Shelling out money-generally $40 to $70-does get you additional protection, says Richard Fisco, who heads electronics testing at CR. The Windows 10 Defender software that comes installed on new Windows computers didn’t offer strong enough data security protections to receive CR’s recommendation this time around, but it did receive an Excellent rating for data privacy, primarily because built-in protection does not expose your personal data to any additional third parties.

Our testers rate the company’s software Very Good, overall, for data privacy.

The company says it has since ceased this practice. AVG Antivirus Free, Kaspersky Security Cloud Free, and Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition also perform well.Īvast, which also owns AVG-branded antivirus products, came under fire in 2020 when it was revealed that the company was using its antivirus products to collect user data, which it then sold. Avast Free Antivirus gets high marks from our testers for its ability to stop threats against Windows computers. You don’t have to pay for solid protection.

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