We’re all online these days – in many cases we’re online all the time. Many people don’t ever shut down their pc or phone and keep connected 24/7. This probably helps to explain why so many people get viruses or Trojans causing mayhem on their hard drive or their mobile phone. It’s a good policy to shut down at least once a day, to definitively cut any internet connection for at least half an hour a day.

The other thing we should all have is good internet security, but not all of us do. People often download a free version, but then don’t run the scans very often and it ends up sitting redundant on their system – and gets so little used it may as well not be there at all.

Of course, you can set up any antivirus software to run regular scans, but when a scan is taking place it tends to reduce the speed of your device, hence the reason people switch it off and then forget to run scans.

The advantage of getting a paid subscription like Kaspersky antivirus software is that you can customise scans to suit you. There are options to choose when scans run, and whether you just scan certain files or the whole hard drive. Kaspersky offers free trial downloads of all its products – including Kaspersky mobile antivirus for smartphones – so that potential customers can really have a chance to test out the software and see how it works for them. Trials run for 30 days before you need to subscribe, and if you don’t like a particular product, you can just uninstall it and try something different.

There’s nothing wrong with sticking with a free antivirus package, though you should be aware that you won’t have the possibility of calling a technical assistance helpline. And as the yearly cost for paid-for antivirus software is so cheap, it seems silly not to pay out a little in order to fully protect your computer or mobile phone.