Bitdefender Total Security - 5 Devices | 1 year Subscription | PC/Mac | £15.99 with £4 voucher) Dispatches from Amazon Sold by Bitdefender

Depending on how many devices (not just PCs and Macs, but also iphones, android devices), I always look on the pcpro store for multi-year packs: store.pcpro.co.uk/?ac…t=5

Might be useful if you have more than 5 devices to be covered, for example, Norton 360 Premium 2023 [10-Device, 2-YR] for £19.99 (store.pcpro.co.uk/p36…-yr)

I been using Bitdefender Family Pack (15 devices, 2 years) for 4 years now and very happy with how it performs and the features it provides.

Security begins with the user. If someone phones up the user and asks their permission to use their PC remotely and they give access to it, then game over this won't stop the attack vector. Also this won't stop the user getting domain spoofed emails which are a very easy attack vector. This type of software is paper over the cracks, a bandaid, it might catch and prevent that virus/spyware/malware but that shouldn't be getting to the user in the first place and the usual places for that primarily are emails and less often directly from websites that the user has chosen to go to, meaning they usually got the malware, entered account information because they were already tricked in to visiting a site.

So this can help, it's active protection but it's not intelligently active, you really need email protection and that would be my critical primary attack vector to close first. The second is the user educating the user that under no circumstances do they use their computer on the advice of someone calling them or emailing them. If someone phones you up and says I am from AMCE corp and you need to let me use your PC to help you fix your account being compromised, it is exactly the same as if a person rings your doorbell and says the same thing. You wouldn't let a stranger use your PC if they came to your door, but if they phone you up that's OK? It certainly seems to be as that's a very common attack vector that has a high success rate for scammers.

TLDR;

Get active Email protection via a well reviewed/respected Email Security Protection Gateway, usually a few $£ per month
Educate user
Assume user can't be educated 100%
Make sure user has 2FA enabled on all their accounts (this will be replaced by security keys in future)
If a person has dementia make the 2FA only accessible to a trusted user or alerts are sent to trusted user
Install reliable malware/AV software
Setup auto backup to Cloud storage with version history. If you get ransomware it can be restored easily. OneDrive, Dropbox etc have plans with versioning history. (edited)

Good deal, heat added. I have been using this for years and whilst the product is good I absolutely hate this company. My current version expires in one week so this was a great deal for me. They tried to charge me £75 to renew, they also sneakily switched on my auto renew when I updated last time. Now they're offering £37 as a discount offer. Just remember to disable auto-renew and always look for deals like this one to get it at a reasonable price. Also, when I bought a discounted version directly from them they wouldn't add it as an extension to my current subscription until I complained, saying that only subscriptions bought from 3rd parties could be added as an extension. Not sure what their current policy is. The product itself is pretty good, but is annoying with constant notifications about one thing or another. You can get rid of most, if not all notifications, but it's a bit of a pain.

Good price. I've paid £22 last month for it. Voted hot for my Romanian brothers who created Bitdefender 21 years ago. (edited)

FWIW you might as well just use the BitDefender free version if you don't specifically need the paid features.
The AV engine is the same on the free version as the paid.

I've been using this for years and it's great, I know I'm naughty but I just use the free 3 or 6 month trial and renew it all the time as there are no restrictions.

I bought 3 years for £14.97 back in November. It's my first time using it & I think it's quite restrictive with windows at times & not a straight forward way to disable it fully & when it is disabled you still get things blocked by it. I think I'll give something else a try in future

Does the inbuilt windows solution actively protect against ransomware malware & rootkits?

Does it have solid mitigation for such events? (edited)

paranoia ware.

Defender has been top tier for a long time now. MS has been upfront from the start really. They said they weren't happy with vendors, and they needed to secure their systems.

See who's reviewing AV software, and then have a look around their magazine/site/commission codes, you'll find out who their advertisers are.

Enjoy the features,where it'll tell you it's saved you from 300 potential threats last month... Tracking cookies from this site.. Yeah, amazing.

If your dealing with someone completely trusting, who'll install anything, get them a Chromebook instead.

Windows defender is certainly better than it was and just about does enough. Paid for suites tend to offer a more comprehensive set of features that look at a wider range malware attacks, eg. They'll look at network traffic not just signatures in files, you'll also get support.