Noticed a huge difference between free AV and paid endpoint protection at my office

I manage a small office network for my dad's real estate company. We had free Avast on like 12 computers for about 2 years, and we got hit with ransomware twice. Last November I switched everyone over to Bitdefender GravityZone, $180 a year total. In 6 months we've had zero infections, plus the remote management dashboard is actually useful. Has anyone else seen a big jump just by moving off free antivirus stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

jason_robinson1mo ago

That ransomware hitting you twice is brutal man, I don't blame you for ditching the free stuff. Like you said, that remote dashboard alone makes it worth the money when you're trying to keep track of a dozen machines.

angelaellis1mo ago

I hear you on the remote management being nice, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Free Avast is pretty bare bones compared to even basic paid stuff, so the jump you saw might be more about just having a proper security suite period, not because you paid for it. There are solid free options like Kaspersky Free or even just sticking with Windows Defender that are miles ahead of Avast Free and would cost you nothing. Plus a lot of small offices I've seen get hit harder after switching to paid because people let their guard down thinking the expensive software will catch everything. You could have spent that $180 on better employee training and locked down your router and gotten similar results without the subscription.