Antivirus Program Quality and Problems You May Face
Finding a spotless software solution is hard. There are lots of minor and serious issues that can affect a user’s experience. There are so many unpredictable factors and interactions, so to account for all of these issues is humanly impossible for developers. While we are waiting for the inevitable arrival of godlike AI, let’s take a closer look at various issues you may face as a user of antivirus programs. Moving forward, you’ll know what to pay attention to when reading antivirus reviews.
Conflicting Software
Antiviruses usually work quite well until they suddenly don’t. A common issue is incompatibility with other programs and/or the operating system in general. Sometimes, these incompatibilities are minor, and troubleshooting does not take long. In other cases, you may face some very problematic issues that cannot be solved by simply tweaking settings or making a couple of changes in your OS.
The most frequent problem is when you activate the firewall. Windows and MAC PCs come with their own versions of firewalls. In the latest iterations of both systems, you cannot simply turn them off whenever you feel like doing so. Some antiviruses have active firewalls. You don’t necessarily have to use them, but they come as a part of a package and often can increase the level of security. However, their firewalls can conflict with the firewall preinstalled on your OS.
Troubleshooting, in this case, depends on a variety of factors. In some cases, you can just change the settings of your native firewall. In other scenarios, you will need to forget about using a firewall provided by the antivirus developer. The latter is not an issue if you are subscribed to a modern AV service provider. They all have a money-back guarantee, meaning that you can just demand a refund and start searching for a provider whose products do not conflict with your OS.
If you want to stick with your guns and continue using the software, either turn off the firewall in the kit altogether or write to the customer support team. In some cases, you will be able to run the firewall with some adjustments to settings.
Incomplete Databases
The quality of antivirus programs is usually defined by several factors such as performance, reliability, and the number of viruses they can identify and deal with. The vast majority of modern AV programs can successfully find and destroy Trojan programs, keyloggers, various malware, ransom software, and many more.
For obvious reasons, each developer tries to keep a couple of identified viruses in secret from other developers. The market is very competitive, and every developer wants to have the upper hand when it comes to attracting customers. This leads to a problem for all of us users. There are no programs available with virus databases that include all known viruses.
One of the ways of dealing with this problem is installing several AV products at once. You can use many different virus scanners to make sure that your system is clean. This solution is quite heavy on your wallet. However, it is the best way to deal with all possible threats.
Trivial Issues
Bugs and glitches are quite reasonable for any type of software. Sadly, antiviruses also have problems. Due to the fact that many companies switch to a more iterative model of development with subscription-based monetization, most bugs are identified and removed seamlessly. However, you may still stumble upon an occasional bug or two.
We recommend notifying developers about such bugs and reach out to their technical support.
An ideal program simply does not exist. You have to deal with many problems. At the same time, you can reduce the abundance of such issues. All you need to do is to sign up for a better service. Some developers like Kaspersky and Avira put a lot of emphasis on creating good products. They pay tremendous attention to removing bugs and potential software conflicts.
