted though; trustworthiness aside, they’re a Russian company, so there’s the likeliness that part of your purchase, and everyone else that subscribes to them, is going to end up in the pocket of their government. So I suppose let that be a guiding moral compass, in lieu of privacy concern if needed…
Irrespective of the product you select, you remain at risk of privacy breaches. Just because product X was made in country Y doesn’t make it more secure.
In the years since the ‘issue’ was reported, AV-Comparatives and AV-Test have never mentioned any spying issues with Kaspersky and by now anyone with a vested interest in either proving or disproving the trustworthiness of Kaspersky products has neither found or reported ANYTHING that points to spying.
Fears over ties to Russia have been negated with data centres outside of Russia. The story was a beat-up when it first broke and remains so.
Funny how little noise is made about Windows spying on users with endless telemetry (as recently seen on the PC Security YT channel) and backdoors in OS’s for Govt. agencies.