Quote Originally Posted by HTRegz
Here's how it works..

PAID AV = Bloated and a Resource Hog
Free AV = Light weight and all you really need.

There's no such thing as better...

Paid AV is like buying a Hummer when you live in the city, have narrow, paved streets and travel ALL the way across town each day to get to work... It just doesn't make sense.

Free AV is like buying a smart car under the same scenario... You might not have all the bells and whistles... but it does what it needs to.
HT~ I would question your terminology here?

By "Paid AV" I think that you must be referring to the "Security Suites" that are being marketed..........as far as I am aware there are no "free" ones out there. Similarly, if you are a business user you have to pay, so both should be left out of the equation?

That would narrow the question down to the differences between, say, the free and paid for versions of AVG, Avast! and the like, for the private, home user.

There is minimal resource consumption difference between them, all you need to know is if the additional features of the paid for version suit you, and are worth the cost?

My personal experience is that they generally do not. You can put together a collection of free products that will do the job, just as well, if not better.

I agree that these "Security Suites" are rather "bloated" and can conflict with other software (my personal experience is that the conflict issue is more of a problem than resource hogging..........at least with individual products you can isolate the culprit)

My advice to most of my users is to stick with the free ones unless there is a really specific feature that you need.

In other words, I agree with what you said, but would phrase it somewhat differently, given that I mostly deal with non-computer literate folks