Recently I found myself in need of a good antivirus product and as it’s been a while since my last incursion in the world of antivirus software, I decided to give a chance to the reports at www.av-comparatives.org. For those unfamiliar, this website provides periodical testing and reviews of antivirus products and I must say that after reviewing their methodology, I believe it to be the most comprehensive at the moment.

Of course, finding and comparing all the attributes one is looking for in an ativirus is something else. Thus, I had to dig deep in order to get a good look around but after doing so I was left with quite a few surprise results:

Norman AV: the mighty grandson of the famous Thunderbyte Antivirus is less than mediocre. It’s slow and although it has a fair detection rate, I can’t imagine the home user that would like to hog down his machine using this … thing

Symantec Antivirus: although I have a personal resentment versus this product, which used to be slow and give a lot of false-positives, I must say that things have improved here. However, I still won’t be using it.

ESET NOD32: this has always been a favorite of mine. However, I find that the price is a bit expensive and although the last time I tried it, it looked like a good and snappy piece of software, the latest tests show it to be just of average speed (although with a very very impressive detection rate)

Kaspersky AV: brilliant detection rates, however it’s quite heavy on resources. It has very good heuristics and healing capabilities and as a bonus it is backed by one of the best antivirus labs in the world. Still, it comes second to my preferences.

BitDefender: It would be great if it wasn’t one of the slowest antivirus software. Lot of options, great detection rates … but still. Often hanged my computer, so … no!

Avira!: A nice surprise comes from here, with the best overal detection rates (the best in on-demand scanning and third best in proactive protection). Very snappy and cheap on resources … with a very good price. My choice for now.

Microsoft Security Essentials: Microsoft has an incredibly poor security record as a company, a record that it’s Defender software packed with Windows didn’t do much to help. However, it seems that the acquisition of GeCad’s antivirus division has finally payed off as Microsoft Security Essentials is a little gem of an antivirus. Quite snappy and very good detection rates (best in proactive defense, not so good in on-demand).

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