- Apr 25, 2013
- 5,355
An antivirus testing researchers' work is never done. As soon as the research team finishes and report on one series of tests, it's time to start another. Once a year, though, the team at AV-Comparatives takes a moment to sit back, review the previous year's results, and name a Product of the Year. They also flag other products for overall outstanding achievement, specifically for excellent results in specific test areas. 2014's product of the year is Bitdefender Internet Security 2015.
That's not to say Bitdefender totally outperformed all of the other products tested by AV-Comparatives. In fact, there was a tie for the top spot, asKaspersky Internet Security (2015) scored just as well as Bitdefender. In a case like that, the honor goes to whichever product had not won before, or, as in this case, the product that hadn't won as recently. With Kaspersky, AVG, Avira, Emsisoft, F-secure, and Fortinet also made the cut-off for top rated products.
Individual Honors
The overall Product of the Year rating takes six different test types into consideration. Naturally the top rated products had to do well in all six, earning Advanced+ (the top rating) in most or all of them. The report also honors products that rated especially well in individual tests, assigning gold, silver, and bronze medals. Bitdefender and Kaspersky earned medals in almost every case, but other products got their own chance to shine.
Perhaps the most complex of tests performed by AV-Comparatives is the one referred to as "Whole-Product Dynamic Real-World Protection." This test attempts to replicate the user's experience, exposing products to malware in simulated real-world situations. With Bitdefender holding the gold, Kaspersky and Avira took the silver medal in this test, and Qihoo the bronze.
Of course it's important for antivirus tools to detect brand-new threats, but they should also have no trouble with widespread and well-known malware. In the straightforward File Detection test, Kaspersky grabbed the gold, F-Secure earned a silver medal, while Avira, Bitdefender, and eScan took bronze. The Proactive Protection test is similar, but requires products to use old antivirus definitions, simulating detection of zero-day malware. Gold and silver went to the top two, and ESET managed bronze.
If antivirus protection puts a drag on system performance, annoyed users may turn it off, so a low impact on system performance is essential. Kaspersky and Bitdefender shared the gold, Avira earned a silver medal for low performance impact, and ESET took the bronze. In addition, merely detecting a malware infestation isn't enough; the antivirus must thoroughly clean up the mess. AVG shared the gold with Bitdefender in the Malware Removal test, eScan shared silver with Kaspersky, and Panda got a bronze medal.
That leaves the one test in which Kaspersky and Bitdefender didn't take medals. Both still earned Advanced+ for a low rate of False Positives (erroneously identifying valid programs as malicious), but ESET, Panda, Sophos, and Fortinet all managed an even lower false positive rate.
More Data Available
If you're interested in knowing which security products do the best job, you'll definitely want to read the full report online. In addition to more information about the awards, this report includes an impressively detailed rundown on the features of each product.
The report also reveals which vendors were (and weren't) included in testing. Symantec, in particular, doesn't participate, so you won't see figures for Symantec Norton Security. Any single lab can't test every product, which is why I correlate many labs' results when reviewing security tools.
And once again, congratulations to Bitdefender, AV-Comparatives's 2014 Product of the Year.
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