Most recent cybercriminals are the smartest and very harder to fight with old fashioned antivirus software. Some antiviruses have been proven not to be effective in their performance while others have been known to be actively harmful to the system of your device. These actively harmful antiviruses have been tested on computers and they have shown that they are indeed harmful to the system. They are in some way malware designed to infect your device and at the same time carrying away your personal sensitive data.
Initially, antiviruses in olden times were designed specifically to detect and remove malicious computer threats and viruses; this is evident when you compare Total AV vs Malwarebytes. As the technology advances, more antivirus software manufacturers have advanced the way the programs do to your PC. In this modern time, most antiviruses are designed to perform multiple tasks. They are much complex in performance as they are full suit antivirus software packages which ideally protect literally everything on your PC. Below are nine important antivirus facts for 2020:
Best 2020 antivirus should have the following features
The least you can get in basic antivirus software is protection of your device against any advanced forms of recently realised malware. These include viruses and other forms of malicious threats that may include rootkits, spyware and ransomware. With modern technology, antivirus software has been built with additional features. Phishing protection is one of the bonus features you can find in latest antiviruses. This feature helps you remain secure while shopping and banking online. The other bonus feature is the VPN which is designed to provide a secure internet connection so that your personal information remains with you. They also include parental controls so that you can control what your children watch online.
You need to know how it protects
To be on the safe side when you want to buy the best antivirus in 2020, you need first to know how it protects the system against malware. Besides, there are other features you need to be aware of and how useful they are to your device. You also need to make a decision about the features whether they are what you need or not and then you can finally purchase it.
Antivirus software isn’t designed to protect against everything
It is important to note that even with the modern technology and all the manufacturing companies have implemented, it is hard for antivirus software to protect against everything. If it were possible, anyone would take chances and ensure the computer is installed with antivirus and there is maximum safety and protection against malicious software. This is not the case with antivirus software.
Antivirus operates only what it knows
It is a fact that in this era, antivirus software does its work based on what it knows. Each time you use your computer, it has been tested that there is emergence of new viruses, rootkits, spyware and other forms of malicious malware. These kinds of computer threats can be realised immediately while others might take sometimes and even not be discovered at all.
Antiviruses in the computer come in different forms; some come and remain dormant until you click on a file or start downloading something online is when they are noticed. Similarly, some of them are contracted differently and have their own unique actions. Tests have also revealed that some types of computer threats have found a way to avoid being found or removed from the system.
If antivirus was designed to work in a similar way the viruses behave so that they have every single signature assigned to each virus in the specified database, then it would perform its work flawlessly. All the antiviruses don’t have databases that can perform all this and that, each given manufacturer have no access to any single virus signature.
How antivirus works
Antiviruses are designed in a specific way that they compare their virus signatures with the code that exists in files on PC. When a file that matches the code of the antivirus software, the file is then declared infected. It is therefore hard for antivirus to have a comparison for all the viruses; it works only on what it has and knows with what is known as heuristics.
Heuristics is a process the software looks out for codes that are like the virus code. This feature sometimes can get the malicious files and sometimes bring false returns about files which are infected and yet they are not. The reason is that they are built to only estimate and there are possibilities that it might as well never detect infected files. In this way, the antivirus is operating on the basis of what it knows and what it has to deal with the task.
Antivirus software can be disabled with some Malware
It is very possible that some Malware can mess with antivirus software even with the best antivirus software on the market. Even if the software is constantly updated and is using heuristics, something can be missed and end up disabling software.
Viruses can hijack your web browser
It is a common feature with most viruses and some malicious malware to hijack the web browser. Immediately they hijack your web browser they take full or partial control of everything in your system. This means that you are limited to accessing specific websites. Some of the hijackers can redirect everything whereby when you try browsing, the web that is hijacked redirects you to another website which usually is an ad site.
Scam Software can behave as Antivirus/ Antispyware Software
There is a possibility that scam software to behave as antivirus or antispyware software which is referred to as phonies. It is important you become careful because they are viruses or spyware. They always browser hijackers that redirect you to a fake browser you never wanted to visit.
Some antivirus software can mess up other programs
Some antiviruses have been tested and found to interfere with some of your programs on your device based on how the software operates. Most of the programs will run fairly well with the antivirus installed while others will be interfered with and this will force you to disable the antivirus software.