PC Magazine - Security Watch: Free Antivirus Products Rule the World

Jan 29, 2014
By Neil J. Rubenking

Infrastructure management company OPSWAT has security agents installed on over 100 million endpoints. The company's free Security Score tool checks your PC's security status, and the GEARS network security manager is free for up to 25 devices. In addition to performing their essential function, these two tools also send a variety of non-personal information back to OPSWAT. The latest OPSWAT quarterly report details findings derived from this telemetry.

OPSWAT doesn't pretend to be a research institution. The report notes that the 6,000 users selected for this analysis "are more likely to have high-functioning security on their computers than would be seen in the market as a whole" and that "users sampled may not be representative of the general population." Disclaimers aside, the results provide an interesting look into the market.

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