Most people don't know but your ISP might give you a free subscription to a legit anti-virus program! Mine gives me F-Secure, which has done well for me for the past few years. They pay F-secure, so it's a paid anti-virus program it's just I don't have to foot the bill. As an added bonus, they have a number of Wi-Fi spots around the country that I can log into for free! Does anyone else ISP do this? Does anyone else get any freebies from their Internet service provider?
My ISP offers a form of security that mainly protects the router itself rather than the computer, even though it's said to provide full antivirus protection. I don't trust them to do the job, because, in all honesty, I don't trust my ISP all that much. They kinda suck. I want to switch, but the area I'm in doesn't give me much choice. So I put on my own antivirus and keep a wary eye on their super-special freebies. Sounds overly paranoid, I know, but they've been caught doing all sorts of dirt stuff in the past. I've personally found them throttling my services, despite the fact that I pay an arm and a leg each month for internet. God I wish I could move somewhere with different ISPs.
I don't know if my ISP offers free anti-virus software but even if they did to be honest, I wouldn't have any use for it because I have all the protection I need for my PC. I believe though that for most people who'd rather not use the free anti-virus programs most of which don't do they job they are supposed to be doing, this could save the the money they'd have spent on commercial anti-virus software.
If my Isp offered an anti virus to their customers for free, I can only really see novices accepting it and installing it. People who don't already know about anti virus software. Most of us who already know about anti virus already have protection on our system.
I can only wish that ISPs here in our country (Philippines) are as much generous as in other countries'. Aside from paying a lot of money for a 2Mbps connection, the support is also crappy. But I'm pretty much content with Microsoft's Windows Defender so I would have no use for the free antivirus software. Besides, there are already plenty of free antivirus software on the internet that you can download.
There are so many excellent free anti-virus programs that I'm not sure that going for one that your ISP provides is necessarily the best idea. You are better off shopping around and finding one that suits your needs, and your usage habits. Even Microsoft offers one, and though it's not as perfect as it once was, it's a good all round option for a general computer user.
