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Selecting an Internet security suite is a lot like plodding through a Choose‑Your‑Own‑Adventure book. Remember those? The path of the protagonist was entirely up to you, and if those books taught us anything at all, it’s that every decision carries with it potentially devastating consequences. The same thing applies to your choice of antivirus software, only the repercussions of malware are real, and if a shoddy security suite fires off a blank and leaves you exposed to danger, there’s no flipping back the pages for a do-over.
The stakes are high, and it’s important you choose the right defense the first time. If you don’t, you risk leaving your system vulnerable to attack from an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of digital artillery. And don’t expect cyber-scoundrels to fight fair. They’ll lace screensavers and kids’ games with malware, spoof email addresses, record your keystrokes, and perform all sorts of underhanded tactics. Your PC is a gold mine of valuable information, and once compromised, these crooks will attempt to steal your identity, swipe your credit card information, pillage your PayPal account, lift your bank login credentials and sell ‘em to the highest bidder, or any number of insidious schemes. If all that weren’t enough, malicious software can render your once-fast PC a pop-up-infested jalopy. Is there any hope?
That’s where we come in. We’ve called to arms a gnarly collection of security suites with the roughest, toughest reputations around. We’re also including three popular no-cost AV solutions to find out how they compare. Flip through the pages to get started, and if we miss one you think should have been included, let us know—we’ll run stand-alone reviews of even more AV apps in the future.
SYSTEM PERFORMANCE AND SCAN SPEED
As power users who give a damn about performance, we’re picky about what we install on our systems. We gauge each AV app’s overall footprint by comparing boot time, PCMark 7 and Vantage scores, and the time it takes to transfer 6GB of files to that of a pre-AV state. We also take scan speed into consideration because, let’s face it, if you have reason to run a manual sweep, do you really want to sit around all day waiting for a clean bill of health? Neither do we.
ANNOYANCE
Dealing with a potential malware infection is stressful enough, so the last thing we need is to be agitated by our security suite. A good program won’t provoke us with constant pop-ups trying to upsell security or crying wolf about legitimate programs. In fact, we shouldn’t even know it’s there most of the time. And when we do cross paths, we expect to be able to navigate the UI without ending up frustrated and wanting to fist-slam our keyboard.
FEATURES AND IMPLEMENTATION
We know how to roll our own security using a mishmash of free programs on the web. But the whole point of an Internet security suite is to bundle everything we might possibly need into a single package, saving us the hassle of managing a bunch of separate programs. There’s value in that, but we’re also looking for meaningful additions and not just a truckload of features for the sake of building a bigger bullet list than the competition.
PRICING
Seven of the 10 AV programs in this roundup are fully fledged security suites that require an annual subscription plan. The onus is on each and every one to justify its price tag and convince us we should be pouring money into an all-in-one security package instead of building our own protective bubble with freeware alternatives. The higher the subscription, the harder it will have to work to sell us on paid security, plain and simple.
VIRUS DETECTION
This is where the rubber meets the road, so it carries more weight than any other category. To determine how well a security program performs, we run several synthetic spyware and virus tests found on www.spycar.org and www.eicar.org. We then dart through the seedier side of the web with reckless abandon, followed by firing off a shotgun full of malware samples. When the dust settles, we compare our results with that of independent testing labs Virus Bulletin, AV-Comparatives, and AV-Test.
This is the third year running that we’ve included Panda’s Internet security suite in our antivirus roundup, and like the previous two times, this year’s model sports a new skin. It’s too bad Panda didn’t focus its attention where it’s needed most: on the inside. Panda continues to scan files with all the urgency of a slug, a problem that’s plagued this program for as long as we can remember. What’s worse is that scan times never improve.
Panda’s scan engine isn’t fast, but it’s effective, at least in ravaging real-time threats. More often than not, Panda prevented malicious websites from loading, and on the rare occasions it didn’t, the on-demand scanner obliterated dirty downloads before they could touch the desktop. It wasn’t quite as effective in clearing up existing infections, leaving traces of neutralized malware behind.
Panda sports a sleek new look, but it's running the same slow scan engine as before.Pick up the pace, Panda!
One way Panda improved over last year’s version is in scaling back the number of pop-ups. They’re not completely gone, but Panda’s firewall no longer freaks out whenever it detects activity on your network. Panda still implores you to register (there’s no option to permanently disable the reminder), and a persistent ad in the UI tries to upsell security, though you can disable it in the Preferences menu.
Panda’s slow-loading menu feels heavy. At the same time, it’s easy to navigate and brimming with options. We especially appreciate the virtual keyboard for those times when paranoia sets in, and the Safe Browser option is a nifty concept, if only we could get it to work. It’s supposed to load a sandboxed browser to keep web surfing sessions isolated from the OS. Great, only it refused to load after going through a lengthy setup process that walked us through installing a dated version of Sun’s VirtualBox.
We like Panda overall, but its quirks are tough to bear.
Comments are closed on this article
metolahenry
March 12, 2012 at 2:48am
Let's update your AV program everyday and pray that you will be protected, sorry but it works wonder for me so far, anyone knows any useful AV that really can fight Trojan?
Menozac
phternterry
March 12, 2012 at 2:50am
All the anti-virus programs are fast outdated given the present increasing of skilled and professional hackers day by day, so be assured that you are not always protected, dears
Thyromine
phternterry
January 06, 2012 at 9:56pm
I am using AVG anti virus on my computer. Just wondering if anybody could tell me if it is a good program to use or if I'd be better off using Norton? Provacyl
og1502
December 14, 2011 at 5:19am
You tested an outdated version of Avira's free product. Avira AntiVir Personal has been updated to Avira Free Antivirus.
drcrazyrich
December 12, 2011 at 2:30pm
what about the other free ones such windows esentials ?? may be do an article on each type then compare the results between the 2 thanks for what you did provide tho :)
Jc61990
December 29, 2011 at 11:41am
security essentials is not a Suite. this was a comparison of antivirus suites
fallout330
December 10, 2011 at 7:04pm
Still with MSE along with using Sandboxie for those "risky" sites. Falling back to Malwarebyte/Superantispyware if necessary. So far, so good.
aldenf
December 08, 2011 at 1:58pm
Thanks for the article, Paul. I enjoy reading your work.
Tech choices being so abundant, and tech users being so individualistic (particulary MPC readers!), it seems impossible to write anything that doesn't attract criticism, constructive or otherwise. That being said, let me add my two cents, hopefully constructive.
If you were space constrained because the article appeared in print, I understand the choices you made. I might have broken things down into two cesecutive-month articles, one for paid apps, one for free (or publish one in print, the other online to create more web traffic). Both articles could have been scored with the same matrix as to directly compare all the applications (free and paid). We often can't know, from article to article, if the same judging matrix is used. By including past review results at least in the final chart, such as that of MSE, you ensure that it is directly comparable.
While there are numerous options in anti-virus apps, both free and paid, you hit most of the big ones. I, however, would be very interested in seeing how paid apps from AVG and Avast might have compared, as well as Panda's free app. The complete absense of Comodo and a few others, make me wonder if they should even be on my short list.
While Norton's would probably run swell on my quad-core destop with 8 GB of RAM, what's the best choice for a netbook or 2-3 year old laptop? Most of your readers are probably running reasonably current hardware. But many of us still have older machines still in use (my Inspiron 8600 is a good example). At the very least, many of your readers often serve as tech support to family and friends certainly not running the latest hardware or software. What do we reccomend?
Let me suggest that not writing a reasonably comprehensive review on certain products, such as anti-virus software, leaves more questions in the readers' minds than solutions. It forces us to look elsewhere for reviews to fill in the gaps, ascertain how the differing matrices can be compared and guess where all the products fall against each other. We could also download the trial versions of all the contenders and compare them using our own particluar model for each class of hardware we're still using/supporting. Either choice is extremely time consuming and something that tech reviewers are supposed to do and get paid to do for us. Why else would we bother turming to you in the first place? If it's an editorial issue, then your bosses need to be brought into the loop.
I guess what I'm thinking is the above article, in the long run, may be worse than no article at all.
Just sayin.
~Alden
dav532000
December 08, 2011 at 9:55am
You show Avast free what about Avast internet security paid version or Trend Micro internet security, how do they bear up. Used to use MSE but my Pc boot time slowed down after doing a cold bootup I managed to trace it to MSE so uninstalled it bootup time got better.
gcstang
December 07, 2011 at 7:31am
I've been using Vipre Antivirus (latest is version 12) for over 2 years now it has proven very dependable and their repair program has helped numerous others from other Antivirus programs that have not caught major viruses such as AVG and Avira.
I'd love to see this reviewed
erniemink
December 06, 2011 at 7:26pm
There are proven more effective and better paid programs out there. The only free programs that actually accept donations that are good is CCleaner and Defraggler, both from Piriform. And better yet, if you have or can get a solid state hard drive that supports SATA III and is at least 120 GB for the Windows boot drive, and use an additional SATA III standard spindle 1 TB hard drive for data only, this will be speedier and more effective as well when running Windows 7 and soon to be version 8. You should always use Internet Explorer version 9, and soon to be 10 as well, being the most effective and secure browser. So to add to this, the best anti-virus, firewall, anti-malware, rootkit protection and anti-keylogging programs are as follows: Online Armour ++ and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. You do not ever need anything else. And with keeping them up-to-date, along with using Windows Update, you will have the most secure solutions for Windows 7 and your internet browsing. Forget Apple and Safari, Opera, Google Chrome and Firefox. None of them are that good at all, and do not even work properly with a lot of sites. Here are the names you can type in Google, Bing or Yahoo for example:
Online Armour ++, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Your Browser Matters from Microsoft, CCleaner and Defraggler.
(Note: All solid state hard drives NEVER need to be defragged. ONLY your standard spindle hard drives, which are really best for data only with the dawn of solid state hard drives, which really should be your main boot drive obviously.)
glamdring
December 06, 2011 at 11:09pm
Okay you are very very far off through almost this entire comment, but lets just start with you note of CCleaner. As praised as it is, there are several bad parts of the program. It has a TERRIBLE start process manager! After making it's changes several/many AV programs set on high security will detect and remove it's changes. Why? Simply because of the way it manages ones start up processes, look up managing start up process and read about the different ways one can edit/change them. The key is in whether the program creates or modifies the current list.
I don't know if Online Armor finally addressed the security issues, back in 2009/10 they had some major security leaks in the firewall. I loved the firewall like crazy back when I used it.
win7fanboi
December 06, 2011 at 9:28pm
here's what you should type in google "I am too full of myself. What should I do?"
phternterry
February 05, 2012 at 2:01am
I discovered that not all Anti-Virus program is good, dun b surprise if it's unable to fight Trojan Horse, sign..
http://flotrol-reviews.com/
beck_77
December 06, 2011 at 4:53pm
Kinda lackluster imo as well. No mention of Malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org) or A-Squared (http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/antimalware). Both top-notch as far as I'm concerned.
nadako
December 06, 2011 at 12:55pm
Hey at work I have to sell this CA internet security suite its $70 for 3 computers. And im wondering how well it stands up against all the others. PS it will not instal correctly if your running IE9 you would have to use a fix for their GUI.
BlazePC
December 06, 2011 at 10:11am
What's with the comparison matrix showing ESET not providing email (scan) protection? Furthermore, if you are going to note a particular product not having email protection in a subtle table format, why no mention of it in the details? Email scan is pretty important stuff.
Oh and btw, ESET does have email scanning.
You should qualify your piece in more effective detail Paul.
BlazePC
December 06, 2011 at 11:39am
Paul,
Further investigation shows that ESET does have the capability to scan IM file transfers, so it would appear that the comparison matrix is wrong on that count as well - unless of course that particular comparison item reflects on-the-fly packet scanning or some other such fucntionality you guys have failed to define clearly as a criterion.
Goes without saying Paul, you increasingly fail to impress. If I was any number of product/service providers, I would be thoroughly pissed at the level of "fail" that is allowed to occur on MaximumPC.com by way of these reviews and comparison with these virtual reporters.
BlazePC
December 06, 2011 at 2:28pm
What's up with the "free" vs. full-blown paid for suite comparison here anyway? You do realize there are full suite offerings from the companies you chose to go "free" on, right? Hardly a fair comparison. If I was one of the companies misrepresented here, I would be seriously pissed off. Least you could do is measure up AVG, Avast & Avira suites.
Talk about slanted techno-journalism.
Fix that sh!t
L1veWar3
December 06, 2011 at 7:30am
Don't know if it's been mentioned... : )
But seriously, no MSE? Is it because it's in beta? Used it for a while now and love it. I think it would win in the free category.
Paul_Lilly
December 06, 2011 at 9:52am
For anyone wondering why we didn't include Microsoft Security Essentials, it's because we reveiwed version 2.0 in last year's roundup and there hasn't been a major revision since then. The next big release is currently in beta form and expected to go Gold by the end of the year, well after we completed testing for our current roundup.
-Paul Lilly
Zanthexter
December 09, 2011 at 5:38am
MSE should have been included in it's current version. By not including it, you basically said it wasn't even worth considering using it, because mose people wouldn't think to compare the reviews in a new article against those in an old article. More practically, the comparison wouldn't be apples to apples, because you'd be using different test samples.
Folks are less interested in seeing a review of whats new, than they are in seeing a review of what's best at a particular moment in time. I'd rather see the poorly performing ones listed in an "also ran" section with a link to more detail online, and info about the best performing ones, especially those that might have been skipped because they didn't happen to have changed the number after their name recently.
Scatter
December 06, 2011 at 11:53am
I'd still think that it would be helpful to your readers to include all the big players in a round up such as this.
big_montana
December 06, 2011 at 8:48am
I do not get why no MSE either, as they reviewed and recommended it the last go around. So how they leave out this time is beyond my comprehension.
noobstix
December 05, 2011 at 11:50pm
I'm not surprised that McAfee got a score of 5. I remember the only time I used McAfee, it pissed me off to no end because it never really removed anything and it kept annoying me about the stuff it was supposed to remove (it even blocked access to IE!). Yeah it adds the least amount of time on boot but for even a few seconds more, something like MSE does a way better job. I remember when I used to be trigger-happy and pissed off some family members who used the computer as well, I needed an AV program that could do a decent job. I used to use Webroot Spysweeper and Lavasoft Ad-Aware which did a good job at the time but couldn't keep up with the newer stuff. Then I moved on to Threatfire which was more of a high-class mistake. It only did a little bit better and the uninstall was a pain in the ass. Then I found Malwarebytes which worked like a dream until I picked up some infections that prevented it from running. Now I'm happy with MSE and have only gotten them rarely (I still get them but they're usually serve as a deterrent of certain websites).
mojones26
December 06, 2011 at 11:56am
when you get hit with malware that prevents .exe execution, run Rkill from a locked USB stick.
It can be run with a .com or .scr extension.
DoctorX
December 05, 2011 at 10:30pm
what is missing in mse beta? As far as i can tell, it has everything the previous ones had. Works good so far.
win7fanboi
December 06, 2011 at 7:39am
I would like to know as well. I just hope they don't fuck it up to make it compatible with Windows 8. I still think Win 8 might the beginning of end for Microsoft.
GenMasterB
December 05, 2011 at 9:18pm
Paul, Have you done a review on Panda Cloud Free Anti-Virus? I've been using it for 2 years now. It's very small, and I've had zero viruses. Anyone else have experience with it? I've been very pleased.
Julyjules
December 05, 2011 at 9:08pm
Please do a review of Microsoft Security Essentials. I've been using it for the past 2 years and recommending it to family & friends. I would really like to see how it compares to the other free AV.
Havok
December 05, 2011 at 8:31pm
Symantec sure is doing a good job of re-inventing themselves, but my copy of NIS 2012 boned up my PCs bad. 3 different OSes, XP, Vista and 7. Each one lost its access to the optical drive drivers after the installation. Dammit Norton.
I managed to fix them by running a Microsoft Fixit app, and found out that Norton buggered up a registry entry, but gorram it Symantec! Fix your bloody installer!
I'm recommending Kaspersky this year.
In Soviet Russia, you hack virus.
TechLarry
December 07, 2011 at 12:15pm
Sounds like the good old upperfilters/lowerfilters problem. This is usually caused by the installation and removal of CD/DVD burning software of some sort. I've never heard of any other type of app causing it.
bittertruth
December 05, 2011 at 8:30pm
I don't know how and why ESET ended up getting such a low rating. I don't even care about norton and it is still curse to some computers. It's a memory hog and creates unnecessary problems for newbies rendering many software useless. At times, norton acted itself as a destructive virus because of it's hideous firewall restriction which normal user wouldn't be able to figure out.
And, it's surprising that you missed out Malwarebytes. Just saying because you have reviewed webroot antispywares. So, this review has lot of space to doubt if it's a real review or paid review.
big_montana
December 06, 2011 at 8:53am
Because MaxPC is reviewing Anti Virus programs, not spyware removal applications, which Malwarebytes is. Malwarebytes does not run on startup, does not catch and stop virus from infecting your computer, you use it to remove any spyware, malware or Tupperware you may have gotten, but the ones reviewed here, including Webroot prevent said infections from happening.
Scatter
December 06, 2011 at 11:56am
Malwarebytes does also offer an antivirus application that runs in the background. Its highlighted on the front page of their website so I can understand it being hard to notice.
ABouman
December 06, 2011 at 11:17am
big_montana is correct re: anti-virus vs spyware removal. However, we do like to recommend Malwarebytes when it's related to the story and in fact, have done so in at least four stories this year:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/cheapskates_guide_power_computing_31_ways_save_money_without_sacrificing_performance
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/pc_prescriptions_21_free_apps_keep_your_pc_healthy?page=0,1
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/malware_removal_guide_2011_how_get_rid_all_latest_malware?page=0,1
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/scrub_your_pc_clean_remove_malware_four_easy_steps?page=0,1
livebriand
December 05, 2011 at 8:17pm
Where's Microsoft Security Essentials? That's the best AV program I've found yet, and what I use on all my machines. My second choice is Avast Free.
kixofmyg0t
December 05, 2011 at 7:30pm
I used AVG for a few years back in the day. But after reading a review of the rebuilt Norton I decided to give it a try....boy was I surprised.
Now here I am a couple years later, about to renew my subcription of Norton for the 3rd year straight. It very well deserves that "Kick Ass!" award.
markoramius1086
December 05, 2011 at 6:50pm
Hearing that the upcoming MSE has less features/options than 2.0 pretty much dissapoints me. I wonder if they will have an option to stay with 2.0 instead of the automatic update they had back with MSE1.0? Otherwise my experience with MSE has been pretty good, its light as a butterfly on my machine, and not as annoying (even though ThreatFire usually picks up any suspicious activity before MSE can get its hands on it)!
Another question! How does the MSE Quick Scan work? Is it like other AV Programs where it reads only files that are new or have been edited, or is there some funny voodoo working under the hood?
TsunamiZ
December 05, 2011 at 6:38pm
ZoneAlarm Extreme Security uses the Kaspersky antivirus engine. Can Maximum PC do a review of it to show us how it measures up to Kaspersky and other security suites?
don2041
December 05, 2011 at 6:13pm
I want to see more comparison with the free av s out there. I,m using mse on all my machines and am 100% happy with it
somethingelse
December 05, 2011 at 5:17pm
So what does ESET think about the honest score you gave them? I notice there is lots of their ads plastered all over the site, are you guys about your sponsorship pulled? Or are they thankful you gave them a 6 and not a 2 as it deserves? :)
Not that I've ever used ESET, but still :P
ABouman
December 06, 2011 at 11:21am
Dunno... we don't consult vendors about their review scores. Since reviews and marketing info are kept separate to ensure editorial integrity, it's not really something we think about. We don't know who will be advertising until the ads go up, and this story was written weeks before they did go up, so they certainly don't factor into the reviews process at all.
AMD64Blondie
December 05, 2011 at 5:06pm
What about Vipre? (from GFI-formerly known as Sunbelt Software)?
Markitzero
December 05, 2011 at 5:01pm
You guys missed another free one that may be worth checking out
They have Free and Paid software, I use there free software and there custom Google Chrome Comodo Dragon.
Trekker1091
December 05, 2011 at 4:50pm
Awww, what? No AVG in that list. Ah well, there were a couple of other good chopices in there anyway, though I wouldnt touch McAfee or Norton with a five foot pole.
Paul_Lilly
December 05, 2011 at 4:54pm
AVG Free Anti-Virus 2012 is included, it's the second to last one (in order of appearance).
