Regarding free anti-virus nowadays, most users will not pay up for the “paid-for” version, so the developers have come up with new ways of making money from these products, by doing such simple things as changing your browser’s start page, adding browser toolbars, and hijacking your preferred search engine to adding in their own tracking software to monitor and collect data that they can re-sell for even more money.
Some of the ones we used to consider our favorites have turned on us. It is better these days to invest in a decent anti-badware that does only that, defend us from the bad guys.
I read an article recently that was published in June 2015, titled, “Beware, free antivirus isn’t really free anymore.” It did help drive the point home. The article is at how-to-geek.com: <link>https://www.howtogeek.com/218675/beware-free-antivirus-isnt-really-free-anymore/</link>