Antivirus Software Product Reviews: Top 10 Comparison
Use the buttons in the column headers to sort and compare them by detection rate, impact on system resources, usability, features, scan speed, value for money and price. Clicking again will revert the order from low to high.Antivirus Product Reviews: Score Description
Overall
Our Overall Score takes into account all technical factors and costing issues. Detection rate is the most important technical factor, but other aspects affect the ranking, too. Actually, products with a lower technical score might still be rated higher, if offering better Value for Money. Five Stars require an outstanding set of technical scores, though, as the ultimate goal of an antivirus is to destroy any malware, which might be landing on your computer.
Detection Rate
No antivirus software is able to detect all possible incoming viruses. In our antivirus reviews we only analyze products with a better than 90% rate of success of intercepting malware. The ideal 100% antivirus hasn't materialized, yet. Sometimes they can generate "false positives", i.e. flag as dangerous a perfectly legitimate file. A good antivirus keeps this number very low. All combined, a higher detection rate with lower false alarms, the higher/greener this score.
Light on Resources
Each antivirus product has a more or less pronounced impact on your computer performances. A perfect antivirus would work invisibly in the background without you noticing any decreased "reaction time". The higher the score, the greener our "feather", the lighter and better the antivirus.
Ease of Use
To be effective a software needs to be easy to understand and use. That ranges from the "look and feel" of the control center, to the clarity of what each button/setting is for. A more appealing and intuitive interface will get a higher score.
Scan Speed
Even if all the antivirus software reviewed provide a real-time shield, it is good practice to schedule a full, deep scan of all files stored in your computer.
Provided that no "shortcuts" are taken, obviously a higher scan speed results in a shorter scan time, but more importantly it is a symptom of how effective and well designed the antivirus "engine" is.
Needless to say, the higher the scan speed, the higher the score.
Features
Antivirus programs come with different set of tools. These tools can sometime substantially extend the security cover offered by a product, for example by adding a firewall or a vulnerabilities scannner. The more meaningful and complete the range of "accessories", the higher this score.
Value for Money
In our Antivirus reviews, products with a wider set of effective and meaningful features, at a lower price and possibly offering a higher number of licenses, get a higher score and a greener "piggy bank"!
