You may think that having two antiviruses on your computer can make you more secure, but that is not the case.

The problem arises when you start thinking that installing two different antiviruses on Windows will give you double protection. Well, the truth is that no, our PCs would not be more secure and would not be more difficult to infect, except that they could cause problems with the system.

It is technically possible, no doubt, and there is antivirus that can even have Windows Defender active at the same time, so you might think you already have two, but they are not the same thing.

You can also have two antiviruses installed on your computer. As long as both antiviruses are not running at the same time.

The moment they both run at the same time, the error starts. So, we tell you why you should not install more than one antivirus on your Windows PC.

Detection conflict

To protect your pc from viruses and malware, any antivirus software should be able to access the high-level system. It should also be able to determine file types and areas within the kernel, as many threats often target this part of the system.

A self-respecting antivirus installs event interceptors to detect and protect the system from suspicious activity, analyses event information and forwards suspicious files through malware scanners.

The problem with two antiviruses running at the same time is that they can step on each other’s toes and allow malware to escape and cause serious damage to your computer.

False Positive

Having two antivirus programs on your computer may seem to work, but in reality many results can be false positives.

This could be the case, for example, if one of your antivirus programs detects and quarantines a suspicious file, and another software that detects the file tries the same operation, arrives late and places the file.

This makes it difficult to remove infected files, resulting in many false virus warnings.

Too much pressure on resources

An antivirus program must always be running. That is, it runs in the background most of the time. This puts a significant strain on system resources, especially if you don’t have a powerful computer.

Now imagine what simultaneous operation of two antivirus programs can do in this regard. This resource «consumption» can multiply if the two pieces of software start to compete with each other and give false positives, as we saw in the previous point.

Wasting time

The first thing to think about is that having two programs doing what one can do is a waste of time.

Another obvious fact that everyone should understand is that it is much better to properly configure and manage one antivirus program than to manage two programs in between.

Perhaps this waste of time is imperceptible, especially if you have a powerful computer, but it is true because nowadays you are wasting resources and at the same time valuable time.

Exceptions

Even with programs from different manufacturers, we can talk about exceptions when several parts that are often included in complex security systems are installed independently.

For example, you may have an antivirus from the manufacturer, and the rest may be a firewall, VPN or password manager from another company.

In this case, as long as the installed tools are not duplicated and cannot be stepped on, the computer can run smoothly, and we will talk about exceptions.

The truth is that you would like to think that doubling the number of antivirus programs installed will double your level of protection, but unfortunately this is not true and will cause a lot of problems for your computer.