On Friday the February 2011 edition of "Computer Shopper" magazine landed through my door. It had an interesting front page; "ANTI-VIRUS, the UK's only test to use live internet viruses" splashed all over the front cover.
It features the following editions of AV software:
- AVG Free edition, 2011
- Avira Anti-Vir Personal 10
- Microsoft Security Essentials (I use this for all my W7 computers)
- Bit Defender Internet Security (I use their AV for all Linux computers)
- Bullguard Internet Security 2011
- Eset Smart security 4 home edition
- F-Secure Internet security 2011
- G-Data Software Internet Security 2011
- Kaspersky Internet security 2011
- McAfee Internet security 2011
- PC Tools internet security 2011
- Symantec Norton internet security 2011
- Trend Micro Titanium internet security 2011
- Webroot internet security essentials 2011
Of all these AV/IS packages, AVG Free edition 2011 won the best budget buy award (and its free!). The best buy award went to Trend Micro's Tianium Security 2011. Interestingly, the tests used real viruses, and the results found that, in comparison with Microsoft's Security Essentials Anti-Virus, the following was found:
Basic malware protection, of the 31 web threats each AV was subjected too:
- AVG (as well as Webroot, Trend Micro, BitDefnder and Norton) found 100%, and provided the correct protection to avoid infection.
- MSE found 87% of them.
- Interestingly, the worst was McAfee with only 81% detection rate.
Complete remediation, the percentage based on the AV/Is of detecting, and rendering the test viruses from running:
- Trend Micro came out top with 100%
- AVG free edition 2011 came in with joint third place at 90% (with Norton)
- MSE only achieved 61%)
- The lowest score was 48%, by Avira.
Overall (including false positives), based on basic malware protection results, with points deducted for each false positive found. It shows overall accuracy:
- Trend Micro, and BitDefender came out joint 1st place with 100%
- AVG was joint 2nd place with 97% (along with Norton, Kaspersky and Eset)
- MSE managed joint 5th, with the third lowest of 87%
- The lowest was Webroot with only 32%
Finally, compromised; A percentage based on the number of viruses that made it past each AV/IS' defences. Its worth noting that ALL detected everything thrown at them, but some were simply overcome by them: (lower is better in this test)
- AVG is joint first place with 0% (along with Webroot, Trend Micro, Norton and BitDefender). So not one single virus or piece of malware beat these AV/Is defences.
- MSE was in 4th place with a 13% failure rate.
- Last place went to McAfee, which was the worst in the test at a 19% failure rate!
I'm going to quote the comments regarding AVG:
"If you don't have much to spend, you're in luck. AVG Technologies AVG free edition 2011 has achieved its first perfect score. This means it either blocked the malware completely or it stopped it working once it was on the PC. AVG has fewer features than a commerical anti-virus suite and mis-identified one of our benign programs as a potential threat, but these are minor concerns when you get such high-quality protection for free. Its a Budget Buy."
The summary of the Best Buy award, Trend Micro Titanium internet security 2011:
A couple of security suites have a greater range of features, but nothing we've seen can beat Titanium for defence against web-based malware.
The summary box of AVG (Budget Buy award)
AVG's free anti-virus tool has performed better than almost every paid for suite. If you want simple protection this is the product to have.
The summary of MSE:
Security essentials is good enough to provide peace of mind, but it failed to protect against as many threats as AVG's free anti-virus protection.
Some food for thought I think!