Free antivirus software from Avira, Avg, Mcafee - is it a good idea?

There are many companies offering free antivirus software like Avira, Avg, Avast, Mcafee and Norton but is a free antivirus a good idea or is it better to pay the money for premium protection? Antivirus software is widely available on the internet today with countless antivirus software provides to choose from. A good free antivirus software provider however isn’t as easy to find, so we ask the question how useful is free antivirus software? Most reputable companies now offer a free version of their antivirus software for a trial period, most typically 30 days but is the user really seeing a true representation of the fully paid versions? Surprisingly the answer is yes, in most cases you can scan your computer with the software, it will display the issues and give you the option to destroy the unwanted virus. In a lot of cases the only difference between the free and paid versions are the added extras, VPN, parental control etc, however if it is just antivirus software you are in the market for then the free version is a good option. There are however some experts that will try and tell you that the free antivirus software providers offer a significantly poorer virus detection rate, claims that a free version will only detect around 25% of viruses whereas a paid version will offer you up to a 90% detection rate. However in reality the chances are if an antivirus software provider is offering you a free or trial version of their software it will be the same software that they are offering for a fee. So when choosing a provider make sure that the paid version of the software is robust enough for your needs and the likelihood is that your free version will be just as robust. So in summation, how useful is free antivirus software? Very useful, the key things to remember are that you must do your research before you commit to downloading the antivirus software as 9 times out of 10 you will be downloading the same version of the software as the one you pay for so look for customer reviews, if people have paid for the antivirus software and are happy to recommend it then you are on to a winner.