How to choose antivirus without falling for marketing: a 6-step checklist
Antivirus marketing leans heavily on fear and on big percentages that are hard to check. These six steps cut through that. Most people can work through them in ten minutes, and some will find they don't need to buy anything at all.
1. Start with what you already have
Windows, macOS and Android all include built-in protection that's switched on by default, and it now performs well in independent testing. Before comparing products, read is built-in protection enough? If the answer for you is yes, you can stop here.
2. Check independent test results, not the company's own claims
Two independent labs, AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives, test most major products side by side under the same conditions and publish their methods. A claim like "99.9% protection" on a product's own website means little until you can find it confirmed in one of their published reports.
If a product doesn't appear in either lab's recent results at all, treat that as a yellow flag.
3. Look at false alarms as well as detection
The labs publish two numbers: how many threats a product blocked, and how many safe files it wrongly flagged. A product that catches everything but keeps quarantining your own documents isn't safer in practice. People get frustrated and switch it off. In recent testing, false alarm counts ranged from zero to twenty, which is a much bigger difference than the detection rates.
4. Decide based on the renewal price
Most antivirus is sold with a steep first-year discount and renews automatically at a much higher price, sometimes five times more. The renewal price is what you'll pay every year after the first, so that's the one to compare. See real renewal prices for popular products.
5. Count your devices and check each one is covered
List every device you want protected: Windows PCs, Macs, Android phones, iPhones and tablets. Then check the plan covers that number and those platforms. Some products don't offer antivirus on every platform, and plans are priced by number of devices, so a "cheap" plan may only cover one.
6. Be honest about the extras
Security suites often bundle a VPN, password manager, cloud backup or identity monitoring. That's good value if you'd otherwise pay for those separately. It's wasted money if you won't use them, and it makes renewal more expensive. Compare the basic plan with the full bundle and pick based on what you'll actually use.
Putting it together
For most people the decision comes down to this: if you're on one platform and careful online, the free built-in protection is enough. If you need to cover several different devices, or want particular extras, choose a product with strong independent results, few false alarms, and a renewal price you're happy to pay every year. Our side-by-side comparison has the figures.