Best Free Antivirus: Windows Defender versus the rest
The world of antivirus is an
interesting one, with the dozen-or-so big antivirus firms all fighting
for users' wallets with an increasing focus on extra tools and features
beyond basic malware protection. The truth is that you probably won't
need all of these extras and, if you browse with some common sense, can
make do with baseline protection for when you slip up.
That's where free software comes in. You get very few extras and some very basic protection, but for many people it'll be more than enough.
In this group test, we've taken a look at some of the more popular free antivirus brands and pitted them against Microsoft's Windows Defender, which can be installed on pre-Windows 8.1 PCs. Of course, with Windows 10 now out on the market with a form of Windows Defender sitting in the background of everything you do, you may think you don't need another piece of protection. Our reviews of Windows Defender might change your views. We'll pit it up against AVG, Avast, Avira and BitDefender and see how it does.
Usability & Features – Each review looks at the features offered by the free antivirus package and how easy they are to use. This includes making sure they cover the fundamentals we think are essential for good protection, such as combined virus and malware protection, and on-access scanning of files.
Performance – We conduct our own performance tests by timing a scan of a known 50GB basket of files and dividing the time by the number of files scanned.
We then run the test a second time to check how well the software has ‘fingerprinted’ the files it’s already scanned, so that it doesn’t have to rescan them if they haven’t changed.
We also time a 1GB file copy, with and without a whole system scan running in the background. This gives a measure of the load the AV software puts on the PC, as a percentage increase.
The performance data in each review was conducted in 2015, aside from BitDefender, which was performed in 2016. We will be updating our performance data for the remaining reviews in due course.
AV-Test – Of course, effective protection is the most important part. For this we rely on test results from AV-Test (www.av-test.org), the well-respected German antivirus testing organisation. It regularly evaluates groups of all the major players in the marketplace.
The company evaluates the packages under three separate headings: Protection, Performance and Usability. Protection looks at the effectiveness of the software against both established threats and zero day attacks, where it has to rely on heuristics and behavioural analysis.
Performance checks out the hit AV packages can have on the regular running of a PC. It goes further than our tests, in looking at its effect on other tasks, such as visiting websites, downloading, installing and running software.
Finally, Usability looks at the software’s ability to avoid false warnings or blocks of legitimate software while installing or running it. It uses a set of over 525,000 samples to evaluate this performance.
From these three categories, each scored out of 6.0, AV-Test gives every package an overall score out of 18.0. Software that scores over 12.0 is certified with the AV-Test Award, showing that it has achieved a good level of overall performance.
The AV-Test data in this set of reviews is from their latest February 2016 report.
That's where free software comes in. You get very few extras and some very basic protection, but for many people it'll be more than enough.
In this group test, we've taken a look at some of the more popular free antivirus brands and pitted them against Microsoft's Windows Defender, which can be installed on pre-Windows 8.1 PCs. Of course, with Windows 10 now out on the market with a form of Windows Defender sitting in the background of everything you do, you may think you don't need another piece of protection. Our reviews of Windows Defender might change your views. We'll pit it up against AVG, Avast, Avira and BitDefender and see how it does.
How we test free antivirus
We combine our own performance and ease of use testing and independent testing performed by industry recognised security organisations to get the best picture possible. We've updated our reviews with the latest data from AV Test for this round, and have also added BitDefender to our list.Usability & Features – Each review looks at the features offered by the free antivirus package and how easy they are to use. This includes making sure they cover the fundamentals we think are essential for good protection, such as combined virus and malware protection, and on-access scanning of files.
Performance – We conduct our own performance tests by timing a scan of a known 50GB basket of files and dividing the time by the number of files scanned.
We then run the test a second time to check how well the software has ‘fingerprinted’ the files it’s already scanned, so that it doesn’t have to rescan them if they haven’t changed.
We also time a 1GB file copy, with and without a whole system scan running in the background. This gives a measure of the load the AV software puts on the PC, as a percentage increase.
The performance data in each review was conducted in 2015, aside from BitDefender, which was performed in 2016. We will be updating our performance data for the remaining reviews in due course.
AV-Test – Of course, effective protection is the most important part. For this we rely on test results from AV-Test (www.av-test.org), the well-respected German antivirus testing organisation. It regularly evaluates groups of all the major players in the marketplace.
The company evaluates the packages under three separate headings: Protection, Performance and Usability. Protection looks at the effectiveness of the software against both established threats and zero day attacks, where it has to rely on heuristics and behavioural analysis.
Performance checks out the hit AV packages can have on the regular running of a PC. It goes further than our tests, in looking at its effect on other tasks, such as visiting websites, downloading, installing and running software.
Finally, Usability looks at the software’s ability to avoid false warnings or blocks of legitimate software while installing or running it. It uses a set of over 525,000 samples to evaluate this performance.
From these three categories, each scored out of 6.0, AV-Test gives every package an overall score out of 18.0. Software that scores over 12.0 is certified with the AV-Test Award, showing that it has achieved a good level of overall performance.
The AV-Test data in this set of reviews is from their latest February 2016 report.
Best Free Antivirus: Windows Defender versus the rest
Reviewed by android tech
on
12:05
Rating:
Reviewed by android tech
on
12:05
Rating:
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