I’ve been using Kaspersky Total Security for years and been fine with it. But since it’s removed in the US and replaced with a shady af Ultra AV, I need a different one. I know Windows Defender is already good for me since I don’t do anything sketchy like pirating or torrent downloading,… but I really need a Password Manager to sync my password across my devices (I have 2 Windows PC/Laptop, 1 Macbook, 1 phone and 1 iPad, would be fine to use Apple keychain for my Apple devices but the Windows PCs don’t go well with it), and a VPN. I had some options in mind but after a quick research, many of them are discredited by a lot of people. My options are:
Bitdefender AIO Premium (seem like the best one so far but also pretty expensive but it can be installed in 10 devices vs 5 from other products) - $80/per year first year - $159/ per year renewal
Avira Prime (according to many people, Avira is trash, but seem like a pretty good deal with the features) - $60/ per year first year - $109/ per year renewal
Norton 360 Deluxe (pretty much the same as Avira, price and feature wise. Idc about the cloud storage)
Avast One (pretty good deal in term of price, feature wise, not so much. It’s a deal breaker for me that it doesn’t include Password Manager or I may have missed its feature)
AVG (I never trust this one but hope if someone can give me a good insight about it)
ESET, McAfee are just too expensive to me.
I also considered some VPN products like Nord and Proton but the prices are not any lower. More to that, Nord got a bad reputation and people are pissing on the company so bad. ProtonVPN is fine according to people but still, the price of the VPN is not any less than those Total Security products that included the VPN.
I’m leaning onto Bitdefender but a bit hesitation on the price. Again, I don’t do sketchy stuff but extra protection is never a bad thing. Many of my accounts used to get hacked because I played an Online game on a private server so even though I don’t do anything ‘unsafe’, I rather have the protection than being naked.
Look for ones that have a check mark (“”) in the Free Version? column for those that have a free version, or a check mark (“”) in the Paid Version? column for commercial offerings.
Bitdefender is the only option available for you. No reason to depart with AVG, AVAST, Avira and Norton when it’s managed by one umbrella company. Security and privacy cannot be compromised. Bitdefender will remain as your top option for many reasons and timeframe to come.
I picked up BitDefender AIO plan. Pretty impressive on the VPN speed that I noticed. New thing that my Kaspersky didn’t do is that Bit blocked wpad.dat connection. As far as I know, that’s how people’s privacy got exposed. RAM consumption isn’t bad, about the same as Kaspersky. Pretty smooth so far. Thank you guys, for the suggestions.
I guess try bitdefender, but I read some complaining about it being too heavy-handed and using too much system resources…I am trying out ESET antivirus, and its awesome. Free 30 day trial, and it has near zero impact on computer performance so far. (no slowdowns)
I have Norton antivirus. I heard a lot of people here saying it is bad. What is wrong with Norton? For me it has been good at detecting malware and dodgy sites and connections. What is a good alternative recommendation to Norton?
Go Bitfender. Everything in your list is either sub-par or trash.
I personally run Eset, love it. I ran Bitdefender for a while, but I found it too invasive in my internet browsing (don’t remember why though, been a couple of years). Prior to that I bounced back and forth between Eset and Kaspersky (which is no longer an option).
Eset isn’t expensive at all, when it’s on sale. I picked up a 3 device copy a few months ago when the news of the ban came out for $15. It’s just one of those “might not be on sale when you need it” things, but you can set up an alert on slickdeals if you wanted. I kinda like Bitdefender, it’s what I was using for the past few years. Until the beginning of this year when it started slowing my system down. I’d uninstall it as best I could, things would be fine. Reinstall, slows down again. Went back to Kaspersky, worked fine. So I can’t go back to BD, this is my first time I’ve been on Eset and it’s been fine for the first few days. It’s probably one of those things that on a fresh system install, BD would probably work.
Norton owns avast which owns AVG and Avira, and Norton is considered one of the worst, if not, the worst antivirus solution sooo… ur best bet is bitdefender
Password Manager is a deal breaker if they don’t have it but it’s not the only thing I need. I do need some protection while browsing. Because after the time many of my accounts got hacked (still not sure what actually was the cause), some of my accounts are still gotten accessed somewhere like Russia and Brazil (I set 2FA on them already), I need everything secured.
Anyway, thanks for the input. I picked up Bitdefender. Hope for the best
I’ve done some research. As you can tell, the alternative, if not an upgrade, is Bitdefender. Read like 20+ posts with about a hundred comments recommending it so you may want to consider.
I think the problem with Norton is not very clear because people have all the reasons. But mostly about the features being annoying and the mother company’s credit in the field. I used it once but didn’t have a good experience with the protection it provided. Too long ago I couldn’t remember well but it was quite rough back then, so I’ve been avoiding it for about 15 years already.
In terms of malware protection Norton is not bad, if anything it’ll actually improve in malware detection since they are actively replacing in waves Norton’s engines with Avast which has even better detections than current/old Norton. It’ll basically be Avast with a Norton GUI/branding by the end of year unless your v24 already, v22 is still old Norton.
However Norton nags all the time about upgrading to add VPN, ID Protection, PC Cleaner, etc. so you’re basically getting bombarded with ads in a product you already paid for. They had some missteps years back adding a crypto miner and Avast collecting and selling customer data.
”) in the Free Version? column for those that have a free version, or a check mark (“