With a new computer many people instinctively wonder which paid antivirus to buy. Our advice may surprise you: on today’s Windows most people do not need one at all. Let us explain why, and what actually matters far more.

Windows already has a good antivirus built in

Windows 10 and 11 include Microsoft Defender, a full antivirus that runs quietly in the background. It is free, updates automatically, protects in real time and is built directly into the system, so it does not slow it down. For an ordinary home user its protection is entirely sufficient.

And that is exactly why paying for a separate antivirus is unnecessary. You already have Defender, it is part of the system and it does its job reliably.

Why you usually do not need to pay for another

Independent tests have long shown that Defender’s protection is on par with paid suites. Paid antivirus programs, moreover, often:

  • slow the computer down and add features you do not need,
  • nag you with pop-ups for pricier versions and renewals,
  • lure you with “bonuses” like a VPN or a password manager, which you can solve better and more cheaply elsewhere.

For that money you do not actually get noticeably better security than with what you already have for free.

The biggest risk is not the antivirus, but the user

This is the most important sentence in the whole article. No antivirus will protect you if you give away your password or click a fraudulent link yourself. The vast majority of problems today do not come from a virus breaking through protection, but from phishing and scam messages, where the user willingly opens the door to the attacker.

So in practice the following protects you more than the brand of antivirus:

Beware of fake “antivirus” programs

Paradoxically, antivirus itself is often the bait for a scam. If a warning pops up on your screen like “Your computer is infected, download this cleaner”, that is itself a scam (scareware). Do not download or pay anything, just close the window. And never run two antivirus programs at once; they get in each other’s way and only slow the computer down.

When a paid solution does make sense

For a single home computer, Defender plus sensible habits are enough. Businesses with multiple devices are a different story: there a solution with central management and an overview (endpoint protection) makes sense, so an administrator can oversee all the computers at once. That, however, is a professional need, not a purchase for an ordinary user.

We will set up your protection sensibly

We will gladly set up protection so it is effective and free: we check Defender and the firewall, configure updates, two-factor authentication and backups, and show you how to recognise a scam. And if your computer is already infected, we will clean it. For businesses we will design managed endpoint protection. Get in touch and we will take a look.