I tested five antivirus programs on one PC in 2026. Norton 360 is the fastest, Bitdefender the lightest, and Avast the best free tier.

Rachel Williams has been an editor for nearly two decades. She has spent the last five years working on small business content to help entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. She’s well-versed ...

Antivirus software (antivirus program) is a security program designed to prevent, detect, search and remove viruses and other types of malware from computers, networks and other devices. Often ...

Surfshark is better known for its VPN, but it’s also a good solution for anyone who wants both antivirus protection and a VPN ...

Shopping for antivirus software can feel harder than it should. Many product pages lead with buzzwords, lab scores and long feature lists. Most of us just want a simple answer: Will this help keep my ...

If you’re new to using a computer or new to Microsoft, or on the flip side, very, very experienced you might be thinking: Do I really need an antivirus program for my Windows 11 computer? The short ...

Viruses and malware aren't what they used to be. Gone are the days when your biggest worry was downloading a bad file from some sketchy website. Now threats show up as phishing emails that look ...

Once upon a time, an antivirus program would be the one of the first pieces of software you would install on a new Windows PC. Now, that’s much less common. Many users instead now rely on the Windows ...

A VPN and an antivirus serve two different purposes, but use both if you want more complete online protection. Both a virtual private network and an antivirus program can help protect your digital ...

When an antivirus program sounds the alarm, it always triggers a moment of shock in the user. But the warning is not always justified. Because even a virus scanner can make mistakes. Antivirus ...

I’m Adam Conway, an Irish technology fanatic with a BSc in Computer Science and I'm XDA’s Lead Technical Editor. My Bachelor’s thesis was conducted on the viability of benchmarking the non-functional ...