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For guidance, check out our full guide to setting up all these security layers. You should avoid downloading and opening email attachments unless you know what they are.

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You need to be mindful of what you download and to download software only from official sources, such as the Microsoft App Store and Apple Mac App Store, whenever possible. You also need secure passwords, two-factor logins, data encryption, systemwide backups, automatic software updates, and smart privacy tools added to your browser. No antivirus tool, paid or free, can catch every malicious bit of software that arrives on your computer.

Over the years, weвЂ™ve also spoken with security experts, IT professionals, and the information security team of The New York Times (WirecutterвЂ™s parent company) to filter out the noise of the typical antivirus table-tennis headlines: Antivirus is increasingly useless, no, actually itвЂ™s still pretty handy, no, antivirus is unnecessary, wait, no, it isnвЂ™t, and so on.ДЄlthough in any category we usually test all the products weвЂ™re considering, we canвЂ™t test the performance of antivirus suites any better than the experts at independent test labs already do, so we relied on their expertise.Д«ut ultimately, relying on any one app to protect your system, data, and privacy is a bad bet, especially when almost every antivirus app has proven vulnerable on occasion. We also read up on the viruses, ransomware, spyware, and other malware of recent years to learn what threats try to get onto most peopleвЂ™s computers today. 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 GoogleвЂ™s Project Zero.

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Windows Defender, MicrosoftвЂ™s built-in tool, is good enough for most people. The вЂњbest antivirusвЂќ for most people to buy, it turns out, is nothing. 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.