Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky Top Antivirus Test Results

[Marshall Honorof]

Avira, Bitdefender and Kaspersky Lab achieved perfect scores on AV-TEST's latest evaluation, while Microsoft came in dead last.

Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky Top Antivirus Test Results : Read more

 

[Skylyne]

Avira doesn't perform so well with the testing that AV Comparatives does. If you look at each individual test, you'll see Avira is genuinely lacking. In fact, with my personal method of selecting an AV, Avira didn't make it into the top five, I believe (based solely on protection).

I was looking at AVC's mobile AV test results, though, and I ended up getting AVL. AVL and Avira differ by only 0.1% for protection testing, but I like the AVL app better. I have Avira's optimiser, though 😉

People need to remember one important thing about mobile and computer security: the protection will always vary from week to week, month to month, and it will rarely be the same software for both computer and mobile. Can't stress that one enough. I'd have to look deeper into things, but I would definitely consider just using the best for each device, instead of bundling protection.

 

[Paul NZ]

Doesnt matter if they come 1st, 2nd 3rd, last most of them crash

 

[Skylyne]

Paul, I'm starting to wonder if the real common denominator here is you, and not the AVs lol. I've had to deal with crashing AVs a number of times, but not on my personal computers. Not ever, no matter how bad the computer might have been infected. Before I really got involved in security, I used to go to places that were heavy with malware, and I've never had a problem with an AV crashing. I see it a lot on other computers, but I have no idea how they get it to happen.

Since it rarely happens in lab testing, I always have to chalk it up to user error. As I explained in another thread (that you're taking part in), it isn't really the fault of the software lol. Yes, it seems to be quite common, but you can't really blame the software...

 

[Paul NZ]

I didnt say I use them, I dont, never will.

Too bad for the suckers who pay for them, and find out later theyre the cause of the crashes.

To me most of them are a con. Doesnt matter whether you use one or not.

You can still get infected

 

[Skylyne]

I didnt say I use them, I dont, never will.

Too bad for the suckers who pay for them, and find out later theyre the cause of the crashes.

To me most of them are a con. Doesnt matter whether you use one or not.

You can still get infected

You do realise that every computer is always infected, but not necessarily with malicious software, right? Most of what people pay to protect themselves from is the stuff they don't actively try to avoid. In that sense, it's worth paying for it... to them. Is it a rip off? Well, if you don't care to educate yourself on how to protect from practically all mainstream viruses (primarily what AV software protects you from), and take about an hour a week (grand total) to protect your computer, then I guess paying $40/year isn't too bad.

Again, the majority of AV crashes are due to user error. Like I've said, I've never had one truly crash on me, without there being a deeper problem. PEBKAC is the main cause. Google is your friend and enemy lol.

And no, not most of them are cons. That's a bit of a stretch of the term. Do you need it? For the majority of all malware (not just what AM software covers), software solutions are pretty unnecessary; that much is true. Cons? Well, a con would imply there is no such thing as a virus or malware in general. If that were the case, then Stuxnet would never have existed to begin with.

 

[Marshall Honorof]

For what it's worth, AV-Test has evaluated free antivirus software as well (even in this test), and it generally works almost as well as its paid counterparts. You don't have to shell out a lot of money to keep your computer safe. No matter how careful you are with your computer, I say you've got nothing to lose by downloading a free program, keeping it updated, and running a scan every month or so. The law of averages suggests you're going to pick up something nasty sooner or later, and pretending that your computer is immune to malware will not make it go away.

 

[Skylyne]

For what it's worth, AV-Test has evaluated free antivirus software as well (even in this test), and it generally works almost as well as its paid counterparts. You don't have to shell out a lot of money to keep your computer safe. No matter how careful you are with your computer, I say you've got nothing to lose by downloading a free program, keeping it updated, and running a scan every month or so. The law of averages suggests you're going to pick up something nasty sooner or later, and pretending that your computer is immune to malware will not make it go away.

While you are right, that mainly applies to the more advanced user, or the user that's more paranoid with the internet. There's a wide selection of websites that many people visit daily that I would never touch, and that's purely due to security reasons (Yahoo, for example). Also, your typical computer user doesn't really exercise a that much security measures when browsing the internet.

Just because the averages are against you, it doesn't mean you should compromise security by picking an AV that protects you less, for the same price (free); especially when you don't really know that much about your computer. People are better off picking the best protecting AV that will run properly on their computer, instead of just getting the most common (which consistently comes out relatively poor in testing).

 

[jnpeterson]

Just a couple of caveats to this. I was going to try Bitdefender after reading this, but since they want you to create an account with them even for the "free" version, I passed. The real thumbs down goes to Avira's free offering though. I installed it and have been using it for a few days, but I'm binning it now because of the constant spamming. It's constantly shooting you a pop up in the tray trying to get you to upgrade. There's no way to turn this off. Imagine my surprise as well when I was out on IMDB and the Avira browser add-on toolbar popped up targeted offers to buy movies as well. Wow.. isn't this the sort of thing A/V and malware programs are supposed to prevent and remove? To their credit they DO give you the option to turn that off, but the constant spamvertising popups in the tray are enough to thumbs down this one in my opinion. More on a thread on their own site. https://answers.avira.com/en/question/disable-avira-pop-up-ads-23018

 

[Skylyne]

Bitdefender may "require" that free account, but you don't need to do anything with it. Just register the install, and forget about the registration. I've never received a single email I didn't sign up for, and it seems to be the most useless feature, unless you happen to want one of the services offered when you complete your registration. I almost ignored it, but when I first installed it, I figured I'd see if that was a problem. Turns out there was no harm done, and no real gain... outside of being able to use the AV normally lol. I think it's pointless, but that's probably there for some half-assed reason.

And yeah, Avira is pretty lavish with ads, I hear. Makes me laugh at the people who switch from Avast to Avira, and vice versa, because I've seen so many users switch between the two, and claim one is way better than the other, and how there's "less ads" on one of them. I swear they're probably made by two companies founded by guys who were room mates. They both seem to have the same cult-like followings, both offer reasonable protection (nothing outstanding), and they both try to badger you into buying something. Yeah, they're totally different lol. Humans make me giggle.