I am not a professional computer tech. nor I.T. trained. I keep reasonably informed (I hope). You may wish to follow along with my thoughts about the laptop computer security info. I search out & share here, being my own personal opinions & points of view. Your own thinking & conclusions are also necessary. Hopefully I can save you some time by sending some of your thoughts in helpful directions & towards useful questions.

Important: a good virus protection program in place on a travel laptop. Although I did read a comment that the antivirus protection one uses day-to-day might not be optimal when traveling far from home, I did not find articles focused on “best for traveling” and/or “best for international travel”.

General virus protection software; some choices follow. Some names came up multiple times as currently the best virus (malware) protection programs. After checking quite a few review articles, A List, together with some *reviewer comments/not my own comments:

Best paid software, recommended most often:

1. BitDefender (Total Security) Antivirus (Plus) (*”best antivirus overall”, “best overall”, “best overall”, “best overall”);

2. Norton (360 Deluxe) Antivirus (*”best overall antivirus”) &

3. McAfee Total Protection and/or McAfee Antivirus;

while mentioned/recommended several times were: Malwarebytes; Avast (One) Antivirus; Trend Micro; & ESET (NOD32) Smart Security Premium. And of note to some that one reviewer thought Intego (*”Best for protecting your Mac“).

And for free (or has a free version) programs & recommended most often:

1. Avast Antivirus;

2. Microsoft Defender (Free with Windows);

3. Avira Free Security; &

4. AVG Antivirus Free.

Also, mentioned/recommended more than once were: Bitdefender Antivirus & ESET Antivirus.

(My apologies if my research has missed any great ones).