quoted from Can you Trust Free Anti-Virus?:
" 1. Free antivirus does not provide the protection to avoid identity theft. This is wrong. Malware focused on stealing identity information is just malware. In principle it is not any different from malware focused on hijacking your computer, deleting your data, etc. There is really no difference in detecting this malware. Avast’s ability to detect malware is unquestioned and is always at or near the top of malware detection tests. Talking about identity theft here is just marketing hype. Users are rightfully concerned about protecting their identity information. But, we and everyone else do that by protecting the user against malware. Unlike others we just don’t hype it……maybe we should."
while another AV vendor states this:
What you don’t get with this free version of the antivirus
* Protection against identity theft, hacker attacks, infected downloads, infected instant-messaging and spam
Is there some kind of contradiction between these two statements? Or this is just marketing? I’m confused ??? :
Simply put, avast! protects you against identity theft even though the big boys say free AV’s don’t.
Hi bob, long time no see.
Just got the paid version of Avast! Works very well on my old w2k laptop. Avast always scores well on the tests and the free version is not that much different than the paid one. That aside, there is nothing on the planet that can protect one from themselves- not SSSSymantic nor anyone else. All the folks that I told to put Avast on their machines have never looked back. Go and look on any AV product’s forum and they are filled with this problem and that. The problem is not enough education about the safety and use of a computer. Remember the “click here to get infected” site that was put up a few years ago? -lol
max
Sometimes people forget the “I” in Infection.
Remember –
Practice safe hex!