Free Antivirus/Anti-Malware Software, Should I Use It?
The simple answer is no, but there again as a supplier of such software you would expect me to say that for commercial reasons, I always smile when I am asked this very question.
There are a couple of things we need to get straight,
1. the Internet is a war-zone, nothing is what it seems and everybody is really trying to get what you have.
2. having the wrong protection is not only about having nothing, but often about having insufficient protection to protect you from (1), and leaving you feeling protected and safe, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.
3. no single product, free or paid, can offer you 100% protection, even combinations of compatible products cannot offer you 100%. You need to have other systems in place, which include really good archival backups of your data, copies of your license keys and downloads, configurations etc of apps or data you have purchased to allow you to reinstall your entire computer in the worse case.
Ok, free anti-virus or anti-malware products are either slow to update on a regular basis, do not perform on-access or on-demand scans of files you download/open from the Internet or other sources, or just dont have the features required to give you better than no real protection. They are not better than nothing, they can leave you feeling safe and you will let your guard down.
Always used a paid and commercial software offering, and ensure you have good backups as above.