Lesson 3 of 7

Deciding whether you need more than you have

You now know what antivirus does and what your device already includes. This lesson helps you decide, for your own situation, whether a separate product is worth considering. There is no right answer for everyone, and you are not obliged to buy anything.

Start with your baseline, not with a product

The question "which antivirus should I buy?" skips a step. A better first question is "what problem am I trying to solve?" If the honest answer is "I am not sure, I just feel I ought to have something", then lesson two may already have answered it: you probably do have something, and making sure it is working is the most useful step.

If you have a more specific worry, such as children using a shared computer, an older relative who receives a lot of suspicious emails, or a laptop that you also use for a small business, then a separate product might help. The rest of this lesson is about telling those situations apart.

Six questions to ask yourself

Work through these slowly. Jot down a short answer to each; the pattern of answers is more useful than any single one.

1. Which devices do you want to cover? Make a list: computers, phones, tablets, and whose they are. Some products cover one device; others cover several. Knowing your number avoids paying for more or fewer than you need.
2. Is the built-in protection on every device switched on and up to date? If not, fix that first. A product installed on a device that never updates is working with one hand tied behind its back.
3. Who uses the devices, and how confident are they? A household where everyone is comfortable spotting suspicious messages has different needs from one where someone tends to click first. For less confident users, extra warnings about risky websites may be genuinely helpful.
4. Do you want extras, or only antivirus? Suites often include password managers, VPNs, parental controls, cloud storage or identity monitoring. These can be useful, but you may already have some of them from elsewhere, such as the password manager built into your browser.
5. How much support do you want? Built-in tools rely mostly on self-help pages. Paid products may offer direct support. If you would rather talk to someone when something goes wrong, check what support a product actually offers, and how, before you buy.
6. What are you comfortable sharing? Security software sees a lot of what happens on a device. Read the product's privacy policy to see what it collects and where it is sent.

Reading the pattern in your answers

Once you have answers, a few rough patterns tend to appear. These are general observations, not rules.

If your answers were mostly "already covered"

Your devices are up to date, built-in protection is on, the people using them are fairly cautious, and you do not need extras. In this case the built-in protection may well be all you need for now. Revisit the question when something changes, such as a new device, a new user, or new kinds of use.

If you wanted extras or support

You are interested in features the built-in tools do not provide, or in having someone to contact. A paid product or suite might suit you, but compare what you would get with what you already have. Paying twice for a password manager is a common and avoidable waste.

If someone in the household is vulnerable to scams

This is the situation where people most often expect software to solve the problem, and where it helps least on its own. Web filtering and warnings can catch some fake sites. They cannot stop a phone call. For this situation, lesson six and the guidance from Netsafe are as important as any product decision.

Free, paid, or built in?

It is tempting to think that paying more buys more safety. That is not necessarily the case. When a company sells both a free and a paid product, the difference is often in the extra features, support or number of devices, and the company's own comparison page is the place to see exactly what changes. At the same time, a free product has to be funded somehow, often through prompts to upgrade or, with some products, through advertising. You should know which you are signing up for.

Lesson four sets out these kinds of option side by side, with the questions worth asking of each. For now, it is enough to know that "free versus paid" is a question about features and business model more than a question about safety alone.

What not to base your decision on

A simple worksheet you can use

If it helps, copy this list onto paper and tick off each item before you make a decision. Nothing here is submitted anywhere; it is just for you.

• I have listed every device I want covered, and who uses each one.
• Built-in protection is switched on and updates are installing on each device.
• I know which extras, if any, I actually want, and which I already have.
• I know whether I want direct support, and in what form.
• I have read, or plan to read, the product's privacy policy and subscription terms.
• I am making this choice without a deadline hanging over me.

If you can tick every box and still want a separate product, you are ready for lesson four. If you stopped at the second box, go back to lesson two first; it is the step with the biggest effect.

A note on households that are also small businesses

Many people in New Zealand run a business from home on the same laptop they use for everything else. If you hold customers' personal information, you have responsibilities under the Privacy Act 2020, which the Office of the Privacy Commissioner explains on its website. The NCSC's Own Your Online site also has guidance written for small businesses. Those responsibilities are wider than choosing antivirus, so it is worth reading that guidance directly rather than relying on a household course like this one.

When to revisit your decision

A decision about antivirus is not permanent. It is worth looking at it again when your circumstances change: when you buy a new computer or phone, when someone new starts using your devices, when you begin working from home, or when a paid subscription is due to renew. At each of those points, the six questions above take only a few minutes, and your answers may be different from last time. Some people find that a product they needed when the children were young is less useful once everyone is older; others find the opposite. Either outcome is fine, as long as it comes from your own answers.