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We spent dozens of hours reading results from independent labs like AV-Test and AV-Comparatives, feature articles from many publications such as Ars Technica and PCMag, and white papers and releases from institutions and groups like Usenix and Google’s Project Zero. Windows Defender, Microsoft’s built-in tool, is good enough for most people. The “best antivirus” for most people to buy, it turns out, is nothing.
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And after all that, we learned that most people should neither pay for a traditional antivirus suite, such as McAfee, Norton, or Kaspersky, nor use free programs like Avira, Avast, or AVG. We set out to do a standard Wirecutter guide to the best antivirus app, so we spent months researching software, reading reports from independent testing labs and institutions, and consulting experts on safe computing.
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