To see if that's the case, we put PC Matic 3 through its paces with a variety of hands-on testing and in-depth research. PC Matic doesn't give a great first impression. Its interface is extremely antiquated, with huge, chunky buttons and a style that feels like it was left behind by modern software design years ago. You have to sit through a short, but obstructive loading screen when transitioning between any menus. Some information screens are entirely blank if you haven't conducted that particular scan yet, and when you are scanning anything, the loading bar just bounces around arbitrarily, with no clear indication of how long it might take.
PC Matic doesn't give much hierarchy to anything either, so the software gives the impression that defragmenting your hard drive is as important as protecting you against malware. It's a jack-of-all-trades antivirus solution, and it doesn't hide that fact, but we can't help but feel that some measure of prioritizing security should be in place.
PC Matic uses a safelist system for its antivirus protection. That is, if an application is on an official list of approved applications, it can operate as normal. If it's not, then PC Matic will automatically block it and prevent it from working. That means that new and emerging threats can be stopped and analyzed, even if they've never been encountered anywhere in the world before. It should also stop ransomware attacks, but we do have our concerns.
It's not clear how PC Matic would respond to a hijacked application that is on the arbitrary safelist. We've also heard reports of PC Matic blocking legitimate applications that aren't too common.
While end-users can safelist those apps themselves, safelisting is a little heavy-handed. Other anti-malware companies utilize techniques such as machine learning to look at software behavior rather than the application itself.
When you start a scan, PC Matic takes a comprehensive look at your system. It scans all of your drives for malware and viruses, but also looks at various applications to see if they might be vulnerable to attack or require updating. It also looks over your drivers to see if they need an update and provides a comprehensive report on unwanted programs, junk files, and any other aspects of your PC that you could delete to help improve performance without sacrificing security.
PC Matic is designed to protect against all types of viruses , worms, and trojans, as well as ransomware attacks and spyware. It even protects against fileless scripting attacks. However, we couldn't confirm whether PC Matic protects against cryptojacking and web-born attacks—but PC Matic does, by default, install a protective browser extension on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. That should provide some measure of protection against web exploits.
PC Matic feels a little too in-depth for the average user, but doesn't give power users enough information and hands-on options to make it worth their while. Although the malware and optimization scans feel comprehensive, they are very opaque, with information about their contents buried in layers of menus behind icons that can only be understood by loading up the separate key.
There's a bewildering amount of potential optimizations you can dig through if you want to, which isn't going to be particularly interesting for the average user. However, some of the changes and optimizations it makes when you hit the Fix button aren't well explained, leaving us unsure about what it's actually doing. Considering any changes it makes to Windows services and startup processes would need to be re-enabled manually, we'd like the information displayed more clearly and backed up so we could refer to it later.
Interface problems plague the program's use as well, with some menu items overlapping, missing crosses in corners forcing you to guess that the Escape key closes the window down. If a particular component of the scan wasn't run, the results still appear, but as a purely blank page. The whole experience feels a little untested. Nothing really got us stuck, but we can't help but wish for a little more polish and some helpful tooltips throughout to ease us into the PC Matic experience.
PC Matic makes sure to update its virus definitions twice daily, keeping your system protected against the latest threats and allowing through all the legitimate applications. Performance in PC Matic is predominantly quick, but there are some odd hiccups. Transitioning to any menu or window requires a brief loading screen, which seems totally alien in the world of modern convenience software where any hindrance to interaction is a surprise.
The scans themselves, however, are fast, lasting a couple of minutes at most on a system equipped with a handful of SSDs and a storage hard drive.
Multiple hard drives or older drives with lower overall performance would likely result in a slower scan time, but that's to be expected. You can also adjust the relative length of scans by turning certain optimization scans off, too. One of the major concerns with a safelisting antivirus service like PC Matic is the potential for false positives—applications that are legitimate but that the security software flags as potentially problematic.
In a way, this is a combination of tune-ups, optimization, defragmentation, and regular antivirus scans. Next, it runs a number of benchmark tests and creates a detailed report. Failed tests are painted red; gray indicates that a particular test was skipped.
Green means your PC performed excellently in a test. With yellow, blue, and purple, you get quick tips and possible solutions. You can run a malware scan separately: all you have to do is uncheck all the other options. A full system scan in PC Matic can be launched from the main dashboard. It will be divided into four different parts: Performance, Security, Disk, and Other. Red means you need to deal with those problems ASAP.
Skipped scans are grey, while green means everything is running smoothly. At first, we waited for up to 2 hours. The second attempt was more successful, but PC Matic Free showed bad results. All that we got was a detailed report with a list of issues. To fix those, we had to upgrade to the commercial edition. Home Security completed the first full scan in less than ten minutes , which is pretty impressive.
So, make sure you include it in every scan. That significantly r educes the system impact and successfully deals with zero-day attacks. This tool is very easy to use. During our tests, it proved to be incredibly effective not only against malware but also ransomware. Sadly, the number of false positives was a bit too high. As the name suggests, this tool has only one task: to clean your hard drive s from junk. This term is used to describe unnecessary temp files, doubles, old registry entries, and more.
Depending on how old your system is and how many apps you install monthly, this feature can be quite useful. First of all, it will potentially save a lot of space on your drives. Secondly, it will make the operating system work faster and with fewer errors by introducing stability. Optimize eliminates all of that. The same is true for the anti-craplet module. By the way, you can run a fast Optimize scan for free: download the installer from the official website, and it will do the rest.
There are a couple of differences, though. For example, it creates a more detailed report and gives you a bit more control over the process. Here, we have another essential feature. The Updater locates outdated drivers on the OS not only for the Windows or Mac system modules but also all the installed apps and downloads all the latest updates. In most cases, newer drivers equal better performance, improved security, and, overall, a better experience for the user.
Like almost all the other PC Matic maintenance features, this one is focused on boosting the overall system performance. By cleaning the registry, it does, indeed, speed up the OS.
Like the defragmentation tool, the scale of the positive effect depends a lot on how old or new your system is. On a brand-new machine with a fresh system say, Win10 with the latest updates , you might not feel any immediate changes.
And the worst part is — the user may not even need most of the apps that launch with the OS and make it work slower. Well, it is, and PC Matic does an excellent job of revealing the programs have the most significant adverse effect.
And PC Matic has a handy tool for removing those apps and freeing up system resources for other, more critical tasks. So, if you decide to just open the Windows Task Bar and remove a bunch of processes, that can end badly. With PC Matic, however, the focus will only be on the apps that can be closed without any unwanted consequences. Along with optimizing the broadband and improving the Internet speed mentioned earlier , PC Matic also boosts browser performance.
Both Firefox and Internet Explorer can benefit from this. There are a lot of small tweaks that together make a difference and help the Internet or, instead, the browsers work faster. After a full scan, the software will tell you whether there is room for optimization or not. Just like all the other processes, this one takes very little time to complete.
Did you know that there are vulnerabilities in modern-day apps that cybercriminals exploit? You never know where the next attack will come from, and an extra layer of defense can definitely come in handy.
The AdBlocker is a relatively simple tool — it works just like all the other ad blockers. As for the ads, they are known to collect personal information, including browsing habits. We already mentioned that it can work with Win XP along with Vista, 7, 8, and Yes, PC Matic is the least demanding antivirus on the market.
We ran several tests with PC Mark, and they all proved this. An OS Without this software earned a score of ; with it installed, the score was Secondly, once a scan is done, PC Matic requires a reboot, and then it starts another scan. A regular user might be a bit intimidated by all the available options, but, again, the interface is very friendly. The biggest downside — PC Matic slows down the launch of standard apps. In this regard, it lags behind the competition.
These plans offer protection and optimization for different number of devices. The customers can purchase licenses for up to 20 devices, which is quite impressive and make it best paid antivirus. Moreover, in comparison with the competitors, these price-tags are highly affordable. The Lifetime subscription, in turn, is a unique opportunity to save a lot of money.
The only thing that a user can do with it is run scans. With the paid plans, you can always rely on a day money-back guarantee and get a refund during those 30 days. All that it can do is run a scan that usually takes a VERY long time and give you a report. Home Security is one of the most affordable commercial antivirus products on the market. In contrast to the free edition, Home Security runs fast, thorough scans and includes a reliable antivirus engine — the SuperShield.
It stops invasive messages and prevents adware from causing harm to the OS. First of all, PC Magnum removes cookies that track and remember your browsing habits. Terms of Use , all representations and warranties regarding the information presented on this page are disclaimed. The information, including pricing, which appears on this site is subject to change at any time. Review in a nutshell: PC Matic offers a wide range of computer security features for such as email scans, real-time scans, download protection, and more.
The software has performed well on various third-party test sites but does identify many false positives which could confuse novice users. Plus, with a limited number of plans and no protection for Apple devices, PC Matic isn't the right choice for everyone.
Read on to discover our full PC Matic review. Overview PC Matic has a large suite of antivirus protection packages for individual users and businesses to protect against viruses and improve performance. Interface The PC Matic interface is also incredibly easy to use, just like the installation process.
Email Scans Threats can enter your computer in many ways including through corrupted files in email messages. Download Protection As we mentioned, PC Matic uses a whitelist of good applications and processes that are authorized to run on your computer.
Resource Usage To help speed up processes, PC Matic removes unnecessary startup apps, deactivates unnecessary Windows tasks, and disables resource hogging startups. Real-time Scanning Super Shield is the proprietary real-time technology component to PC Matic that provides real-time, proactive protection against ransomware, advanced persistent threats APTs , polymorphic viruses, and zero-day attacks. Privacy Policy PC Matic has a transparent privacy policy available on its website which outlines the information they collect and how they use that information.
Customer Support Unfortunately, PC Matic does not offer many of the traditional support systems such as live chat, email, or phone support. See Top Antivirus. Bottom Line. Top 5. Compare Similar Products. Read TotalAV Review ». Norton Antivirus. Read Norton Antivirus Review ».
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