What's Key To The Best Antivirus Program?

What's Key To The Best Antivirus Program?

Independent comparisons show some antivirus (AV) programs work better than others. The best antivirus program has performance and useability -- characteristics that separate it from its poorer cousins.

Here, we'll be talking through advice for choosing your software. We'll also look at and get a feel for the best programs you can buy for your money, using the information I've put together from certifying companies who carry out independent tests on performance.

So, to choose your progam, we'll consider the following...

Tips Before Choosing

Independent Reviews

The Best Antivirus Programs

Protecting Against Unknown Viruses

1. Tips Before Choosing The Best Antivirus Program

If you don't use your PC for email or very rarely connect to the Internet, you could consider a free antivirus.

For normal Internet access -- and especially if the computer is also being used for business -- it's imperative to get the best antivirus program we can get for our money.

Secondly, the best antivirus program that we choose should also match our level of experience of AV software.

If we don't have extensive experience, a program like NOD32 may not be the best choice... it's generally for power-users who want to be able to control exactly how the program interacts with their system.

For new starters and seasoned users alike, programs like Kaspersky AntiVirus Personal and McAfee VirusScan are ideal. They are pretty transparent in use but also allow the user independent control of its features.

2. Independent Reviews Of The Best Antivirus Program

Little known to the general consumer is the fact that there are a number of organizations that test AV software and some of these results are available to the surfing public! For instance...

ICSA Labs is the security industry's central authority for research, intelligence, and certification testing of products. It certifies over 95% of the installed base of anti-virus products in the world today. AV products that have been certified can be viewed at ICSA Labs.

There is also Checkmark and Virus Bulletin, which also test and certify information security products.

CheckVir and TUV also certify AV products, but their test results are not made available.

Any AV software we install should have at least one of these certifications.

What if we could choose our AV software by going to an independent organization that not only tests but also compares the performance of AV products?

Just imagine not having to rely on the sales pitch provided by marketers or spending hours reading reviews to find out which is the best antivirus software!

Well, good news, because AV-Comparatives is an independent body that both tests and compares the performance of the major antivirus products... so, we can find out what the most effective AV program is on the market right now!

AV-Comparatives compares AV software for DOS viruses/malware, Windows viruses, macro viruses, script viruses/malware, worms, Backdoors, Trojans (including keyloggers), other malware, including rootkits, and other OS viruses/malware.

AV software is classified according to the results as, 'Standard', 'Advanced', or 'Advanced+' -- the best antivirus program being the 'Advanced+'.

Not every single anti-virus is tested, but the most popular are. The most consistent performers over the last three on-demand comparative tests are listed below.

I have not taken into account the retrospective comparatives, as these test the programs when they haven't been updated for 3 months. NO-ONE should be leaving their AV for this length of time before updating with virus definitions.

All of these programs meet the criteria in the article What Makes The Best Antivirus Software? and are relatively easy to use (apart from NOD32).

3. The Best Antivirus Programs

Below, I've listed, in order of performance, the 5 most consistent products over the last three on-demand comparative tests from AV-Comparatives...

1. Best Antivirus Program... Kaspersky Antivirus Personal

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (KAV) Personal Pro and KAV Personal are consistently at the top spot.

The Kaspersky antivirus engine has been adopted by a large number of security companies for home and business solutions. Examples are, F-Secure, Clearswift, Deerfield and Nokia.

These are the main features:

Constantly monitors all sources of possible incoming and outgoing virus infections... email, Instant Messaging (IM), the Internet, and removable media.

Detects and removes viruses, worms, Trojans and rootkits.

Protects all parts of the PC... system memory, boot sector, files, mail databases, etc.

Has an heuristic (learning) engine to detect unknown viruses

Antispyware is incorporated.

This product is also the most effective anti-Trojan on the market, even beating the stand-alone, specialized anti-Trojan products.

The antivirus database can be updated every hour.

You'll find more information at Kaspersky Anti-Virus Products - protect your PC against security threats with industry leading software! 

2. Best Antivirus Program... McAfee VirusScan

VirusScan has been the antivirus choice of computer professionals for many years. It offers,

Antivirus and spyware protection.

Automatically downloads daily virus-signature updates

Automatically scans and cleans files, e-mail messages, downloads, e-mail and IM attachments.

For more information, visit McAffee Virus Plus 

3. Best Antivirus Program... Norton Antivirus

In the most recent comparative of antivirus software, Symantec's Norton Antivirus was second in overall protection, behind Kaspersky.

It's placed in third position because in AV-Comparatives' previous tests, its detection rate has not been consistent. It is also known for its high usage of computer resources and being temperamental on older systems.

It offers spyware protection as well as being an antivirus.

Automatically downloads the latest virus signatures.

Checks incoming and outgoing mail.

Will the Norton Antivirus work well on your system? You're left guessing about this one, but for more information, visit the Symantec Home Page

4. Best Antivirus Program... BitDefender Antivirus

Bitdefender offers Antivirus and Antivirus Plus. Antivirus also includes antispyware, whilst Antivirus Plus includes a firewall, antispam, antispyware and rootkit detection and removal.

The antivirus for both products offers...

Like Kaspersky, hourly updates for virus definitions.

Heuristic (learning) engine

Full email, P2P and IM protection.

For more information and free trials of these two products, go to BitDefender AntiVirus and BitDefender AntiVirus Plus 

4. The Best Antivirus Program... Protecting Against Unknown Email Viruses

Use of anti virus software is by no means a 100% sure approach to catching all viruses, worms and Trojans...

With new viruses and worms being released all the time, anti-virus companies have to quickly write new code to stop these new threats -- but only when they have been notified of the new threat. This doesn't help us if we have already received the virus, or not updated our anti-virus software in time.

Also, we know from independent tests, not all anti virus programs catch all the known viruses and some of them miss viruses that others catch.

Add to that, conventional anti-virus software can't target unknown or future viruses and threats, unless it contains Host Intrusion Prevention Solutions (HIPS) technology. However, HIPS is not yet very prevalent, owing to a few teething problems.

But there is other software that can work with our AV program to catch the viruses our AV misses and the unknown viruses it can't detect. It is called Benign.

95 percent of all viruses are transmitted via email. Benign will catch all known and future email viruses and worms. It cannot catch viruses downloaded from the Internet or transferred from disk, and so it's still advisable to run an updated anti-virus program.

How does Benign work? Benign is an incoming POP3 mail scanner and it uses it's own unique Firetrust program to eliminate malware code in the incoming emails -- before the email loads into your in box. It fully decodes the email, removes anything dangerous or malicious, and then rewrites the email in such a way as to guarantee that it will be interpreted by your mail program as it should be. This is all done instantly.