A new study by OPSWAT suggests that free antivirus applications outrank paid versions in popularity among users. While not shocking, it's an interesting discovery considering the fact that most large system builders ship their machines with Symantec or McAfee preinstalled, leaving smaller companies to rely on after-market installs. It's unclear what percentage of the usage is consumers and how much is enterprise-based.
Avast Free is supposedly the most popular software, taking 11.45% of the pie. Avira AntiVir Personal follows with 9.19%, AVG Free has 8.6%, and Microsoft Security Essentials has carved out a handsome 7.48% since debuting late last year. Below the freebies is Avast (paid) with 5.4%, Kaspersky had 4.48%, Norton at 4.24%, and ESET NOD32 claimed 3.84%.
OPSWAT combined different version numbers for each application, but most vendors have a few separate products, which makes the antivirus software chart a bit confusing. That said, things don't change much when you look at vendors. Avast leads with 19.14%, Avira has 11.39%, Symantec takes 10.06%, Microsoft claims 9.29%, while AVG is just below that with 9%.
The research firm also graphed the location of antivirus vendors. Apparently, 52% of those in the study are European, including Avast, Avira, AVG, ESET, Panda, BitDefender, G Data and Sophos. Meanwhile, 31% are located in the US, including Symantec, Microsoft, McAfee, PC Tools and Sunbelt. Numbers aside, what's your preferred antivirus and why?
In addition to using a free antivirus software which is a good starting point in terms of security, another popular option among users includes free or paid vpn tools. These products allow the user to connect to the internet via a vpn server or a proxy server (for HTTP traffic) and thus hide your actual IP address from the websites that you visit.
There are quality VPN products that provide strong encryption and no-logging policy in order to ensure that your privacy remains strong throughout your browsing activities.
The differences between VPN and proxy services is that VPN will encrypt and protect the whole communication from your computer towards the Internet with AES256 encryption (including HTTP, email, ftp access etc). On the other hand, proxy products hide only your browsing activity (HTTP).
Avast Free is supposedly the most popular software, taking 11.45% of the pie. Avira AntiVir Personal follows with 9.19%, AVG Free has 8.6%, and Microsoft Security Essentials has carved out a handsome 7.48% since debuting late last year. Below the freebies is Avast (paid) with 5.4%, Kaspersky had 4.48%, Norton at 4.24%, and ESET NOD32 claimed 3.84%.
OPSWAT combined different version numbers for each application, but most vendors have a few separate products, which makes the antivirus software chart a bit confusing. That said, things don't change much when you look at vendors. Avast leads with 19.14%, Avira has 11.39%, Symantec takes 10.06%, Microsoft claims 9.29%, while AVG is just below that with 9%.
The research firm also graphed the location of antivirus vendors. Apparently, 52% of those in the study are European, including Avast, Avira, AVG, ESET, Panda, BitDefender, G Data and Sophos. Meanwhile, 31% are located in the US, including Symantec, Microsoft, McAfee, PC Tools and Sunbelt. Numbers aside, what's your preferred antivirus and why?
In addition to using a free antivirus software which is a good starting point in terms of security, another popular option among users includes free or paid vpn tools. These products allow the user to connect to the internet via a vpn server or a proxy server (for HTTP traffic) and thus hide your actual IP address from the websites that you visit.
There are quality VPN products that provide strong encryption and no-logging policy in order to ensure that your privacy remains strong throughout your browsing activities.
The differences between VPN and proxy services is that VPN will encrypt and protect the whole communication from your computer towards the Internet with AES256 encryption (including HTTP, email, ftp access etc). On the other hand, proxy products hide only your browsing activity (HTTP).
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