In today’s land of viruses, malware, adware, trojans, worms, hackers, crackers (no, not the racial slur), and companies that do not keep up on their own security you need to watch out for number one – YOU!

There are a LOT of antivirus programs out there. Most of us know about McAfee and Symantec’s Norton but what about the other ones? And how do I know what to choose? A great place to start if you like reading statistical data is http://www.av-comparatives.org/ which does research and tests on quite a few antivirus programs: 20 in all at the writing of this article.

When it comes to our own customers we have found that a large majority does not like the overwhelming amount of overhead (or how it slows a computer down) that McAfee does. Some do not like the price of Norton. Some find others to be unknown which makes them question the company and then there are some that like the free products put out by AVG, Avast, Avira, and a few others.

Free versions of antivirus software are typically free only for home users that are not using the computer for any kind of business. The free versions are also limited in their capacity compared to the full versions when it comes to other facets of security. If you are a business user and you are using a home version of a product please stop. Reason #1 to stop is obvious and the #2 reason is that you want the full package on your machine with a stronger software firewall and features like that of Avast’s Internet Security. Yes, here is where we state our liking and why we like it. We also have to tell you that we are an authorized reseller of Avast antivirus. The thing of it is, we do not like Avast because we sell it – we sell Avast because we like it, trust it, and never have issues or problems with it.

Most antivirus programs do a scheduled scan and also watch for files that you download. Some will even watch what programs you are opening but that is rare with the free versions. With Avast Internet Security you get a live and active scanning solution that not only stops viruses but goes the distance to stop Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUP). If you ever open an “unsigned” program or something that could be fishy/phishy then Avast will give you options: Open it, Open it Sandbox, or Stop the process.

What is the Sandbox? The sandbox is a safe area to open the program where it cannot harm your system in any way. The sandbox can even be used to open your web browser and give you a 100% safe-surfing experience.

The next key ingredient to Avast Internet Security is that it comes with a software firewall that stops unwanted traffic coming into your computer or leaving out of your computer. It knows every time you move to a new network (for you laptop users) and asks you if you are at Home, Work, or in a Public place. (Always choose Public if you are indeed in a Public place – like Starbucks.)

Avast is also not a power hungry program and here is where we like it the most and why we decided to become a reseller: Avast uses very little of your computer’s resources (memory, hard drive, processor) and it has one of the fastest scanners out there. How can you trust it if it is not built like a tank? That’s the thing. It is specifically tailored for its jobs and they have done nothing but program Avast to do it as slim as possible. Typically when software is slimmed it has bugs, issues, and crashes, but in our 3+ years of being customers we have never had it crash, error, freeze, or halt and that is what is important. You have to know that your antivirus will not fail you at anytime.

The only con about Avast is that it is sometimes TOO strong and will from time to time have a false positive where it thinks a safe file has an infection. If this ever happens to you contact us with the information or contact Avast directly and they will correct the problem IMMEDIATELY. They are all about their customers and making sure things run right.

Want to buy a copy of Avast and help support a local Reno, Nevada company that is “Paying I.T. Forward”™? Give us a call at 775-636-8378, e-mail “info *at* credocomputers.com”, or visit our Contact Page. (We have a store coming soon!!! Our prices are the same or lower than those online – so buy from us directly and help a worthy cause.)