The best Home AV protection 2021

[Andy Ful]

The year 2021
Cumulative results of missing samples in the Consumer tests (home AVs).

Real-World tests include fresh web-originated samples.
Malware Protection tests include older samples (several days old) usually delivered via USB drives or network drives.

AVs marked as green (or blue) cannot be differentiated (statistical errors are greater than differences).
Avast and Microsoft were tested on the free versions.
User-dependent cases are counted as 0.5 and missed samples as 1.

REAL-WORLD (Triathlon = AV-Comparatives + AV-Test + SE Labs) 12 tests
Avast........... 1.5 + 5 + 2 = 8.5
Microsoft... *4.5 + 1 + 3 =*8.5
Norton......... 3.5 + 1 + 5 = 9.5
Kaspersky.... 5.0 + 0 + 5 = 10
McAfee........ 4.5 + 4 +10= 18.5
Avira........... 14.0 +13 +7= 34
Samples..1479+1858+400= 3737

* AV-Comparatives rejected the partial results in the test February-May 2021 due to incorrect Defender updates. So, the result of Microsoft Defender in the first half of the year was calculated as an average of other tests. In the years 2019-2020, Microsoft missed 10 samples (four tests) and in the second half of the year 2021, it missed 2 samples. The average per one test is equal (10 + 2)/(4+1) = 2.4 ~ 2.5

REAL-WORLD (Biathlon = AV-Comparatives + AV-Test) 8 tests
Bitdefender....... 3.0 + 0 = 3
Norton.............. 3.5 + 1 = 4.5
Kaspersky......... 5.0 + 0 = 5
Microsoft........ *4.5 + 1 =*5.5
Avast................ 1.5 + 5 = 6.5
TrendMicro...... 0.0 + 7 = 7
McAfee............ 4.5 + 4 = 8.5
Malwarebytes....6.0 + 7 = 13
Avira...............14.0 + 13= 27
Eset............... 17.0 + 10= 27
Samples...... 1 479 + 1 858= 3 337

Microsoft Defender was tested in Real-World tests with Windows Defender Browser Protection (Chrome extension).
Windows SmartScreen for Explorer was disabled in tests for all AVs.

Malware Protection (AV-Comparatives + AV-Test) 8 tests
McAfee................ 0 + 0 = 0
Norton................. 0 + 0 = 0
Bitdefender.......... 2 + 0 = 2
Avast..................... 4 + 9 = 13
Kaspersky.......... 14 + 8 = 22
Microsoft........... 18 + 9 = 27
Avira................... 4 + 35= 39
Eset.................. 28 + 11= 39
Malwarebytes... 22 + 84= 106
TrendMicro...... 224 + 0 = 224
Samples....... 20 042+104 017 = 124 059

Links to tests:
SE Labs
News Archive - AV-Comparatives (av-comparatives.org)
Home users (av-test.org)

The results from years 2019-2020:
https://malwaretips.com/threads/the-best-home-av-protection-2019-2020.106485/

 

[Andy Ful]

From the above results, one could conclude that Defender free is as good as Kaspersky (KIS). But this would be as true as saying, that a popular city bike is as good as a racer when biking in the city. Yet, the difference could be easily seen in the road bike race. In the AVs world, the road bike race would be a (small) business environment with targeted attacks.
The situation is much better for Defender free with enabled advanced settings. In this case, Defender free can compete with other AVs also in small businesses.