Based in Chennai, India, antivirus company K7 Computing claims it has 10 million customers worldwide, most of whom are in Asia. K7 isn't a big name in the U.S., which may explain why the company hasn't submitted its AV software for review to PCMag since 2011. K7 AntiVirus Plus 14 ($39.95 per year) looks completely different from the version I reviewed before, but its feature set is nearly unchanged three years later. In testing, it did not shine.
K7 offers an unusually large number of subscription choices. You can purchase licenses for one, three, or five computers lasting one, two, or three years. The five-user, three-year package costs $153.89. That's quite a deal, considering that 15 single one-year licenses would cost just under $600.
When I reviewed K7 Antivirus Plus 11.0, the product's user interface featured a flame-inspired red and orange color palette. The current edition has a completely different appearance that uses a silvery brushed-metal texture. But, as I mentioned, the feature set is virtually unchanged.
Mediocre Malicious URL Blocking
The best way to prevent a Web-based malware attack is to make sure the malicious program never reaches your PC. Some products block all access to known malware-hosting URLs, some scan and eliminate malware as soon as it's downloaded, and some do both. K7 AntiVirus doesn't include malicious URL blocking; that feature is reserved for the company's full suite.
British analysis firm MRG-Effitas has generously given me access to a feed of their very latest malicious URLs. From this, I filter those that point directly to an executable file. Scoring is simple. I note whether the product blocked the URL, wiped out the downloaded file, or simply did nothing.
Even though the URLs are very new, some are already invalid, and some don't point directly to a malicious file. I kept cranking away at the test until I had accumulated 100 for-sure samples. K7 wiped out just 27 percent of the downloaded malware, well below the current average of 33 percent. Yes, each program gets a different 100 URLs, but in every case they're the freshest available, typically no more than four hours old.
I have a review of the suite (K7 Ultimate Security Gold 14) in the works, so I tested it simultaneously with the antivirus. The suite did a much better job, blocking access to 58 percent of the URLs and wiping out another 11 percent as soon as the download finished. Its total of 69 percent blocked is the second highest in this test. With 79 percent, avast! Free Antivirus 2014 is the current leader.
So-So Malware Blocking
K7's installation went quickly, as did the necessary initial signature update. Within just a few minutes, I was ready to start testing. The first thing I did was simply open a folder containing my current collection of malware samples. K7 leapt into action, quarantining files it recognized as malicious. When the dust settled, it had removed 61 percent of my samples. That's not so hot. Comodo Antivirus 7 wiped out 94 percent of the samples at this stage, and VIPRE Antivirus 2014 eliminated every single one.
I also opened a folder containing hand-modified versions of the same collection. I gave each a different filename, appended nulls to change the file size, and tweaked some non-executable bytes. K7 failed to recognize 40 percent of the tweaked files that corresponded to originals it had caught on sight. This suggests a too-rigid malware signature scheme.
I continued by attempting to launch all the remaining malware samples. K7 missed quite a few, and some of those it did detect managed to plant executable files on the test system. Its overall score of 8.6 points is in the lower half of current products I've tested. The chart below summarizes the results for malware blocking and malicious URL blocking. To learn more about these tests, see How We Test Malware Blocking.
K7 Antivirus Plus 14 Malware Blocking Chart
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