No, it’s not like having a double lock on the door of your house. According to most computer security experts, having more than one antivirus program is not a good idea. Instead of greater security, you can end up with unwanted side effects.
How they operate
Antivirus programs are designed to prevent, search, detect and eliminate malicious programs on a continuous basis.
As a general rule, when the program encounters a problem, it notifies the user, who then has the option to block, delete or set aside the dangerous file.
“To be effective in the detection work, the antivirus must be able to penetrate the computer at an appropriate level, deep in the core of the system, ” explains the site of the company specialized in computer security Kaspersky Lab.
“The product needs to intercept events in the system, the intercepted data then passes to the antivirus engine, which analyzes them.”
If the user runs two or more programs with the same purpose, it is “likely to be a conflict, with one of two consequences: one of the two antiviruses fails in the mission to intercept (malicious) events in the system or attempts to install parallel interceptors will cause the system to collapse. “
Low risk
Several other specialized sites echo this warning.
The Microsoft site says bluntly that “you should never use more than one antivirus program simultaneously” and PCWorld compares it to “mix a fine wine with a cereal for breakfast.”
“It can simply happen that the two programs contradict each other: one can detect something like malware while the other one does not, which one to believe in? False positives exist in all antivirus programs, so it’s a complex issue,” he told BBC Mundo Javier Pastor, blogger of the Xataka technology site.
But others, like Alejandro Ramos, of the blog specialized in security SecurityByDefault, find that this risk is, in reality, low.
“It can happen that one antivirus can identify the other as an antivirus, or even that an antivirus identifies itself as such, but the probability is small,” he told BBC Mundo.
Performance
In contrast, for Ramos, the key issue is how the use of two or more antivirus programs can impact the performance of the computer.
“The antivirus scans all files that the computer opens and saves if this process is done in duplicate, it slows down the operation of the computer,” he explained.
“There may also be other problems ‘lock’. When a file is scanned by an antivirus, you have to read the hard drive and multiple applications cannot read the same file at once. If two antivirus ‘stick’ errors may occur unexpectedly. “
Options
So if you are worried about the possibility that an antivirus is not enough, what can you do to protect yourself from the internet scams?
“You can increase (the effect of the antivirus) with a malware scanner, ” PC World proposes.
This requires some additional explanations.
Viruses are, in effect, types of malware, but specifically designed to spread by infecting existing files, such as a disease that attacks the body’s cells.
All viruses are a form of malware. But there are also others, such as spyware, ransomware, and Trojans.
And, in fact, many antivirus programs already protect things that are not strictly viruses.
According to the experts, there are two fundamental differences: on the one hand, programs called antimalware do not work continuously behind the scenes but can be activated, used and closed.
On the other, they tend to include a range of different threats.
“The antivirus protects you from malware established, predictable but still dangerous. Antimalware products go against the most current threats, ” says the company Malwarebytes on your website.
In any case, it will require a little research on your part to specify what your antivirus package protects you, as well as to choose a complementary tool.
Do you know which one best suits your needs? Savenit has the best antivirus for 2018 for you.
