Virus Scanning

In the latest AV Comparatives benchmarks (which are carried out by an independent company), Bitdefender blocked 1,618 out of 1,619 test cases successfully, with a protection rate of 99.9 percent. AVG didn’t catch quite as many, with 1,612, and 99.6 percent. Windows Defender caught 1,570 test cases, for a protection rate of 97 percent. That’s still high, but not quite as good as the other two AV products on test.

AV Comparatives also tested the programs for false flags—these are safe files or websites that are incorrectly identified as harmful, and blocked by AV programs. Both AVG and Bitdefender passed the tests with no wrongly blocked files or websites, but Windows Defender incorrectly blocked 23 cases. While it’s a close call between AVG and Bitdefender (with Bitdefender just edging a win), Windows Defender’s performance was rather disappointing.

Winner: Bitdefender