Well unfortunately the short answer to that question is yes. In this day and age it is essential to keep your computer protected from all manner of potential viruses, trojans, worms, adware, spyware, keyloggers, rootkits as well as people attempting to hack into your computer. Most people think that they will be OK. They think.... 'well.. all my friends are OK and they don't have internet security (beyond what comes with Windows). ' I hear this a lot and unfortunately this largely is not the case. I have seen hundreds of computers where the owners thought that their computers were fine, but in fact many of them had serious problems. Other people think, 'Oh I can't afford it' or 'it's a luxury purchase'. Well I would argue that you can not afford NOT to. We are talking the price of a couple of DVD's or a few books. Worth it when you think of what is at stake. Viruses and other internet-related crime is BIG money. Most people have online banking these days and most people purchase items online. People have to be so careful about where and how they do these things. I had a friend who used to check his online banking account whilst using the free internet in Starbucks on his laptop which had absolutely no protection (beyond what comes with Windows). Recipe for disaster! Even if you do neither of these things, identity theft is an ever increasing problem and can make people's lives truly miserable. 

If you have no idea what the difference between a trojan and a piece of spyware, or the difference between a hacker and a virus then that is not the end of the world. I would advise you to read up on some of that stuff, but actually there are a number of companies that provide varying levels of internet security, so that you don't have to know about them in any great depth.

No Internet Security Suite package is perfect, but these three are of some of the best. All of these packages are for 3 users (i.e. 3 different computers) and will provide a year's worth of protection. I would personally choose Kaspersky (as that is the one I use and I have been very pleased with its levels of protection, however in tests BitDefender has demonstrated that it is a viable alternative to Kaspersky - see the Tests page for more information.)

If you do not have an Internet Security package then I urge you to buy one. At the moment the prices listed below are much cheaper than you are going to find in the shops or directly from the company websites. If you are interested, then have a look at Top10 Reviews' Internet Security review here (note: the prices are considerably higher than on this website) and visit the Tests page on this website. The links below will take you to the amazon.co.uk page, so if you don't have a UK Amazon account then you are on your own! (only joking, just go on to your domestic Amazon page (.com, .fr, .de etc) and it will probably be similar pricing.

Click to buy below:

For the vast majority of users, the Internet Security suites mentioned above in the 'My Recommendations' section are more than enough. There are however those who want increased functionality and a few extra features. Below are three of the best Premium Security Suites. To read why these three are considered the among the best, visit http://internet-security-suite-review.toptenreviews.com/premium-security-suites/. Like I said before however, these are not necessarily designed for the average user.

1. Apple Macs cannot get viruses.

Ha! This is a great example of I.T. propaganda. A couple of years ago Apple produced an advert with David Mitchell (in the UK) in which it gives the impression that whilst PC's have never-ending problems with viruses (which is actually quite true), Macs are somewhat immune to them.  Unfortunately this rather misleading campaign left the average person with the idea that Macs do not get viruses. In fact, the majority of Mac users that I know still kind of believe that. Now I concede that there are no where near as many viruses for Macs as there are for PCs, but there are still enough to warrant you going out and buying some internet security for your Mac. Well, to save you the time and effort, just click on one of the links above and then search for the Mac version and buy it now.

We are a team of people based in the UK who have spent the last 10 years fixing virus-infected computers that were the result of people not having enough Internet Security protection. We are not experts on anti-virus testing, (that is why I follow the results carefully of various independent anti-virus testing companies - like AV-Test and AV Comparatives (see the Tests page)) although we would call ourselves experts on the effects that viruses and other forms of malware can have on your computer.

Just by using a free widget which can be easily found online, certain information can be gathered about you and your computer. Now don't worry, the information above can be gathered whether you have Internet Security or not, however the difference is if someone manages to locate your IP Address, then it will not take long for them to work out the town in which you live and which internet provider you have. Now, neither of these things are particularly disasterous, however without an Internet Security package (like the ones below) you are effectively leaving your front door open (metaphorically speaking). Especially if you have an older operating system like XP and a browser which has not been updated for a while.  Do you see my point?

In my experience, with most new computers these days, McAfee Internet Security is pre-installed on the computer. Over the last couple of years McAfee seems to have fallen behind the rest of the Internet Security Suites by quite a long way. In fact, on most Internet Security Suite review sites, it does not even make the top 10 any more. Visit the Tests page for more information about this. If you have McAfee installed on your computer, I would advise that you purchase one of the above and un-install it. McAfee is better than nothing, but that isn't really good enough.