Advice Request Is it safe to recommend Kaspersky Free Antivirus, without having used it?

[Ink]

A family-friend recently bought a PC from an online store with came bundled with a Norton 90 day free trial.

My concern was that Microsoft Defender might not have been that effective, were they to download warez or game mods.

I made the recommendation to uninstall Norton Security and sent a link for them to use Kaspersky Free AV as an alternative.


Was this the correct call? Or a mistake on my behalf having never used Kaspersky before.

 

[eonline]

Was this the correct call? Or a mistake on my behalf having never used Kaspersky before.

You were right to recommend that antivirus but there is also C_D which configures in a very simple way the native Microsoft antivirus to be good enough for almost any user.

GitHub - AndyFul/ConfigureDefender: Utility for configuring Windows 10 built-in Defender antivirus settings.

Utility for configuring Windows 10 built-in Defender antivirus settings. - AndyFul/ConfigureDefender

github.com

 

[brambedkar59]

Was this the correct call? Or a mistake on my behalf having never used Kaspersky before.

Kaspersky Free is a solid AV, so I would say it's a good call. I does annoy sometimes with notifications/news but iirc those can be disabled in preferences.

 

[Shadowra]

Kaspersky Free is an excellent AV and is on the podium in my video reviews, you can install it without any problem

 

[RoboMan]

You might as well just recommend them to install Kaspersky after Norton's trial ends, since Norton Security is a more complete suite than Kaspersky's basic free antivirus. Nevertheless, when talking freeware, Kaspersky is one of the best options, so good call.

 

[SeriousHoax]

If they have the habit of downloading cracked programs then there is nothing better than Kaspersky because 9.5/10 times it doesn't detect cracked items unless the crack is a malware in disguise. Other programs including Norton & MD would sometime detect harmless crack files as malware/pup/hacktool.
Try to explain them this and tell them to never turn off Kaspersky's protection.

 

[Pixel_]

Here, this is a similar discussion that I had with others. It might help.

Advice Request - Security setup for my parents

Hi Friends, Have you any sugestions on what applications to use on my parents Win10 OS for security? I'm planing to install Kaspersky security cloud free, Adguard windows, BD Traffic light on Brave, Simple WH, and SimpleWall. My main concern are the interactive notifications that they would...

malwaretips.com

 

[monkeylove]

Go to sites like AV-Comparatives and see which does best overall.

 

[piquiteco]

This kaspersky antivirus was or is so good, at the time of windows 98 it detected a bat file with DOS "del" commands to delete files from the windows folder, although it was a false positive, it saved me at the time because it would delete the "win.com" file and windows would not open, it detected it as hacktool, I was impressed at the time with that.

 

[Ink]

Go to sites like AV-Comparatives and see which does best overall.

Irrelevant and a waste of time. Picking a suite with the best overall score does not imply it's better than it's competitors, not reflective of real world usage per individual.

If they have the habit of downloading cracked programs then there is nothing better than Kaspersky because 9.5/10 times it doesn't detect cracked items unless the crack is a malware in disguise. Other programs including Norton & MD would sometime detect harmless crack files as malware/pup/hacktool.
Try to explain them this and tell them to never turn off Kaspersky's protection.

It's a possibility, but at the same time I am not responsible for their actions.

You might as well just recommend them to install Kaspersky after Norton's trial ends, since Norton Security is a more complete suite than Kaspersky's basic free antivirus. Nevertheless, when talking freeware, Kaspersky is one of the best options, so good call.

I'd rather not have them deal with Norton scareware pop-ups at trials end.

Kaspersky Free is a solid AV, so I would say it's a good call. I does annoy sometimes with notifications/news but iirc those can be disabled in preferences.

That's good to know. I will pass along the message to them. Is there option for password-protection settings that can be setup by the parent?

Here, this is a similar discussion that I had with others. It might help.

Advice Request - Security setup for my parents

Hi Friends, Have you any sugestions on what applications to use on my parents Win10 OS for security? I'm planing to install Kaspersky security cloud free, Adguard windows, BD Traffic light on Brave, Simple WH, and SimpleWall. My main concern are the interactive notifications that they would...

malwaretips.com

Almost overlooked the browser aspect, I will also make the recommendation of Adguard Web extension.

 

[brambedkar59]

That's good to know. I will pass along the message to them. Is there option for password-protection settings that can be setup by the parent?

I have personally never used a password on it, so don't know how robust it is.

How to password-protect access to Kaspersky Free management functions

support.kaspersky.com

 

[monkeylove]

Irrelevant and a waste of time. Picking a suite with the best overall score does not imply it's better than it's competitors, not reflective of real world usage per individual.

I was going to say that the OP is probably a novice and won't know how to to measure the performance impact of an AV, which is why he's asking forum members if his suggestion is right, and then I realized that you're the same OP!

If you're already correcting others' answers to your question, then why did you bother to create this thread in the first place? It looks like you already know what to do.

In fact, your point even works against you: if what you wanted in the first place is something "reflective of real world usage per individual," then the only way to see if you made the correct call is to let your friend use Kaspersky and then see what happens. In which case, you didn't have to create this thread.