Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015)

Pros Top ratings in tests by six independent labs. Excellent antiphishing scores. Simple settings. Quick, easy install. Virtual keyboard for secure data entry. Can roll back malware actions. Useful system cleanup and optimization tools.

Cons Less impressive scores in hands-on malware blocking test and malicious URL blocking test. Bottom Line Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) made a clean sweep, earning top marks from all of the independent antivirus test labs. It's a new Editors' Choice for antivirus protection.

By Neil J. Rubenking

How often do you find an antivirus product that's still managed by its eponymous creator? Peter Norton and Symantec's Norton product line went their separate ways ages ago. John McAfee is still making news, but not in connection with McAfee the company. Then there's Eugene Kaspersky, still at the helm of Kaspersky Lab. Maybe continuity pays off; Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) is an impressive and highly capable antivirus program. It's affordable, too: You can purchase a single one-year subscription for $39.95, or get a three-pack for $20 more.

The product's clean main window displays current security status, with a link to dig in for details, good or bad. Four big panels let you quickly launch a scan, check for updates, view activity reports, and activate a virtual keyboard.

The virtual keyboard deserves a little extra attention. Many products offer a similar feature, to let you enter passwords without using the vulnerable physical keyboard. Kaspersky's floating semi-transparent keyboard isn't just better-looking than the competition. It also includes technology that keeps spyware from capturing your personal data by scraping the screen.

Simple Settings
You can install Kaspersky and use it out of the box without ever changing any settings. By default, it automatically chooses the best action when detecting malware; it doesn't make you decide. This is similar to the default Autopilot mode in Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015.

From the Settings screen, you can toggle security components on and off, or dig in for more detail. The one item you might want to examine is System Watcher. This feature tracks system activity and, when possible, completely rolls back activity by detected malware. You'll also find the special key combination to break away from screen-locking malware—Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F4 by default.

Kaspersky works hard to avoid impacting system performance. On the settings tab for performance, you can see that by default it postpones any scheduled scans that would occur while you're on battery power. It will refrain from interrupting when you're playing a full-screen game, and it defaults to limiting resources used during startup, so your boot time isn't slowed. You don't need to change these settings, but it's good to know what's going on in the background.

Loved by the Labs
All the antivirus testing labs that I follow include Kaspersky's products in their testing, and Kaspersky earns universally high marks. ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs certify Kaspersky for malware detection and cleaning; West Coast Labs adds "Platinum Checkmark" certification. Kaspersky participated in all 12 of the most recent tests by Virus Bulletin and earned VB100 certification in 10 of them.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) Lab Tests Chart

AV-Test Institute rates products in three categories: protection, performance, and usability. Kaspersky earned six of six possible points in all three, a rare perfect store. In all of the static and dynamic tests by AV-Comparatives, Kaspersky rated Advanced+, the highest possible rating. Dennis Technology Labs certified Kaspersky at the AAA level, again the highest possible level.

Few security vendors reach such stratospheric levels with the independent labs. Bitdefender is one of the few that comes close.

See How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Hands-On Malware Blocking
Those independent labs can devote far more resources to testing than I can, but I still like to do some hands-on testing, exposing each antivirus product to a collection of various malware samples. Kaspersky and Bitdefender are the first products I've tested since converting all of my virtual machines to Windows 8.1 and swapping in a new collection of samples.

As soon as I opened the folder containing my samples, Kaspersky got to work, quickly wiping out 69 percent of them. I proceeded to launch those that survived this massacre, noting just how Kaspersky handled them. In all, it detected 83 percent of the samples. Its overall score of 7.9 points reflects the fact that a few of the samples managed to place executable files on the test system despite being detected by the antivirus.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) Malware Blocking Chart

Bitdefender did a little better than Kaspersky, with 86 percent detection and an overall score of 8.4. You can see that some products tested with my previous collection managed higher scores. However, there's a possibility that those tested most recently gained an advantage due to the increasing age of the older samples. And when the independent labs put a product at the top, I give less weight to my own hands-on tests.

View the original article here

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015

Pros Extremely high ratings from independent labs. Top score in our hands-on antiphishing test. Vulnerability scan. Rescue mode for persistent malware. Password management. Hardened browser for financial transactions. Tools to protect privacy and enhance system performance.

Cons Non-stellar performance in our malicious URL blocking test. Bottom Line Few products score better in independent lab tests than Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015, and it totally aced our own antiphishing test. On top of that, it offers significant tools to enhance your privacy and system performance. This feature-rich tool remains an antivirus Editors' Choice.

By Neil J. Rubenking

When you buy antivirus protection these days, you know that it's really antivirus plus protection against Trojans, rootkits, rogues, and all sorts of malware. Sometimes, though, you get even more. The "Plus" in Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 ($39.95 per year; $59.95 for three licenses) refers to an impressive collection of bonus features that many vendors would reserve for their full security suite.

The user interface for Bitdefender's antivirus is exactly the same as that of the full security suite, so you can see just what you'd get by upgrading. Suite-only features are simply grayed out and disabled. By default, Bitdefender runs in Autopilot mode, meaning it takes care of any security concerns without any user intervention. Just so you don't forget it's protecting you, it displays a weekly report listing all the good deeds it has done.

Excellent Lab Results
Almost all of the independent labs that I follow include Bitdefender in their testing. Bitdefender doesn't bother with the simple certifications offered by ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs, but it received VB100 certification in all 12 of the last 12 tests by Virus Bulletin. As for the remaining labs, those that perform hands-on, real-world testing, Bitdefender is right there in the mix.

Austrian lab AV-Comparatives puts antivirus technologies through a variety of tests including static tests, dynamic tests, and performance tests. Like Kaspersky, Bitdefender earned an Advanced+ rating (the highest rating) in all of these tests. AV-Test Institute gave it a near perfect score of 17.5 points in tests on protection, performance, and usability. Only Kaspersky has done better, with 18 of 18 possible points.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 Lab Tests Chart

London-based Dennis Technology Labs uses a testing system that replays malicious Internet traffic, making it possible to test multiple products with exactly the same malware interaction. The complexity of this system means they can't test as many products as other labs, but both Kaspersky and Bitdefender are included.

In the latest results from Dennis Labs, ESET, Norton, and Kaspersky rated AAA, the top rating. Bitdefender came very close, earning an AA rating.

See How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Malicious URL Blocking
Thanks to a real-time feed supplied by MRG-Effitas, I have access to a continually updated list of malicious URLs. I use these to check how each antivirus product handles extremely new threats. Does it block access to the URL, wipe out the downloaded malware, or just sit there doing nothing?

Bitdefender completely blocked access to 18 percent of the live malicious URLs I used for testing, but didn't wipe out any of the downloads that got through. It might well have caught those on launch, but that's not what this test measures. I've run two dozen products through this test so far, each with URLs no more than four hours old. The average protection rate is 33 percent, almost twice what Bitdefender managed. I'll be interested to see how Norton AntiVirus (2014) and Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (2014) do when it's their turn for this test.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 Malware Blocking Chart

Good Malware Blocking
I rely more and more on the independent labs for in-depth antivirus testing, but I always need to do my own hands-on testing, to get a feel for the product's protection. To start, I opened a folder containing my just-gathered new set of malware samples. Bitdefender quickly and quietly wiped out 83 percent of those samples.

Next I launched the remaining samples and noted the antivirus's reaction. It completely missed several, ending up with an overall detection rate of 86 percent and an overall score of 8.4 points. Kaspersky, the only other product tested with this exact same sample collection, earned 7.9 points.

You'll notice in the chart below that many products earned a better score than Bitdefender when tested with my previous collection of malware samples. Because that was a different collection, the results aren't apples-to-apples. And when my results don't entirely jibe with results from the big labs, I tend to believe the labs.

See How We Test Malware Blocking.

View the original article here

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015)

Pros Top ratings in tests by six independent labs. Excellent antiphishing scores. Simple settings. Quick, easy install. Virtual keyboard for secure data entry. Can roll back malware actions. Useful system cleanup and optimization tools.

Cons Less impressive scores in hands-on malware blocking test and malicious URL blocking test. Bottom Line Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) made a clean sweep, earning top marks from all of the independent antivirus test labs. It's a new Editors' Choice for antivirus protection.

By Neil J. Rubenking

How often do you find an antivirus product that's still managed by its eponymous creator? Peter Norton and Symantec's Norton product line went their separate ways ages ago. John McAfee is still making news, but not in connection with McAfee the company. Then there's Eugene Kaspersky, still at the helm of Kaspersky Lab. Maybe continuity pays off; Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) is an impressive and highly capable antivirus program. It's affordable, too: You can purchase a single one-year subscription for $39.95, or get a three-pack for $20 more.

The product's clean main window displays current security status, with a link to dig in for details, good or bad. Four big panels let you quickly launch a scan, check for updates, view activity reports, and activate a virtual keyboard.

The virtual keyboard deserves a little extra attention. Many products offer a similar feature, to let you enter passwords without using the vulnerable physical keyboard. Kaspersky's floating semi-transparent keyboard isn't just better-looking than the competition. It also includes technology that keeps spyware from capturing your personal data by scraping the screen.

Simple Settings
You can install Kaspersky and use it out of the box without ever changing any settings. By default, it automatically chooses the best action when detecting malware; it doesn't make you decide. This is similar to the default Autopilot mode in Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015.

From the Settings screen, you can toggle security components on and off, or dig in for more detail. The one item you might want to examine is System Watcher. This feature tracks system activity and, when possible, completely rolls back activity by detected malware. You'll also find the special key combination to break away from screen-locking malware—Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F4 by default.

Kaspersky works hard to avoid impacting system performance. On the settings tab for performance, you can see that by default it postpones any scheduled scans that would occur while you're on battery power. It will refrain from interrupting when you're playing a full-screen game, and it defaults to limiting resources used during startup, so your boot time isn't slowed. You don't need to change these settings, but it's good to know what's going on in the background.

Loved by the Labs
All the antivirus testing labs that I follow include Kaspersky's products in their testing, and Kaspersky earns universally high marks. ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs certify Kaspersky for malware detection and cleaning; West Coast Labs adds "Platinum Checkmark" certification. Kaspersky participated in all 12 of the most recent tests by Virus Bulletin and earned VB100 certification in 10 of them.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) Lab Tests Chart

AV-Test Institute rates products in three categories: protection, performance, and usability. Kaspersky earned six of six possible points in all three, a rare perfect store. In all of the static and dynamic tests by AV-Comparatives, Kaspersky rated Advanced+, the highest possible rating. Dennis Technology Labs certified Kaspersky at the AAA level, again the highest possible level.

Few security vendors reach such stratospheric levels with the independent labs. Bitdefender is one of the few that comes close.

See How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Hands-On Malware Blocking
Those independent labs can devote far more resources to testing than I can, but I still like to do some hands-on testing, exposing each antivirus product to a collection of various malware samples. Kaspersky and Bitdefender are the first products I've tested since converting all of my virtual machines to Windows 8.1 and swapping in a new collection of samples.

As soon as I opened the folder containing my samples, Kaspersky got to work, quickly wiping out 69 percent of them. I proceeded to launch those that survived this massacre, noting just how Kaspersky handled them. In all, it detected 83 percent of the samples. Its overall score of 7.9 points reflects the fact that a few of the samples managed to place executable files on the test system despite being detected by the antivirus.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) Malware Blocking Chart

Bitdefender did a little better than Kaspersky, with 86 percent detection and an overall score of 8.4. You can see that some products tested with my previous collection managed higher scores. However, there's a possibility that those tested most recently gained an advantage due to the increasing age of the older samples. And when the independent labs put a product at the top, I give less weight to my own hands-on tests.

View the original article here

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015

Pros Extremely high ratings from independent labs. Top score in our hands-on antiphishing test. Vulnerability scan. Rescue mode for persistent malware. Password management. Hardened browser for financial transactions. Tools to protect privacy and enhance system performance.

Cons Non-stellar performance in our malicious URL blocking test. Bottom Line Few products score better in independent lab tests than Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015, and it totally aced our own antiphishing test. On top of that, it offers significant tools to enhance your privacy and system performance. This feature-rich tool remains an antivirus Editors' Choice.

By Neil J. Rubenking

When you buy antivirus protection these days, you know that it's really antivirus plus protection against Trojans, rootkits, rogues, and all sorts of malware. Sometimes, though, you get even more. The "Plus" in Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 ($39.95 per year; $59.95 for three licenses) refers to an impressive collection of bonus features that many vendors would reserve for their full security suite.

The user interface for Bitdefender's antivirus is exactly the same as that of the full security suite, so you can see just what you'd get by upgrading. Suite-only features are simply grayed out and disabled. By default, Bitdefender runs in Autopilot mode, meaning it takes care of any security concerns without any user intervention. Just so you don't forget it's protecting you, it displays a weekly report listing all the good deeds it has done.

Excellent Lab Results
Almost all of the independent labs that I follow include Bitdefender in their testing. Bitdefender doesn't bother with the simple certifications offered by ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs, but it received VB100 certification in all 12 of the last 12 tests by Virus Bulletin. As for the remaining labs, those that perform hands-on, real-world testing, Bitdefender is right there in the mix.

Austrian lab AV-Comparatives puts antivirus technologies through a variety of tests including static tests, dynamic tests, and performance tests. Like Kaspersky, Bitdefender earned an Advanced+ rating (the highest rating) in all of these tests. AV-Test Institute gave it a near perfect score of 17.5 points in tests on protection, performance, and usability. Only Kaspersky has done better, with 18 of 18 possible points.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 Lab Tests Chart

London-based Dennis Technology Labs uses a testing system that replays malicious Internet traffic, making it possible to test multiple products with exactly the same malware interaction. The complexity of this system means they can't test as many products as other labs, but both Kaspersky and Bitdefender are included.

In the latest results from Dennis Labs, ESET, Norton, and Kaspersky rated AAA, the top rating. Bitdefender came very close, earning an AA rating.

See How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Malicious URL Blocking
Thanks to a real-time feed supplied by MRG-Effitas, I have access to a continually updated list of malicious URLs. I use these to check how each antivirus product handles extremely new threats. Does it block access to the URL, wipe out the downloaded malware, or just sit there doing nothing?

Bitdefender completely blocked access to 18 percent of the live malicious URLs I used for testing, but didn't wipe out any of the downloads that got through. It might well have caught those on launch, but that's not what this test measures. I've run two dozen products through this test so far, each with URLs no more than four hours old. The average protection rate is 33 percent, almost twice what Bitdefender managed. I'll be interested to see how Norton AntiVirus (2014) and Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (2014) do when it's their turn for this test.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 Malware Blocking Chart

Good Malware Blocking
I rely more and more on the independent labs for in-depth antivirus testing, but I always need to do my own hands-on testing, to get a feel for the product's protection. To start, I opened a folder containing my just-gathered new set of malware samples. Bitdefender quickly and quietly wiped out 83 percent of those samples.

Next I launched the remaining samples and noted the antivirus's reaction. It completely missed several, ending up with an overall detection rate of 86 percent and an overall score of 8.4 points. Kaspersky, the only other product tested with this exact same sample collection, earned 7.9 points.

You'll notice in the chart below that many products earned a better score than Bitdefender when tested with my previous collection of malware samples. Because that was a different collection, the results aren't apples-to-apples. And when my results don't entirely jibe with results from the big labs, I tend to believe the labs.

See How We Test Malware Blocking.

View the original article here

K7 AntiVirus Plus 14

Pros Quick installation. Vulnerability scan. USB scanning and vaccination. Virtual keyboard. Scans for malicious changes to critical system areas. Cleans temp files. Advanced device control.

Cons No malicious URL blocking. Poor malicious download blocking. So-so score in hands-on malware blocking test. Truly terrible results in hands-on false positive testing. Mediocre scores from independent labs. Bottom Line K7 AntiVirus Plus 14 has a spiffy brushed-steel look to its user interface, and a number of useful bonus features. However, it's not that great at basic antivirus tasks, and it really bombed our hands-on false-positives test.

By Neil J. Rubenking

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

View the original article here