Which to choose?
Are commercial AV-programms so much better than i.e. Antivir odr
Kaspersky?
Often it comes down to either ignorance or terms and conditions. If you are
a commercial organisation then the Ts&Cs of the free AV-programs will
prevent you from using their products - they have to make money somewhere
and if you like their products then they hope you will use their commercial
offerings. If you are a home/personal user then most people who don't use
the free programs do so because they didn't know there were free ones out
there.
All the free ones I've used have left me with the impression that they've
been at least as good as the commercial offerings. That said, if you have
any folders that you want excluded from being scanned then not all the free
ones provide you with that ability. I don't have any figures on detection
rates, but I'm sure they are all similar.
As well as commercial use the other area where commercial AV programs do
score over free ones is normally in range of operating systems supported. I
run a (legal) version of Windows server at home (sorry I'm a geek), and I
don't know a free AV that will install on a server.