What is the best Virus protection for your laptop
When you are deciding on a new Anti-Virus software and malware protection you have plenty of choices.
The following data is calculated by using test results of AV-Comparatives.
In their tests, AV-Comparatives exposed the 20 most popular Anti-Virus programs to thousands of different types of viruses, worms, spyware and other malware. They examined how good the programs detected known viruses, unknown (new) viruses and the speed of the programs.
| Program | Virus removal | Speed | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kaspersky AV |  | | $40 |
| Microsoft Security Essentials | | | FREE |
| AVIRA AntiVir Premium | | | $40 |
| Panda Antivirus Pro | | | $50 |
| G DATA AntiVirus | | | $25 |
| TrustPort AV | | | $29 |
| Symatec Norton Anti-Virus |  | | $40 |
| ESET NOD32 Antivirus | | | $60 |
| F-Secure Anti-Virus | | | $79 |
| BitDefender AV | | | $30 |
| MicroWorld eScan Anti-Virus | | | $33 |
| K7 TotalSecurity | | | $50 |
| McAfee AntiVirus + | | | $40 |
| avast! Free Antivirus | | | FREE |
| AVG Anti Virus | | | $35 |
| Sophos Anti-Virus | | | $57 |
| PC Tools SpywareDoctor + AV | | | $48 |
| Norman AV+AS | | | $46 |
| Trend Micro AV + AS | | | $40 |
| Kingsoft AntiVirus | | | $30 |
Virus removal
describes how many known and how many unknown viruses the program identified and deleted in the AV-Comparatives test.
- The best program (G Data) identified 99.6% of the known viruses. The top 20% received 5 stars.
- The worst program (Kingsoft) only identified 81.6% of the known viruses. The bottom 20% received 1 star.
- The best program (Panda & Trustport) found 63% of the unknown viruses. The top 20% got 5 stars.
- The worst program (Kingsoft) found only 11% of the unknown viruses. The bottom 20% got 1 star.
Speed
is calculated by comparing:
- how fast the virus scan is
- how much the Anti-Virus software slowed down the laptop (see Performance Test)
- how many times the program identified a virus wrongfully, meaning there was no virus, but the program used resources to alarm the user and delete a “clean” file.
Top 3
The top 3 Anti-Virus programs in a more detailed analysis.
| Program | Virus recognition | False alarms | System resources used | Scan speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | | | |
 | | | | |
 | | | | |
Virus recognition:
- All 3 programs are among the best when it comes to finding viruses.
False alarms
- AVIRA and Kaspersky both are likely to recognize a virus, although the file is clean. Microsoft does an almost perfect job in this respect.
System resources used
- All 3 Anti-Virus programs are easy on the system resources and will not slow your notebook down.
Scan speed
- AVIRA offers the best and fastest scan speed, Kaspersky is average, but Microsoft is very slow when doing a full scan of your computer.
Conclusion:
Kaspersky as a great overall virus and malware protection software it is worth it’s price.
Avira AntiVir offers a free version as well. It has not been tested explicitly, but one can assume that it offers the same performance as the Premium version. For those who don’t want to wait during a full system scan, Avira is the best choice. On the down site, there may be more problems with files who are clean, but Avira may think that they contain a virus.
Microsoft Security Essentials is a great choice for all who don’t want to deal with viruses. It hardly ever gives false alarms, meaning less work for you when you installed it on a friend or relatives laptop. On the down side it does take very long when doing a full system scan, but if you are just browsing the web during the scan you will be fine.
Posted by Emanuel Schattauer | 0 comments