in AV comparisons, the score differences are minimal, therefore the best AV is the one that best suits your computer and gives you more confidence.ESET let me down
I have never seen that high amount from Kaspersky ,nor Avast .I also see the percentage used. On my present Desktop I see 10-12 % being used doing almost nothing with MD, my older desktop well just impossible to open files and folders quickly.My older desktop is just sluggish with MD on, just my experience.
If not the best, Bitdefender has been amongst the top recommendations for years. At least since 2015 it has consistently maintained very high scores on many tests and reviews. The Best is subjective and not universal though.This is what ChatGPT says about Bitdefender:
Yes, you are right that Bitdefender is often ranked as the best security program on the market in many independent tests. It's important to point out that security software is a dynamic field, and rankings can change over time. Nevertheless, in today's market, there are many experts who believe that Bitdefender is the best option for protecting Windows computers from security threats.
If you had to choose the program you think deserved to be at the top right now, which would you choose?
I would divide the best in few groups.
I think that the only free AV that can do such a thing is highly tweaked Comodo.
Many of the all-rounders can also be combined with some system hardening from other tools like Hard_Configurator. Comodo… that is a special case where updates and quality control don’t seem to be a first priority. Maybe the Xcitium OpenEDR which is free can be better choice.
I currently would not put kaspersky in the first place and for several reasons. First, I think that everyone knows that kaspersky is being banned in some places, so I don't know if that can affect the quality of their product. Second, I have seen many tests where Kaspersky does not win the tests. I feel like Norton (Avast/Avg), they are coming very strong since they came together. Avast is another product, not the same as Avast from a year ago.
I am not here to comment potential political scandals, speculations and anything based purely on assumptions with very little information. I am not a fan of assumptions. Purely technically speaking, tweaked Kaspersky paid (even though on tests may not be winning although I am not sure which tests you are referring to), in real life will win, as it will suspend many attack chains. This will provide higher security than other products which may be even better at identifying malware, but don’t close “the point of entry” the way tweaked Kaspersky will.
You said that tweaked Kaspersky paid in real life will win as it will suspend many attack chains. But if we're talking about Kaspersky paid, right out of the box, how do you think Kaspersky would have done it. In case you changed the order to apply program right out of the box and paid, would you rank the programs the same way?
No, it will fall into the group of generic pleasers as well and due to performance impact will be ranked after Norton and Avast, possibly on par with Bitdefender. I will need to revisit Vipre to check their performance impact now.
have you tried Xcitium OpenEDR? I looked at it once but have not installed it.
I tried the online console and did the whole configuration (nothing different from Comodo), and also registered for Valkyrie Free (requires a seperate £0.00 purchase). I did not install the client though.
Is it possible to tweak Norton like Kaspersky and make it even more secure?
It is possible to block LOtLBins from connecting to network via firewall + activating more aggressive setting that asks for permission when unknown apps try to connect. That leaves very little room for malware to exfiltrate data. It doesn’t fully stop ransomware, but Norton has backup capabilities built-in (with generous cloud storage readily available). Users can utilise that and ransomware won’t be that much of a problem.
