Not all antivirus are the same. When we install one on the computer, we usually expect it to improve the protection of the computer . However, there are two important factors when it comes to doing this. The first is that the one that already comes in Windows 10 is one of the best on the market. The second is that there are some who are really bad, and one of them stands out above the others.
AV-Test draws up a list of the best antivirus every quarter. However, now they have carried out a test somewhat different from the others, where they have analyzed 21 antivirus during a longer period of 6 months. In that period, the company registered more than 100 million new malicious programs in its database, which is equivalent to more than 500,000 a day.
In the test, AV-TEST analyzed the 21 most popular antivirus on the market: AhnLab, Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, BullGuard, ESET, F-Secure, G DATA, K7 Computing, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, McAfee, Microsoft, Microworld, Northguard, NortonLifeLock, PC Matic, Protected.net, Trend Micro, and VIPRE Security .
Each package receives 6 points in the categories of security, performance and usability, and can reach a maximum of 18. In total, only Avast, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Northguard and NortonLifeLock reached 18 points in all categories, proving that they are the best antivirus on the market and the ones we have to use whenever we can on our computer.
Other products are not as good as those, but they still offer excellent performance, reaching 9 antivirus between 17.8 and 17.5 points, which were also rated TOP by the company. However, these antivirus are worse than Microsoft Defender, which did not have a single failure in the test, and which shows that it is the most robust that we can have installed on our computers.
Protection: only 5 antivirus are foolproof
To check the security of the antivirus, AV-TEST performs two tests. The first is the Real-World Test, or test in real conditions, where antiviruses are confronted with zero-day malware, which is new and unknown, and which has not yet appeared in the databases. However, a good antivirus must recognize the patterns of a malware to quickly block it, even if it does not have it in the database. The second test is with a larger database, made up of Trojans and other known malware.
In these tests, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Northguard, and NortonLifeLock blocked 100% of the threats, while Avast, AVG, and F-Secure had only a small failure in the test under real-world conditions. BullGuard, Malwarebytes, McAfee, AhnLab, G DATA, Trend Micro, and ESET packages had some bugs under real-world conditions, while Malwarebytes had a small bug in the reference set.
Thus, all these solutions are quite robust, and we do not have to worry if we have them installed on our computer. The problem comes with the last three, which must be avoided at all costs: PC Matic, VIPRE Security and Microworld . These three made too many mistakes, and received only 4.8, 4.5 and 3.8 points, so they must be avoided at all costs.
False positives, another big problem
At the performance level, all antivirus reached scores of 5.7 out of 6, with the majority reaching 6, so they hardly affect the performance of the computer. In the false positives category we also found good news, since Avast, AVG, Avira, BullGuard, ESET, F-Secure, G DATA, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Northguard, NortonLifeLock and Protected.net did not have a single false positive . The rest had some or other, and of all, the worst is PC Matic, which had many false positives, and only gets 3.7 points.
Therefore, in this long-term AV-TEST test, the antivirus with the worst overall score was PC Matic , despite Microworld scoring the worst in the protection category. Therefore, it is better to uninstall either of the two and use Defender or another one that reaches 18 points. If you just want virus protection, Defender is ideal. However, the other protection solutions incorporate other very useful additional functionalities, such as VPN, password manager, mail filter or antiphishing protection.
