These Amazon Spring deals are slashing up to 80% off my favorite antivirus programs

This deal isn't coming from Amazon, but right now you can get Norton's antivirus software bundled with identity theft protection for 63% off your first year. Norton 360 includes malware, ransomware and hacking protection along with useful extras like a VPN, password manager, parental controls, dark web monitoring and more. With LifeLock Select Plus, you get Social Security and credit alerts, one bureau credit monitoring and up to $25,000 in stolen funds reimbursement if you have your identity stolen. This deal is a great way to protect your entire digital life at a very affordable price.

McAfee offers good, machine-learning based antivirus protection and sets itself apart with an easy to use interface and a security suite that doesn’t require a lot of extra thought. Additionally, it offers a lot of features such as a password manager, parental controls, 24/7 phone support, a VPN, a firewall, credit bureau monitoring, a game mode and a file shredder — though it does lack a hardened browser and ransomware rollback.

Norton's Ultimate package provides its excellent malware protection for up to 10 PCs. While testing one of Norton's similar products, we particularly liked the malware scanner for its ability to protect against malicious email attachments, phishing attacks and fake websites. The Ultimate version of the software is intended to keep PC systems clean by removing unnecessary apps, leftover data and any hidden junk that may be cluttering up your machine. It can also improve privacy by performing an all-in-one PC cleanup, and by removing obsolete web browser data and tracking cookies.

This VPN-focused offering from McAfee provides an unlimited VPN bandwidth and a secure VPN package for 5 devices — and it's currently 80% off. If you've been lacking VPN coverage in your security suite, it's a great deal. There are three VPN protocols to select from, and you can choose which apps use the VPN connection. It also includes McAfee antivirus, which we like for its good protection, malware identification and elimination; a password manager and identity theft monitoring to round out the features.

We’re overall fans of Bitdefender’s antivirus capabilities — it has excellent malware protection and this package includes coverage against ransomware, cryptomining, phishing, fraud and spam protection. Like other Bitdefender products, it still includes a full feature set: safe online browser, anti-tracker, file shredder, and VPN. In our Bitdefender Antivirus review, we liked its effectiveness and the clear interface. However, as the basic package, this one lacks parental controls, mobile device and IoT coverage.

We’ve said that Norton 360 Deluxe is the best security suite for features — and with solid malware protection, a VPN, a firewall, parental controls, password manager, hardened browser, and ransomware rollback, it includes almost everything you can shake a malicious stick at (except perhaps a file shredder or file encryption). When we reviewed it, our only drawbacks were the false positives and the price — which given the sale price, is at least not currently an issue.

Webroot can protect your system from malware as well as provide identity theft protection, anti-phishing measures, and it has secure password management from LastPass. This version has security measures specifically designed for Chromebooks (but is still compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices). It also features a system maintenance tool to improve performance and clear hard drive space, and comes with rollback technology. However, since we haven’t tested the software yet we cannot vouch for its efficacy.

The McAfee+ Premium Family plan is ideal for anyone with multiple people and/or many devices to cover because it offers protection for unlimited devices. That's right. All-in-one protection for all the devices you have in your household – all covered by McAfee's solid antivirus and text scam detector, as well as a nice array of features. All your devices can also get features like parental controls, a secure VPN, personal data and online scans and clean up, identity monitoring, a password manager, social media privacy manager and 24/7 customer support. However, this package does lack identity theft coverage and credit monitoring so you'll still need to get those somewhere else.

When we reviewed Bitdefender's Total Security, we wound up giving it our best overall antivirus software spot because it pairs excellent antivirus coverage with a wide variety of fantastic features. This version of Bitdefender's package includes the excellent malware protection with real-time coverage against malicious threats including phishing, ransomware, spam and fraud. It also includes features like microphone monitor and webcam protection, parental controls, a safe web browser, a firewall, a file shredder and social network protection. While it's a bit heavy on a system during scans, overall the drawbacks were few and far between – especially when the price is 50% off.

ESET's Premium is a performance champ; notable for its quality defenses that won’t bog down your system. Though it lacks a VPN as part of the package, you still get a secure browser, file encryption, password manager, parental controls, a firewall and webcam protection. When we've reviewed ESET products in the past, we liked how the suite's Ransomware Shield relies on advanced heuristic monitoring to block threats before they can do damage to your PC. You can also buy a single license at a time, which is handy.