Wesley Crawford
Writing at Shield Shelf
About
I'm 44, I work as an IT systems administrator in Charlotte, North Carolina, and in 2022 my company got hit by ransomware. One phishing link from one distracted employee. Three weeks of recovery. Every endpoint on the network reimaged. I was the person managing all of it.
The thing that bothered me most, afterward, was that we had antivirus software installed. It just didn't catch the thing it was supposed to catch. I spent a long time after that trying to figure out why, and then trying to figure out whether any of the alternatives would have done better. That turned into a habit. I've paid for and run eleven different suites across three machines since then: a Windows work machine, a Mac mini I use as a media box, and a Windows 11 gaming rig. Each one runs for six months minimum before I write anything about it.
I check independent test results from AV-TEST, AV-Comparatives, and SE Labs alongside my own observations. When the lab results and my experience don't match, I say so. The labs test for detection rates. I care more about what the thing does to a machine you're trying to actually work on, which is a different question.
Not a security researcher. Not a penetration tester. I don't have CISSP letters. What I have is a memory of three very bad weeks in 2022 and a Charlotte, NC home office where I now run multiple suites in parallel because that's apparently the kind of person I've become.
Posts by Wesley Crawford
- Kaspersky Plus Review: Protecting My Gaming PC After the Breach
- How to Choose the Best Antivirus With VPN for Remote Work
- Do I Need Antivirus for Mac Mini Media Centers and Home Servers?
- ESET HOME Security Review: Impact on PC Performance and Gaming Speed
- Norton 360 for Gamers: Real World Performance Impact Benchmarks
- How to Configure Ransomware Protection Settings on a Home PC
- Is McAfee Total Protection Worth It for Identity Theft Prevention?
- Avast Premium Security Review: Protecting Multiple Home Devices
- How to Stop Phishing Attacks After a Corporate Security Breach
- Best Malware Removal and System Repair Tool for Slow Windows PCs
- Norton 360 vs McAfee: Why I Chose the $10 Premium After My 2022 Ransomware Nightmare
Disclosure
Some outbound links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy a subscription through one, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend suites I have paid for and tested myself on real hardware. If something performed poorly in testing, the review says so.