Traditionally, laptops have a lower performance than desktop computers, and therefore programs installed on portable devices should use as little resources as possible. Therefore, a program should be chosen based on its compactness and functionality criteria.
Antivirus requirements for laptops
To maximize the performance of your portable device while protecting it from a variety of viruses and spyware, you will need to choose the lightest and most powerful software solution that meets your security needs.
It is important that the utility has the necessary modules for protection. This set should include the antivirus itself and the filter for downloaded files. The program should be able to automatically scan removable media to be connected and be able to do this without user intervention with minimal impact on the speed of the entire system. Since laptops have weaker hardware than comparable desktops, the software needs to be light on resources. This manifests itself in a faster response when performing scanning operations or when downloading documents from the Internet.
You should not purchase or download whole anti-virus packages, which are a "harvester" of firewalls, antiviruses and other modules intended more for computer networks or users whose professional activities are related to working in potentially dangerous content and software that are susceptible to hacker and virus attacks …
For protection on a home laptop, a basic antivirus package will do.
Antivirus examples
One of the lightest and most popular antiviruses on both laptops and desktops is Dr. Web. The program has all the necessary tools to track potentially dangerous programs that are downloaded by the user from the Internet or using portable media. The utility is able to automatically scan any connected storage medium and automatically scan the software for viruses in the background without user intervention and a noticeable drop in system performance. The program uses its own authorized virus recognition algorithm, which makes it quite efficient.
Another popular program is Avast Free. It allows you to get basic protection for free - you can use all the functions of the anti-virus utility available to the average user. The application is reliable enough, well suited for protecting the home system and does not require additional actions from the user.
The utility differs in the number of settings that are understandable even for a novice computer user.
The new version of the windows 8 operating system also uses a built-in antivirus program, which will be a good solution to protect your laptop. Despite its novelty, the still rather modest base of detected viruses, the program looks more advantageous against the background of many others due to the fact that it is fully integrated into the system interface. This means that its operation does not affect the overall performance of the computer, and all actions are performed in just a couple of clicks in the notification panel, which, when a potential threat is detected, will give the user an appropriate message and perform the necessary operations to isolate the virus in order to secure the system data. The program is a fairly stable security tool and is already installed on the computer immediately after installing Windows, and therefore you do not need to download additional packages and perform the installation operation.
