Kaspersky Total Security

Top ranking anti-malware.

For several years now, Kasperky has been in perennial second place in our rankings. This year, we’re prepared to put it on par with BitDefender: it’s not as smooth overall, and doesn’t have the quality of extra features, but its unrivalled anti-malware performance makes up for it.

In the benchmarks, it had perfect detection and removal rates, yet still had only a modest impact on system performance. For a suite to be both the best and nearly the lightest is a major feat. There are privacy and web protections; a firewall and anti-spam; a secure browser for banking and shopping; a solid password manager with syncing across multiple devices; file encryption and backup; system optimisation; and a much improved parental control system that includes managed protection and monitoring across both PC and mobile platforms.

There’s a new application version checker, which will silently update important apps like Flash and Java; and an installation checker and software cleaner function, helping defend your system against crapware. Perhaps most significant, however, is ‘Secure Connection’, a VPN service that the suite will start up when it detects that you’re connected to an insecure Wi-Fi network.

Given all the features, Kaspersky can be a little overwhelming to manage, and in spite of an updated interface is less userfriendly than BitDefender.

However, we’ve found it doesn’t have many management requirements, essentially running primarily on autopilot — which is pretty much how we want our suites to run.

Verdict

All the components are excellent. A fantastic suite.