Best rated or ranked paid Antivirus 2012, according to tests and user's

[javierj]

Hello,

I have been doing some paid Antivirus software research on the internet, for the last couple days. I have come across a few names among what it seems to be the best in regards to user or pc press editors reviews and scores on different test like AV-Test and independent lab test. When it comes to reviews and thoughts there are mixed reviews and opinions. As far as the test concern, some are a little mixed, but mostly the one which seems the best antivirus programs, are usually in the best ranking across different testers. Anyway, the names I got are Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2012, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012, for some reason I still see Norton, even though I thought it was not one of the best anymore, compared to others.I also saw Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete (although it's $79.99, for 15 months, 3 pcs). The first I saw as a really good one was ESET NOD32 5, as matter of fact in a thread in this forum it was one of the most mentioned ones. So after I did this research, I came across a possible conclusion, that Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2012 seems to have the highest results in different testing done by different testers, like AV-TEST and independent labs. So would you agree that when I receive my new laptop in a week, which has Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits, Intel Core i5 (second gen), 6 GB of ram and 500 GB of hard drive storage, that would you recommend me to buy the 1 year licence for single pc of Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2012, for $39.95 ???

[Daedroth]

Different tests have different criteria, which produce different results, which is why there are different results in different tests.

You'll find that there is a general consensus that the following are highly ranked/rated:

Avira - Has a free ant-virus, but also a subscription version for more features.

Avast - Has a free ant-virus, but also a subscription version for more features.

BitDefender - Subscription based

ESET - Subscription based

Kaspersky - Subscription based

Microsoft Security Essentials - Free from Microsoft, but requires an activated version of Windows.

There are more highly recommended, but I couldn't remember them at the time of posting.

All this information could have been found by using the forum search function.

[Jojo81]

lol this is a spammer.

[Duffydemon]

Doesnt look like a spammer, maybe he just registered to ask for help.

[Daedroth]

lol this is a spammer.

There's no hyperlinks, and no obvious advertising for specifics sites or products...I'm not sure. :|

[goretsky Supervisor]

[EDIT: Fixed date. AG]

Hello Javier,

I will be one of the presenters in a BrightTalk webinar on Wednesday, May 30th called Truth or Spin in AV Testing?. My part will be on how vendors (and reviewers) cheat on tests, and I will be giving some actual examples of both.

It is a vendor-sponsored presentation (ESET), but is about as neutral as it can be in spite of that. It's more geared at businesses than consumers, but anyone's welcome to attend.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Well, if it's keyword spam designed to drive traffic to a certain product/pricing, I've counterspammed it. :)

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

lol this is a spammer.

[Manarift]

What poster is saying doesn't make sense :|

[javierj]

Hello fellow forum post viewers...

Basically all I am looking for is for some feedback, opinions or thoughts on some of the higher ranked or best according to reviews of people who have used and have experience with different Antivirus software. I did some research a found a similar thread on this forum, but it was like a poll and I kind of wanted more info on the programs instead of just like a poll. So I don't know what does not make sense in this ?

[javierj]

And what would

snorge

mean by ''this is a spammer'' ?

What, is it not allowed to ask a question based on others opinions, in order to see towards which software product could invest some money and get the best out of it ?

[remixedcat]

I recommend Sophos.

I've used the following:

Norton Anti-Virus--->loved the early versions, however quality declined and the software got more and more bloated. Didn't protect well since 2003 when they did a major code change. This code change redid the scanning and it got more lenient.

McAfee Antivirus--->always had a bad vibe and I had it on my laptop and it would be a CPU hog as well as high on memory usage and I still got infected.

Sophos AntiVirus--->very low profile Ui and very low memory usage for both consumer and server editions. It's occasionally overprotective... but that's a good thing. it has given me issues with a couple lock ups but I haven't had that problem much lately.

Moon Secure--->Ok for a backup and nothing much more. Kept crashing a lot. You get what you paid for and it was free.

Panda Cloud--->Free for consumer and paid for server/pro version. Pretty good for a free one, however it was supposed to offload processing to the cloud and it still used a lot of local power to run it and perform it's actions and it would often have the media center PCs fans going loud and we got it specifically to keep the usage down, as we used it as a media pc and we need as low profile on BG usage as possible! only recommended if you don't care about my circumstance above.

[redvamp128]

And what would

snorge

mean by ''this is a spammer'' ?

What, is it not allowed to ask a question based on others opinions, in order to see towards which software product could invest some money and get the best out of it ?

Generally the "Spammers" Get registered here on Neowin then within the first five posts either post a review of a paid product, sell DVD's , or services. Then they usually get the boot by someone reporting them. (usually they post a link to their site)

Since at the time of my writing you only have 3 posts and all 3 are in this topic and have yet to do the "introduce yourself" or any other post to any other topic... people assume you are a "spammer"

That and one would also assume you are selling things because you are posting prices.

The best way to have done this topic is probably - a poll question with the other please explain.. that may have gotten you the results you wanted.

For me -- In Linux I use ClamAV for Windows I use NIS (Norton Internet Security with the addition of the Spybot Search and Destroy Immunize function) on the other computer It has MSE.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Hello Javier,

I will be one of the presenters in a BrightTalk webinar on Wednesday, April 30th called Truth or Spin in AV Testing?. My part will be on how vendors (and reviewers) cheat on tests, and I will be giving some actual examples of both.

It is a vendor-sponsored presentation (ESET), but is about as neutral as it can be in spite of that. It's more geared at businesses than consumers, but anyone's welcome to attend.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Surely you can't mean April 30th since that would be in the past... Unless you're referring to 2013?

[javierj]

Generally the "Spammers" Get registered here on Neowin then within the first five posts either post a review of a paid product, sell DVD's , or services. Then they usually get the boot by someone reporting them. (usually they post a link to their site)

Since at the time of my writing you only have 3 posts and all 3 are in this topic and have yet to do the "introduce yourself" or any other post to any other topic... people assume you are a "spammer"

That and one would also assume you are selling things because you are posting prices.

The best way to have done this topic is probably - a poll question with the other please explain.. that may have gotten you the results you wanted.

For me -- In Linux I use ClamAV for Windows I use NIS (Norton Internet Security with the addition of the Spybot Search and Destroy Immunize function) on the other computer It has MSE.

Hey thanks a lot redvamp128, I really appreciate the explanations on the spammer thing, jajajajaj, I was so clue less LOL, guess I did forget the "introduce yourself" !

Anyway so I have done some research and I saw first Eset Nod32 as according to reviews and what people say on the net, as a really good one. Then someone else said NOD32 is decent but if I wanted the ultimate thing for a little higher price get ''Webroot''. After checking Webroot, saw some mixed reviews and supposedly had good protection on test, but not that good some other stuff I can't remember. The I saw Bit defender which supposedly as well was really good, but then some other reviewers said that it was not good enough and that I should stick to the one that has been on the market for a longer time, Norton (Internet Security 2012). So right now I am really confused, jajajajaj !!

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Oops! Thanks for catching that. I've updated the original message.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Surely you can't mean April 30th since that would be in the past... Unless you're referring to 2013?

[Odom Member]

Interesting to find this thread, I was also looking for opinions on what the best Anti-Virus solution for an enterprise environment would be.

@ +goretsky

Thanks very much for that information, I'll have a look at the website and the webinars.

@ +remixedcat

We actually run Sophos in our company and I'm trying to get away from it. Lately we had some really bad experience with them. These would include the automatic update of all Sophos clients to the latest version without our interaction and us being informed - this should be a showstopper in our environment; just last month, a botched signature update that made Sophos detect itself as malware and it blocked itself on all machines, and in the past another botched signature file that made IE being detected as malware and also killing it on all machines. We also had version upgrade issues, where we only noticed that our version was no longer supported when the popups started appearing on the desktops. Microsoft is able to tell us years in advance when products expire, why can't Sophos? Their communication is horrible and close to non-existing.

I know that most AV's have had issues, but I hear that the most common AV in companies is McAfee (which shouldn't mean to say that it is the best).

[Marshall Veteran]

In today's battle of viruses, malware, worms and Trojans you just can't get any better than Eset Nod32. It's low on resources, yet get's the job done, period.

[torrentthief]

i can't believe so many people still use nod32! It performs so poorly in tests compared to the competition.

Kaspersky, avira, bitdefender are the ones with the best overall detection, removal and lowest false positives when you combine those factors together. Avira has a free version, the other 2 don't.

[remixedcat]

Interesting to find this thread, I was also looking for opinions on what the best Anti-Virus solution for an enterprise environment would be.

@ +goretsky

Thanks very much for that information, I'll have a look at the website and the webinars.

@ +remixedcat

We actually run Sophos in our company and I'm trying to get away from it. Lately we had some really bad experience with them. These would include the automatic update of all Sophos clients to the latest version without our interaction and us being informed - this should be a showstopper in our environment; just last month, a botched signature update that made Sophos detect itself as malware and it blocked itself on all machines, and in the past another botched signature file that made IE being detected as malware and also killing it on all machines. We also had version upgrade issues, where we only noticed that our version was no longer supported when the popups started appearing on the desktops. Microsoft is able to tell us years in advance when products expire, why can't Sophos? Their communication is horrible and close to non-existing.

I know that most AV's have had issues, but I hear that the most common AV in companies is McAfee (which shouldn't mean to say that it is the best).

Please note the date of my post.... that was before that happend with the infamous botched update.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Any tests in particular? It got a VB100 from Virus Bulletin and an Advanced (just missed Advanced+) from AV-Comparatives in the last round of testing. They also seemed to have done pretty well in last year's round of annual tests.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

i can't believe so many people still use nod32! It performs so poorly in tests compared to the competition.

Kaspersky, avira, bitdefender are the ones with the best overall detection, removal and lowest false positives when you combine those factors together. Avira has a free version, the other 2 don't.

[Odom Member]

Please note the date of my post.... that was before that happend with the infamous botched update.

True, but our bad experience goes back quite a few years :)

[remixedcat]

aww man that sucks....

[torrentthief]

Any tests in particular? It got a VB100 from Virus Bulletin and an Advanced (just missed Advanced+) from AV-Comparatives in the last round of testing. They also seemed to have done pretty well in last year's round of annual tests.

they came 11th in detection tests: http://www.av-compar...t_201209_en.pdf

it scored just 58/100 in malware detection tests (admittedly it was late 2011 when the testing was done): http://www.av-compar...m_201111_en.pdf

kaspersky, avira and bitdefender always perform well in all tests and have done for a very long time. Eset is much weaker than these 3.

I personally use Avira free and Comodo firewall, i have ad-aware and spybot installers incase i get some malware that i can't remove but i don't have those installed.

[remixedcat]

webroot did terrible on that t4est

[torrentthief]

webroot did terrible on that t4est

yeah, webroot is truly awful in all test on av-comparatives. I hope no-one has that installed. I used to use avast free but after looking at recent reviews on av-comparatives i saw that it was lacking compared to avira free in all tests so i switched.

[remixedcat]

yeah, webroot is truly awful in all test on av-comparatives. I hope no-one has that installed. I used to use avast free but after looking at recent reviews on av-comparatives i saw that it was lacking compared to avira free in all tests so i switched.

post some task manager screenshots please....

ruh rohhh!

In May 2012, following a defective definition file update, AntiVirProActiv started blocking several legitimate Windows processes, and also preventing PCs from booting.[19] The problem was fixed through an update on 13 June 2012.[20]

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