PC Matic Review – The Reliable and Cost-Effective Antivirus | The Facts about PCMatic Antivirus

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.

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Design: The Ghost of Antivirus Past

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 interruptive 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 makes out as if 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.

Type of Protection: If You’re on The List, You’re In

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.

Scan Locations: Everything That’s Plugged In

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.

Types of Malware: Nears Covers All The Bases

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.

Ease of Use: Detailed, But Too Automated

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. But 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, too, 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.

Update Frequency: Daily

PC Matic makes sure to update its safelist of approved applications daily, keeping your system protected against the latest threats and allowing through all the legitimate applications.

Performance: Fast, But Some Concerns Remain

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 too 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 the security software flags as potentially problematic. We didn’t encounter that ourselves, but did note some third-party and user reviews which had.

We also found the arbitrary nature of PC Matic’s scanning and ultimate recommendations a little disconcerting. Where other anti-malware companies talk about their specific exploit kit and ransomware protections, and how they use machine learning and behavior tracking to spot malware, PC Matic simply claims it has those protections in place.

While we’re not suggesting there are any falsehoods at play, PC Matic’s whole, infomercial-driven feel makes it sound a little untrustworthy by virtue of how hard it’s trying to appear trustworthy. Fewer sales tactic buzzwords and more actual information on how the service works would be a welcome change.

Additional Tools: Comprehensive, But Opaque

PC Matic isn’t just an antivirus application, it’s also a comprehensive PC optimization suite. It includes driver update checks, vulnerability analysis of outdated programs, browser add-on security checks, junk file listings, internet speed tests, registry scans, hard drive fragmentation checks, and a number of additional optional tweaks.

If you can make a change to your PC which may speed it up, PC Matic offers it. Many of these are quite opaque, with no obvious information about the changes it’s making in response to the discovery of any particular issues. That’s nice for a hands-off approach, but registry changes aren’t something that Microsoft even recommends be undertaken automatically, so we’re not entirely happy recommending them ourselves.

Automated driver and software updates are good if you’re not in the habit of doing that yourself, but we’d caution running too many tools that tweak your PC without your knowledge or understanding lest they cause a problem that you are then unable to fix, not knowing what they’ve done. Multiple changes to a system at one time are also a bad idea in general because if something goes wrong, it’s never clear what caused it.

Type of Support: Mostly Automated, Not Personal

Although designed as an easy-to-use tool, PC Matic 3 will run into problems now and again like any software and when you do hit that wall, you want to know there’s someone there to help. PC Matic pushes users to use its knowledge base and public forums as their first port of call, only reluctantly giving up an e-mail ticket form when you’ve jumped through a number of menus.

We would have liked to have seen some live support systems in place, whether phone or online chat, to give users a little more personal attention for their concerns.

Default-Deny Protection

PC Matic relies on the concept of default-deny gatekeeping for proactive protection. From PC Matic 3.0 and onward, this defense system works where a lot of other antivirus apps get sidetracked.

Various strains of malware behave a certain way to fool the antivirus app into thinking they are dormant and “harmless” files or apps not carrying anything. With PC Matic, any unknown element is assumed “guilty” until proven otherwise. This means it’s automatically blocked until the PC Matic team checks it and grants it access to PCs and devices. PC Matic user reviews list this approach as one of its main strengths.

SuperShield Whitelisting Method

PC Matic’s whitelisting approach is used by its defense system, SuperShield. Only whitelisted elements confirmed by PC Matic’s team are allowed access.

PC Matic doesn’t have its own firewall; instead, it combines its capabilities with the default security firewall, such as Windows Defender, to form a dual front with the native dedicated firewall structure as its base.

This trust-no-one approach to all strangers at the PC’s doors and backdoors separates its process from other companies’ methods.

Regular and Thorough PC Maintenance

Reviews of PC Matic antivirus software emphasize its thorough PC maintenance (though for Windows PCs only). A comprehensive check is also done with every scan. This keeps PCs in tip-top shape, as each scan enables PC Matic to execute thorough maintenance and basic housekeeping: It checks for errors and vulnerabilities and does some fine-tuning. Most PC owners do this separately, sometimes sparingly, which leaves errors, possible entries, and open vulnerabilities unchecked.

PC Magnum for Ultimate Privacy

PC Matic’s efforts to secure the title of the best US-based antivirus include PC Magnum. For the ultimate PC privacy, this tool cleans your PC from “embarrassing” (their terms) online searches, sites, and private information on Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox. Cookies, browsing history, cache, download history, all Facebook links, all recent documents, and the recycle bin are also reviewed, and all sensitive files are removed.

With PC Magnum, “delete” really does mean delete: It keeps your PC completely spic and span for your peace of mind for just $30 a year. This tool resembles fast “cleaner” mobile apps, such as Security Master.

PC Matic Antivirus – American-Made and Maintained

PC Matic antivirus prides itself on being a US company through and through, from the technology it employs to its support. This American antivirus developer strives to empower computer owners of today, who have to deal with innumerable threats to their online finance, accounts, digital assets, and personal information.

The level of defense and protection is well suited for an average US internet user. Most Americans rely heavily on the internet for many of their daily activities, communication, and entertainment needs, making them vulnerable to cyberattacks, both at home and at work.

PC Matic Scam?

PC Matic ratings may be good, but the internet doesn’t forget, as every piece of information is archived forever. Some of PC Matic’s past unintentional blunders may affect the company’s reputation, especially now with its higher public profile; not to mention its wider and direct advertising presence through its videos and infomercial-style advertisements.

All a potential subscriber needs to do is run a quick Google search, and they’ll be presented with documented issues, complaints, and unfavorable reviews, some of them relating to PC Matic’s past version and issues that have since been solved.

Most PC Matic reviews don’t discuss its past missteps. We think it’s important to address them, although, to be fair, it was the previous PC Pitstop app that caused issues with malware apps.

An even earlier version of PC Pitstop was called a scam for its intrusive appearance on the user’s device and demanding to clean the PC and make changes. While these scandals happened during the company’s pre-PC-Matic days, they could still affect buying decisions.

PC Matic’s Features

Types of Malware Covered

PC Matic antivirus software excels in preventing various digital intrusions:

• Ransomware
• Fileless infections
• Zero-day exploits
• Fake virus scams
• Adware
• Potentially unwanted programs
• Keyloggers
• Timebombs
• Crypto miners
• Rootkits
• Advanced persistent threats
• Trojans
• Worms
• Polymorphic viruses
• Botnets

• Has regular updates for the rest of your life; in my experience, PC Matic releases regular updates. This is to combat new malware. Threats are released daily hence this antivirus needs to contain the latest files to combat them.
• AdBlocker; It blocks annoying ads, pop-ups, and trackers. These are things that slow down the performance of a computer since they consume their memory.

• Superior Security; it uses advanced technology to identify and block new and existing malware such as viruses, Trojans, ransomware, viruses, and many more. It removes viruses that other antiviruses fail to notice by using 3 advanced technologies which are brute force attack mitigation, file-less script blocking, and an automated whitelist.

• Maintenance; If your PC has slowed down due to long use, this tool will boost its performance. It has PC system optimization tools to keep your PC and other devices running at their peak performance. It clears out junk documents and accumulated data.

• Real-Time protection; this provides automatic virus protection that scans for suspicious activities on your computer. It is an active process and PC matic runs in the background checking for malicious files and malicious software.

• PC Matic for Android and IOS devices; this online company offers security for mobile devices. It supports Android and iOS devices offering real-time system protection plus on-demand scanning.

• It scans apps for suspicious behavior, you can schedule scans plus comes with a web portal to manage your devices. The app is available only for home PC users as it requires a home license to activate. Please note; it requires 1 GB space to operate effectively.

• PC Magnum; this is a product that guarantees your privacy online. It hides your activities online by blocking cookies that track your browsing habits, deletes cached images for you, empties recycle bin for you, deletes browsing history, and keeps your document history private from unauthorized use.

• Ransomware Prevention; block ransomware threats with this antivirus. It will prevent your files and other documents from being held for ransom by cybercriminals.

• Real-time alerts, and audit logs; real-time alerts will give you an opportunity to look at the detected threats and can determine if they are dangerous or not. Any action taken by PC Matic will be displayed in the audit logs.

From PC Matic 3.0 to its current incarnation, it strengthened its defense to outsmart deceptive, behavior-adapting malware programmed to trick apps and devices into gaining access and then wreaking havoc when they get in.

PC Matic Home

Available for Windows PCs only, automated PC maintenance is done simultaneously with every scan. It includes updating your drivers, cleaning your registry, optimizing broadband, repairing software vulnerabilities, uninstalling start-up apps you don’t use, speeding up downloads in Firefox and Internet Explorer, and more.

PC Matic antivirus software reviews also note that scans are done on items left elsewhere: in the recycle bin, internet cache, and temporary files folders. These items can potentially cause damage since ransomware and other unwanted elements residing in these backdoor entries and hidden folders can still enter your device.

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. However, that won’t change any details of your coverage or access to any additional features. 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. No other antivirus/optimization product on the market offers a similar deal.

These plans are parts of PC Matic Home Security option. There’s also a free version available, but it’s not particularly impressive. The only thing that a user can do with it is run scans. However, once the test is over, you won’t be able to fix any issues with PC Matic unless you purchase one of the available plans. With the paid plans, you can always rely on a 30-day money-back guarantee and get a refund during those 30 days.

PC Matic Home Security Free

PC Matic’s free edition is a somewhat limited program. All that it can do is run a scan (that usually takes a VERY long time) and give you a report. However, it won’t take any action until you upgrade to Home Security (the paid edition). Plus, you’ll be welcomed by a pop-up message prompting you to switch to the higher tier every time you try to access any of the available features.

Overall, even as a free product, it’s not a very good choice. You’ll be better off with the free editions of Avira and Avast.

PC Matic Home Security

Home Security is one of the most affordable commercial antivirus products on the market. Compared to the likes of Kaspersky, Norton, Bitdefender, and TotalAV, it’s not as impressive, though. The package doesn’t include a VPN, parental controls, or a safe browser. But, if you don’t need a long list of extras and are just in the market for reliable protection on a budget, it will be a good investment. That’s especially true for the lifetime plan.

In contrast to the free edition, Home Security runs fast, thorough scans and includes a reliable antivirus engine – the SuperShield. Plus, it features an ad blocker that’s very effective at blocking ad pop-ups. It stops invasive messages and prevents adware from causing harm to the OS.

PC Matic PC Magnum

Essentially, this is a tool that grants control over/protects your personal information. First of all, PC Magnum removes cookies that track and remember your browsing habits. Next, it gets rid of the browser cache (that stores images) and the document history (everything you opened/launched on the OS). Last but not least, PC Matic’s add-on program eliminates browser history.

PC Magnum can access and delete browser history in Chrome, Firefox, and, of course, the Internet Explorer. It scans and cleans:

• Cookies
• Cache
• Image cache
• Download history
• Recent Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF documents
• Recycle bin

PCMatic Compatibility

PC Matic has always been a Windows-oriented program. Then, PC Pitstop added Mac support, and it turned into a robust solution for desktop computers. These days, it’s 100% compatible with Android and any mobile device running on this platform as well. Sadly, iOS support is not a part of the deal right now. With that said, let us go ahead and talk about each available version in more detail.

PC Matic for Windows

This software has a low system impact and can run on very old computers (both hardware and software). It is compatible not only with the latest Windows 10, but also 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, and even XP. Officially, both 64- and 32-bit versions are supported. And here are the official system requirements:

• 1-GHz CPU
• 512MB of RAM
• 1GB of free hard-drive space

PC Matic for Mac

The owners of macOS 10.12 and higher (Sierra up to Catalina) will be able to use PC Matic without any issues. In many ways, it’s the same antivirus as the Windows edition, with the same whitelisting approach to dealing with malware and a long list of maintenance features. And, you’ll be able to use it on a modest computer with older hardware.

PC Matic for Android

Available on Google Play for download, PCMatic for Android is quite a useful app. It’s equally good at optimizing performance and keeping hacker attacks at bay. Real-time protection and on-demand scanning turn it into a worthy competitor. You can even manage your mobile design from the web, which can be fairly useful.

PC Matic for iOS

Right now, PC Matic is not available for iOS users. That means you won’t be able to use it on any Apple device.

PC Matic Pro

PC Matic’s business version is PC Matic Pro Endpoint Suite, a more comprehensive application with government-security-grade systems that uses strong endpoint protection. It relies on whitelisting. PC Matic Pro reviews are exceptional. PC Matic is a fully accredited business registered with the Better Business Bureau, with an average rating of 4.71/5. The company’s core concept also applies to the Pro Suite: Securing digital assets while optimizing devices for reliability and peak performance for business use.

PC Matic Pro is globally recognized for excellent security strategies and high-level device maintenance. Its top ratings come from trusted names: Cyber Defense, Info Security, Astors, AV-Test, Virus Bulletin, ICSA Labs, Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization, to name a few.

PC Matic for work reviews are not usually given priority. The complaints are fewer in terms of compatibility and mostly have to do with some minor inconvenience issues. PC Matic Pro has the same malware detection rates as the regular Home version. It mainly employs a business-grade version of its Global Whitelist security technology, which blocks all incoming apps and files that are not yet 100% confirmed and tested. Remote desktop protocol (RDP) controls are also set in place for complete remote endpoint control.

As pointed out by some customer reviews of PC Matic, there are no free trials for the pro version. To test its capabilities, one can alternatively get a demo from the website.

PC Matic Pro runs optimization actions along with its scans: patching security gaps, script-blocking, and endpoint maintenance. Endpoints are run through some optimizing checks, including driver management using its extensive collection of drivers to keep endpoints in peak speed.

Mobile App

The protection provided by PC Matic is not limited to desktop devices. PC Matic for Android is available on Google Play, and it’s a popular choice for those active on their Android phones, offering the same dual-purpose maintenance and optimization that replicate its Home PC version for peak performance.

This, however, means that it also replicates some of the flaws of the Home and free-trial versions. Customers cite minor lags, freeze-ups, problems with uninstallation, and lack of tech support as reasons for their dissatisfaction. On Google Play, the app’s rating is 4.4/5 from more than 1,000 users. Still, even though reviews for PC Matic for Android tend to be mixed, it offers reliable and robust protection for Android phones.

Note that PC Matic is unavailable for iOS at the moment.

User Interface and Compatibility

PC Matic offers a free trial version for evaluation. You will be prompted to create an account and then download PC Matic to your device. During our tests, PC Matic loaded successfully without any issues after a fast install and setup. It ran smoothly: The test PC is a 64-bit mini-PC that runs on Windows 10, with an Intel i3 7100U processor and 8 GB of RAM.

There were no significant conflicts with standard Windows programs. As long as you don’t load too many other applications, it remains stable.

Most PC Matic customer reviews don’t mention this, but scans and regular maintenance can cause slowdowns. Lower-memory PCs may experience freeze-ups. Since scanning includes PC maintenance, it’s preferably done separately when you are not running any other programs on your computer. In comparison, other antivirus applications usually run deep scans in the background.

PC Matic Scan and Maintenance Process

PC Matic’s scan and maintenance combo are its main security feature. Upon completion of the scan, it took forever to get to the “Finalize Test” step. After this, PC Matic antivirus software activity is no longer heavy, and you can run the PC applications normally with no slowdowns.

The program thoroughly checked for high-level data-consuming threats, demanding extra time to complete. It remained this way until a close-reopen was performed. The overall test results showed all essential elements: Security, Performance, Other, and Reports.

The owner is notified where a possible weakness can be exploited, and in case such a weak spot is found, it can be tracked. At the end of the scan, PC Matic Antivirus software gives the user recommendations on how to improve security. Performance levels are also displayed.

The only minor issues we’ve experienced while running our test scans were the occasional slowdowns on lesser-RAM or lower-processor PCs. This is why we recommend you run the scan when your computer is idle and when you have enough extra time, as it took two hours to finish the initial test. As previously mentioned, the test PC is a mini-PC with not many programs and applications installed, yet it still encountered slowdowns.

Platform Availability

Does PC Matic work on other OS platforms apart from the usual? As mentioned in most customer reviews for PC Matic, it’s limited only to PCs, Macs, and Android. PC Matic has developed from exclusive PC use and tends to focus on known territories. To date, it still doesn’t have an iOS version, and this is where it’s mainly missing out. Linux is not supported by PC Matic, either. The company concentrates on bigger platforms, which is probably the reason you can use it on Android, but not on iOS.

Windows OS

Most of the favorable reviews but also the most prominent complaints come from Windows OS users. There are native apps, peripheral settings, connections, even registry keys, and optimization changes affected by PC Matic’s processes. A lot of PC Matic reviews report common blockages. Anything “unknown” is blocked for overall security.
During our tests, Windows reported no errors, aside from minor freezes. This is either a conflict with Chrome or Windows Defender. We recommend performing scans with no active running apps and browsers on.

MacOS

A separate version of PC Matic for Mac is available. This is important since macOS devices have native malware, errors, and other specific issues, even though they are traditionally less vulnerable to security breaches. PC Matic user reviews and ratings for Mac are somewhat scarce, but they generally agree that what the company lacks in iOS presence, it sort of makes up for by allocating a custom Mac version.

PC Matic Pricing

A one-year subscription costs $50 and covers up to five devices. Any other services, such as PC Magnum, are not included.
Even though that is a tad expensive in comparison to the competition, we still think it’s a good bargain if you consider what’s on offer.

PC Matic is eager to convince you that its antivirus is the only protection you’ll ever need. That’s why it offers a great deal: a lifetime subscription to PC Matic that will cost you just $150. With it, you’ll get all the lifetime updates and support and benefit from PC Matic’s continuous tech progression.
The standalone PC Magnum app for Windows costs $30 per year. It maintains total privacy, removing all digital trails and online activity.

PC Matic Recent Upgrades

Recent reviews on PC Matic praised its consistency in improvement, and we agree with them. Like other respectable antivirus companies, PC Matic is constantly working on upgrades, and is currently engaged in enhancing its user interface. Unfortunately, they have yet to start work on an iOS app.

Customer Support

This antivirus provider staffs its customers service with knowledgeable and fast agents. Once you purchase some of its antivirus packages, you will be able to contact support at any time you need them through your account.

Price: Very Reasonable

At $50 for a year’s usage of PC Matic on as many as five devices, it’s exceedingly affordable. You can even stump for the $150 Evergreen subscription that gives you PC Matic and all future updates for life. That’s a great deal if you like what PC Matic offers.

If you don’t, there’s always the 30-day money-back guarantee.