Advantages and Disadvantages of Antivirus Software
Whether it is a desktop computer, laptop, or tablet, the use of a computer has become an important part of our life today. Sadly, so are the computer viruses.
You aren’t safe from viruses and spyware, latest viruses can travel from one PC to another at no time. The antivirus software is used for detecting and removing this virus from either the PC files or computer systems, from programs and data files that are infected.
An antivirus program is made to remove spyware and viruses off the computer. Without this antivirus software, your system can be vulnerable to viruses and various other threats. Besides removing viruses, antivirus software has several benefits. No matter whether it’s the desktop used in office or home, it’s important for the antivirus program to get installed in them. When using them the users may come over drawbacks too. In this post, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using antivirus software.
Why do you want antivirus software?
Any system without the proper antivirus is like a home without any doors. This open and unprotected house can attract all intruders or burglars in your house. In the same way, the unprotected computer may end up inviting viruses to your system.
The antivirus may act as the closed door with the security guard who is there to protect your computer protecting all the intruding viruses entering your home. Thus, are you going to leave your door fully open for the intruders? Let us check out some pros and cons of antivirus software.
Advantages and of Antivirus Software
Spyware Protection
As the name suggests, spyware is one type of malware, which spies on the PC stealing away your confidential information. The details include passwords, credit card details, and various other financial information. This leads to identity theft, your antivirus software has the capability of preventing these types of spyware attacks.
Block Ads and Spam
When you do a quick survey over how viruses enter your computer systems, you will get amazed by a huge number of viruses, which make use of pop-up ads or websites to make their way into your PC. Spam websites and pop-up ads are the important gateways used by these viruses to infect the computer and damage your system and files.
Firewall Feature
Many antivirus software includes the firewall feature. Antivirus software with the firewall feature makes sure two-way protection to the PC. It means that whatever information is sent and received is double-checked. Thus, no hackers will dig away any personal details from the system.
Protection From Removable Devices
How many times have you transferred data from the computer by making use of removable devices like USBs? Innumerable times, right?
You may have suffered from slowing down the computer or computer crash right after connecting your friend’s USB. Have you ever wondered why this happened? It is because USB and removable devices actually served as the transmission device for the virus.
Thus, if you stop using these removable devices as you don’t know which USB may have the virus. Just get the antivirus program that can scan all the removable devices you use for potential viruses and ensure no virus gets transferred to your machine.
Cost-Efficient
There are a lot of premium versions of the antivirus software available for the monthly or yearly subscription fee, there’s a few antivirus software that is totally free from charge. These types of antivirus programs provide a similar level of protection that is provided by subscription-based. Even though you afford the premium version, they’re totally inexpensive.
Protection From Data thieves and Hackers
Hackers, crackers, and spammers make use of these programs that have code that will hack the system to use various details that are present in your computer system just for their advantage.
Such programs violate information and data that can be quite dangerous for the personal and financial aspects of life. When internet transactions are done by the users they should pay attention to the websites that they are using and the website owner should comply with necessary security functions like data privacy and SSL rules for another discomfort.
Disadvantages of Antivirus Software
Less Comprehensive Protection
When using the free antivirus software, you are just getting the basic protection level for the computer. Suppose you want a strong firewall or advanced anti-malware, then you will not get this with the free program.
Free antivirus software generally provides your PC with a limited kind of protection, or detect threats. You can combine several free software for complete protection, however, this is totally inconvenient and slow down the system.
Slowdown Issue
Using the antivirus software means that huge resource from your PC memory and the hard drive is used. Thus, it will drastically slow down the overall speed of your computer. Furthermore, the process of scanning will cause lags in your network.
Requires Regular Updates
The premium antivirus program works fine when they’re updated often the reason is they update this virus database for scanning & detecting more viruses.
The updated database will be found useful when unknown and new viruses get in contact with the system and give an edge when the antivirus has prior information or details about any malicious software that will harm or damage the computer system very badly.
Thus, it’s advised to have periodic updates of the antivirus program, and doing this will protect your PC to complete potential.
Plenty of Ads
Very closely related to the upgrade prompts are several ads you can see while using the free antivirus software. The company offering free antivirus programs still has to earn money, and they earn it through advertising.
Whereas these ads will not be very intrusive as the upgrade prompts, still they affect user experience. They can end up getting their way when you use this antivirus software, and if these ads slow down, you have to ask if it is worth upgrading and saving time.
Final Words
Considering how affordable antivirus software is, it does not make any sense to select the free program only to save some money. There’re many advantages and disadvantages of antivirus software that you can make the right choice.
