Antivirus rating 2010

Norton AntiVirus scored 8. The only other product that has come close is Double Anti-Spy Professional 1. It's not a heavily weighted test, but 8. Spyware Doctor came close with 7. The leader in this category is Ad-Aware Pro 8. Thorough Malware Blocking When I tried to re-download my collection of malware samples more than half of the URLs were no longer available. Norton's Download Insight feature analyzes all downloads and blocks malicious ones before the download is finalized.

It caught every threat that got as far as the download stage. When I opened a folder containing already-downloaded samples Norton wiped out half of them on sight, before I even clicked anything. And when I single-clicked each remaining sample Norton wiped out all but a handful of those.

I launched the remaining handful and checked whether they installed successfully. Norton AntiVirus scored 9. In fact, all of its malware-blocking scores were identical to those of Norton Internet Security. McAfee was close behind with 9. Internet Security 5.

When challenged to block installation of commercial keyloggers Norton scored a decent 7. Realistically, if a secret agent is sitting at your desk installing a keylogger no software can really help you, so I give little weight to this result.

Norton scored 7. Like numerous other products Norton blocked every scareware sample, achieving 10 of 10 points. I really did expect Norton AntiVirus to score better than Norton Internet Security, given that the samples are four months older now. Norton AntiVirus did so, in a few cases, but not hugely.

Even so, it offers very good malware removal and even better malware blocking. For more information about my testing, read How We Test Anti-malware. Norton AntiVirus looks for times when the system is idle and tries to do all its background work during those times. You can flip the main window over for a view of CPU usage by Norton and by other processes. Many antivirus products are sold online for much less than their list prices.

But each brand offers basic, midrange and premium configurations of features and pricing, with every step up adding more features. Think of autos at a dealership. You can get a base-model car that will get you from place to place just fine. For a few grand more, you can buy a car with satellite radio, but no heated side-view mirrors, alloy wheels or in-car Wi-Fi hotspot. Or you can spend a lot more to get a loaded car with all the fixin's.

Antivirus makers also hope you'll spring for extra options, whether you need them or not. The one thing you can't trade up to is a bigger engine: All the Windows antivirus products in a given brand's lineup will use the same malware-detection engine and provide the same level of essential protection. The software will have essential malware protection and maybe a password manager or a two-way firewall. They generally add parental controls, some of which are very good, plus a few other features such as webcam protection.

They often include multi-device licenses and antivirus software for Mac and Android devices. At the top are the premium "security suites," which toss in all the extra security tools an antivirus brand can offer, such as password managers, VPN client software, backup software, online storage and even identity-protection services. The password managers are often quite good, but the online storage can be paltry and the VPN services often don't give you unlimited data.

We've collected the best premium antivirus packages on this list of the best internet security suites. Our evaluations are based on each antivirus program's interface, performance, protection and extra features. Was the interface intuitive and user-friendly? How badly did malware scans slow performance? How well did the program detect and remove malware?

Does the program offer useful additional tools? Some of our newer performance tests were done on a Lenovo ThinkPad T with a 2. To assess a program's impact on system speed on both Windows and macOS, we used our own custom tests, which measure how long a CPU takes to match 20, names and addresses on an OpenOffice or Excel spreadsheet. The longer it took the laptop to finish either test, the heavier the performance impact.

Each lab subjects the major antivirus brands' products to stress tests involving thousands of pieces of malware, including hundreds of previously unseen samples.

Kaspersky antivirus products have been banned from U. Because the company is Russian and antivirus software can peer deep into a PC, using Kaspersky software would create an unacceptable risk for persons and organizations involved in national security and critical infrastructure. However, we still think Kaspersky software is perfectly safe for home users.

We've seen no evidence to convince us otherwise. Kaspersky researchers are well respected throughout the antivirus industry, and the company has publicly exposed Russian cyberespionage campaigns as well as those from the United States and other countries around the world.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor.

He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews. If you use a Windows PC, you'll need to have one of the best antivirus programs installed, whether free or paid. View Deal. Kaspersky Total Security. Specifications Anti-theft: Yes. Backup software: Yes. Firewall: Yes. Game mode: Yes. Hardened browser: Yes.

Parental controls: Yes. Password manager: Yes. Ransomware rollback: Yes. Webcam protection: Yes. Virtual keyboard: Yes. VPN: Limited upsell. Wi-Fi scanner: Yes. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus.

Specifications Anti-theft: No. Backup software: No. Firewall: No. Parental controls: No. Webcam protection: No. Reasons to avoid - Heavy background system impact. Norton Deluxe.

Hardened browser: No. Ransomware rollback: No. VPN: Unlimited. Reasons to avoid - Heavy slowdown during full scans - Pricey. McAfee Internet Security. Virtual keyboard: No. Reasons to avoid - Very heavy performance hit - No parental controls on mid-priced tier. Trend Micro Maximum Security. Specifications Backup software: No. Reasons to avoid - Heavy performance hit during scans - Many false positives on some tests. Game mode: No. Password manager: No.

Wi-Fi scanner: No. Reasons to avoid - So-so malware protection - Moderate performance penalty during scans - Lacks VPN, password manager, file shredder. Kaspersky Security Cloud Free. Specifications Email scans: Yes.

Password manager: Limited. Ransomware reversal: Yes. Scan scheduler: Yes. Support options: FAQs, forums. Upsell nag factor: Moderate. Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition. Specifications Email scans: No. Ransomware reversal: No. Scan scheduler: No. Upsell nag factor: Minimal. Reasons to avoid - No extra features whatsoever - No quick scans or scan scheduling.

Windows Defender Antivirus. Password manager: Yes, with other Microsoft apps. Upsell nag factor: Nonexistent. Reasons to avoid - Some features work only on Microsoft products - Hard to schedule scans. Avast Free Antivirus. Specifications Email scans: Separate tool. Hardened browser: Separate tool. Password manager: Not any more. Ransomware reversal: Shield only. The new user interface is clean and non rational while still continuing valuable. The menus within AVG Anti virus are identical simple and extend all the options and selective information needed to keep your system safe from Internet threats.

I want to know price of kaspersky antivirus. I upgraded to Bitdefender and the product is a CPU hog. My desktop with XP and my laptop with Vista are now un-useable as they are so slow and lock up constantly. Support will not return email. No one should recommend this product without making it clear you need tons of CPU to run this and computers more than 12 months old will likely not work at an acceptable speed with bitdefender.

BitDefender seems to be the best solution.