- The security software products were generally effective at handling general threats from cyber criminals...
Most products were largely capable of handling public web-based threats such as those used by criminals to attack Windows PCs, tricking users into running malicious files or running scripts that download and run malicious files.
- .. and targeted attacks were prevented in many cases.
Many products were also competent at blocking more targeted, exploit-based attacks. However, while some did very well in this part of the test, others were very much weaker. Products from K7 and G-Data were notably weaker than the competition.
- False positives were not an issue for most products
Most of the products were good at correctly classifying legitimate applications and websites. The vast majority allowed all of the legitimate websites and applications. eScan’s was the least accurate in this part of the test.
- Which products were the most effective?
Products from McAfee, Symantec (Norton), ESET, F-Secure and Microsoft achieved extremely good results due to a combination of their ability to block malicious URLs, handle exploits and correctly classify legitimate applications and websites.
[Note: "The web browser used in this test was Google Chrome. When testing Microsoft products Chrome was equipped with the Windows Defender Browser Protection browser extension (Windows Defender Browser Protection)."]
