Best antivirus software
You need more than just prayer and luck to stay safe.
Antivirus software is nearly as crucial as a PC’s operating system. Even if you’re well aware of potential threats and practice extreme caution, some threats just can’t be prevented without the extra help of an AV program – or a full antivirus suite.
You could, for example, visit a website that unintentionally displays malicious ads. Or accidentally click on a phishing email (it happens). Or get stung by a zero-day threat, where an undisclosed bug in Windows, your browser, or an installed program gives
hackers entry to your system. We’re not suggesting that PC security software is fool-proof. Antivirus software often can’t do much to stop zero-day exploits, for example. But it can detect when the undisclosed vulnerability is used to install other nasty bits, like ransomware, on your machine. Anyone who actively uses email, clicks on links, and downloads programs will benefit from an antivirus suite.
Our recommendations strike a balance between excellent protection, a good selection of features, and minimal impact on your PC’s performance.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN ANTIVIRUS SUITE
There are three basic requirements that an antivirus suite needs:
• High detection rate for malware and other threats
• Low impact on system resources
• An easy-to-use interface
That’s not all to consider, however. These days, many security suites come with extras such as a backup service for your most essential files, Android apps for mobile security, a more advanced firewall, family protection (read: child restriction) features, and the right to use the program on multiple PCs. Whether you need those extras depends on your personal situation.
HOW WE TEST
First, we take a look at the interface to determine how easy or complicated it is. Does the interface make it easy to get at essential tools like PC scans and password managers, for example, or is everything buried under multiple clicks? Are there elements that look like they should be clickable but aren’t? Are alerts interactive or purely informational, and does that make sense in context?
We also examine the features on offer. Every good antivirus suite should have the basics like scanning and realtime protection, but many vendors offer elements that go beyond basic security like password managers or firewalls. We try to discern whether any of these extra features are particularly useful, or just frills that look nice but don’t serve a practical purpose.
To test the suite’s demand on system resources, we run two benchmarks. The first is PCMark 8’s Work Conventional test, which simulates a variety of workloads including editing spreadsheets, browsing the web, and running video chat.
We run the benchmark before the security suite is installed. Then we install the software, have it run a full scan on
our Windows 10 test machine, and start a second run of the benchmark at the same time. Then we compare the overall scores to see if the decline between the two benchmarks is significant.
As a harsher stress test, we also use HandBrake to transcode a video before and after installing the A/V. On most home PCs, this encoding task utilizes 100 per cent of the CPU. We then compare transcoding times to see if there’s any significant decline.
Our test machine is an Acer Aspire E15 with an Intel Core i3-7100U, 4GB RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. Each security suite is tested on a clean install of Windows 10 Home.
As for the antivirus suite’s detection capabilities, we’ll rely on the opinions of security researchers dedicated to this task. We’ll take into consideration reports from outlets such as A-V Comparatives, A-V Test and SE Labs.
We’ll also take pricing into account and what you get for it.
Whenever possible we’ll review security suites using a free trial to get a sense of what consumers see when they first try out a new product.
BEST ANTIVIRUS SUITE 2021 Norton 360 Deluxe
Price: £34.99 from fave.co/373Qple NortonLifeLock, formerly Symantec, has changed up its security suite lineup. Norton Security Premium, the suite we’ve reviewed several times, is no more. Now it’s all about the Norton 360 brand that combines Norton’s protection with services from identify theft protection company LifeLock, which Symantec acquired in 2016.
By our reckoning, the best choice in terms of value and capabilities in the current line-up is Norton 360 Deluxe. There are two other suites above that with extra LifeLock features, but for most people 360 Deluxe hits the sweet spot at £34.99 for the first year for new users and £84.99 for returning users, covering five devices.
Norton 360 works with two primary apps. The first is My Norton, a launcher for the actual antivirus program known as Device Security. My Norton is home to other features that come with 360 Deluxe such as Dark Web Monitoring from LifeLock, a secure VPN, 50GB of cloud backup, a password manager, and a link to the Norton website for parental controls.
Device Security looks the same as Norton’s other antivirus apps have for years now. The app has five sections: Security, Internet Security, Backup, Performance, and My Norton. The latter is just a launcher for the My Norton app.
Security is where most of the action happens. Here you can initiate a scan with a wide number of options including a quick scan (the default), full system scan, a custom scan, and a custom task.
The custom scan can check for protection updates, remove temporary files in the system, run disk optimization, and erase Internet Explorer temporary files.
The Scans section can also run Norton Power Eraser for eliminating threats that regular scans can’t deal with, as well diagnostics, and Norton Insight – the program that determines which files should be scanned during a quick scan.
While most people will just need the quick scan and full system scan options, it’s great that all these tools are easily accessible by the user. Beyond scans, the Security section also houses the SafeCam settings for keeping rogue programs away from your webcam. There isn’t much to do with SafeCam, but if it’s ever giving you issues, this is where you can turn it off.
Internet Security features access to the password manager, password generator and Norton’s browser extensions. As we’ve noted before, Norton doesn’t bother you too much with notifications about its features;
however, it does love to notify you from time to time if you don’t have all of the Norton browser extensions installed.
The essential one is Norton Safe Web, which warns you about malicious sites, and puts a green check mark next to safe sites in your Google results and a red ‘x’ next to bad ones.
In our opinion, the other extensions are less important. Norton Home Page and Norton Safe Search are particularly unimpressive and essentially do the work that one extension could. Safe Search makes Norton Safe Search your default browser search engine, and Home Page redirects your browser’s new tab pages and the Home button to Norton Safe Search. In our experience, these two extensions just get in your way. There’s also a Norton Password Manager extension, which is essential if you use this program for storing all your passwords.
Backup is pretty straightforward. Setting it up allows you to keep copies of essential files in Norton’s Secure Cloud Storage.
If you don’t want your files in Norton’s cloud there’s also an option for saving it to local storage.
Norton Deluxe also includes some system optimization features including disk optimization, file clean-up, a startup manager, and a graph showing performance history. You can find a lot of these features in Windows itself or in free third-party programs, but if you’re getting Norton 360 anyway it’s nice that they’re there.
The Dark Web Monitoring runs off Norton’s website and lets you add key information such as a bank account or credit card number, phone number, address, insurance policies and up to five email accounts. If any of this data shows up in a hacked database being traded on the so-called Dark Web, NortonLifeLock will alert you to it.
It notably doesn’t track your social security number, which I assume is part of NortonLifeLock’s Fictitious Identity Monitoring available only in Norton 360 with Ultimate Plus.
We tried testing out Norton 360’s parental controls and they were pretty good once they started working. We added a child profile, and then followed the instructions to install the Norton Family App on the test PC to monitor the child user account for Windows 10.
Norton’s defaults will monitor the child’s account quite aggressively for younger children. Time is limited, all searches are logged and more; however, it took several hours before we could see the PC reflected in the child’s profile on the web interface. That’s just too long, because you need to be able to tweak the protection settings to your liking – especially the time limits. If your child is doing homework and gets suddenly locked out of their PC due to aggressive parental controls, well, that can get annoying. Parents can extend the child’s computer time manually by entering their Norton account password, but it would be preferable to have full control much sooner.
Performance
In AV-Test’s round of testing from May and June 2020, Norton scored 100 per cent on the 0-day malware attacks test, as well as the widespread and prevalent malware test.
Over at AV-Comparatives, Norton blocked 100 per cent of samples in the real-world protection test from May 2020 with 27 false positives. In the malware
protection test, it also scored a 100 per cent, with 25 false positives. All in all, the protection results are excellent.
For our in-house performance tests, we saw no significant changes in performance between the PC with and without Norton 360 Deluxe installed.
Verdict
Norton 360 is a very good suite with a good price. If you’re looking for excellent antivirus protection that won’t get in your way with a good amount of features then Norton 360 Deluxe is the suite to buy.
BEST BUDGET ANTIVIRUS SUITE AVG Internet Security
Price: £29.99 from fave.co/373Ufe8 AVG has a big advantage in the free antivirus space since it owns both Avast (acquired in 2016) and its home-grown product, AVG Free. The hope is that you’ll love the free stuff so much that you’ll eventually upgrade to one of its paid products.
In the case of AVG, most people opt for its Internet Security program. Priced just under £40 for 10 devices for the first year, it’s one step down from the company’s flagship product, AVG Ultimate. Internet Security lacks a number of Ultimate’s less crucial features. For example, you don’t get AVG’s PC tune-up package or free access to its add-on VPN. As far as tune-ups go, you can find free programs or use Windows 10’s built-in tools to deal with common issues such as dumping cached folders that take up space, or monitoring third-party software updates. The important security features, however, are all included in Internet Security, such as the antivirus, firewall, and phishing protection. AVG doesn’t include a password manager as part of its various security packages.
When you first open up AVG, it offers a similar aesthetic to its corporate counterpart, Avast. The app largely consists of a grey background with bright green used to highlight important information. You’ll first see a dashboard with a set of tiles that lets you know which AVG security sections are active and in good shape, as denoted by a green ‘Protected’ label.
The latest version of this dashboard is much better than the last time we looked. All five components in the main part of the screen are clickable now. These tiles include Computer, which covers automatic scanning of new files added to your PC, program behaviour analysis, ransomware protection, and a network inspector for showing various devices connected to your home network.
The Web & Email tile houses options for web protection and scanning for
desktop email programs. Hacker Attacks includes the firewall, enhanced password protection for the browser and a remote access shield. Privacy has webcam protection and a monitor for sensitive files. Payments has phishing protection called Fake Website Shield.
There’s also a Menu hamburger icon at the top right of the dashboard window, revealing options such as settings, subscription information, browser extensions and support. But, as described above, the primary dashboard tiles are where you get into the nitty-gritty of the application’s features.
AVG Internet Security also makes it very easy to scan your PC. There’s a Run
Smart Scan button below the primary dashboard tiles. AVG’s Smart Scan is the equivalent of the quick scan in other suites. Click on the three horizontal dots next to the button for other scan options, such as a deep scan, specific file or folder scan, boot-time scan, USB/DVD scan, and a performance scan.
The performance scan looks for what AVG calls “useless data and other issues that may affect the speed and security of your PC”. To resolve any issues this scan finds, however, you need to have AVG TuneUp installed, which requires an extra fee.
Performance
Like many of the mainstream security programs, AVG gets very high marks for antivirus and malware protection. AV-Test’s November and December 2020 tests gave AVG 100 per cent detection in its zero-day and malware tests. In AV-Comparatives’ real-world protection test for July through October 2020 AVG blocked 99.7 per cent of 758 test cases, with 10 false positives. When pitted against AV-Comparatives’ September 2020 malware protection test, AVG blocked 100 per cent of threats.
SE Labs gave AVG a AAA rating in its 2020 Q4 report, saying that AVG, Avast, Kaspersky, and McAfee all “produced extremely good results due to a combination of their ability to block malicious URLs, handle exploits, and correctly classify legitimate applications and websites”.
When we ran PCMark 10’s Extended test (a simulation of everyday tasks like word processing, web browsing and video chat, as well as tests that put a greater demand on the GPU and CPU), our initial score was 1,626. With AVG running in the background, that score dropped to 1,608.
Our HandBrake test showed a drop of nearly three minutes, which in a four hour transcoding operation isn’t that much. The large-file transfer test showed no noticeable drop, though the archiving and unarchiving operations were 30 seconds slower with AVG in the background.
Overall, AVG shouldn’t impact your performance; however, the small but noticeable drop in the PCMark 10 Extended test suggests you may see some impact during resource-intensive operations in less powerful machines.
Verdict
AVG has done a lot to improve its app in recent years, and its protection is
top notch. Internet Security also offers enough features to satisfy most users, it won’t drag down performance except perhaps in rare circumstances, and the price is right.
BEST FREE ANTIVIRUS SUITE Windows Security
Price: Free (bundled with Windows 10) For years, the attitude towards Windows 10’s built-in security was that it’s a nice idea, but you really shouldn’t rely on it. That stared changing in 2019, with the major testing houses giving Windows Security top marks.
Could it be true? Can you really ditch your annual antivirus subscription and rely on Microsoft’s native solution instead? Here’s our opinion.
Windows Security is a very basic utility. In a way, it doesn’t need to be fancy, since it’s part of Windows itself. If you need extras like backups or hard drive cleaning, you can find that in other parts of the operating system.
Windows Security is accessible via the Start menu or an icon in the system tray. It has seven sections: Virus & threat protection, Account protection, Firewall & network protection, App & browser control, Device security, Device performance & health, and Family options.
The first five sections will display a green check mark when everything is fine or a yellow alert symbol when it’s not. Unfortunately, these alerts aren’t always being honest. The Account protection section alerts you when you’re using a local account and not a Microsoft account. That means you’ll always have a yellow check mark on the Windows Security icon in the system tray unless you dismiss that particular alert, which few people do. That’s unfortunate, since more vital alerts could be ignored as the yellow alert status just blends into the background.
The Virus & threat protection is where Microsoft
has really filled out its antivirus chops, and its AV program is still known as Windows Defender. In earlier versions, built-in security for Windows just did its job in the background. The current version allows you to run four different kinds of scans, all of which are pretty standard for antivirus.
You can run a quick scan to search the most common places that viruses and malware are likely to hide. There’s a longer full scan section that checks all files and programs on your hard disk. You can also choose a custom scan to check specific files or folders. Finally, there’s the Windows Defender Offline scan that shuts down your computer and scans your device for particularly pernicious malware that other scans are unlikely to find.
For anyone who uses free, third-party antivirus, the new Windows Security offers pretty much all you need. Windows Security also has the added benefit of not harassing you with notifications to upgrade to a paid product every few days.
There’s a lot more functionality inside Virus & threat protection. Under the settings area for that section we
have a few on/off sliders for options such as real-time protection, clouddelivered protection, automatic sample submission, and tamper protection. All of these options are turned on by default, and all of them have clear explanations about what they do if you’re thinking about turning any of them off.
In addition, there’s an option for controlled folder access to keep malicious programs away from sensitive folders. If Windows Security misidentifies an app as unfriendly you can also white list it. This section is also where you can set up OneDrive for ransomware data recovery.
Going back to the settings for Virus & threat protection, you can set up specific folders so they won’t be scanned, and adjust your notification settings.
Again, that’s a lot of basic antivirus protection packed into this suite that is active by default on new Windows 10 PCs.
There’s not a whole lot of interesting stuff in the Account protection section. If you’re using a Microsoft account, this is where you can manage your sync settings, activate Windows Hello for sign-ins, and manage the Dynamic Lock feature that pairs a Bluetooth device to automatically lock the PC when you step away.
The Firewall section lets you manage the built-in firewall, and allow apps through the firewall if necessary. Then the App & browser control is where you manage Windows SmartScreen for apps and file downloads, browsing on Microsoft Edge, and the Microsoft Store.
This section exposes one downside of Windows Security: it doesn’t really do as much as other third-party suites can do for third-party browsers. If you stick with mainstream browsers they have their own built-in protections, and you can also add third-party blockers such
as uBlock Origin to keep out a good chunk of potential ad-based malware penetrations. These moves won’t catch everything, however, especially if you’re visiting the less reputable corners of the web. Norton, for example, is often more proactive about blocking malicious activity than the browsers are. That said, regardless of your browser, Windows Security should have no trouble blocking potentially malicious file downloads.
Moving on, Device security is a section that does its work in the background and anything you see here is mostly informational. Device performance & health, however, gives a quick glance at the current hardware status, including battery life, storage capacity, software, and the Windows Time service. This is also where you can carry out a ‘Fresh start’ to reinstall Windows.
Finally, the Family options area lets you manage your child’s activities. Microsoft allows you to manage Windows 10 devices, Xbox One consoles, as well as Android devices if they have the Microsoft Launcher installed. That’s a great set of options, and is on par with a lot of other services. You can set screen time limits, and restrict time for specific apps and games. There’s also an option to implement buying restrictions on the Microsoft Store.
Overall, Windows Security has a good set of options for security, from antivirus scans and ransomware all the way down to parental controls.
Performance
Judging Windows Security performance is a little tough since the utility is built right into Windows. Nevertheless, you can turn off a lot of the functionality to get a sense of its impact on PCs.
Running PCMark 10’s Extended Creative test saw a dip of just five points between Windows Security in active and dormant modes.
The large-file transfer test was a different story, with the test PC scoring a slightly slower speed by 23 seconds with Windows Security active. Again, not a huge drop, but lower-end PCs might see a difference when transferring large files. The other performance tests included the archive and unarchive test, with a difference of about 20 seconds. The bottom line is that most PCs won’t suffer much of a performance impact, if any, from Windows Security.
As for the testing houses, AV-Test gave Windows Defender (the AV portion of Windows Security) a 100 per cent score for both its 0-day and prevalent malware tests, using 368 samples and 13,000 samples, respectively. The testing period covered July and August 2019.
AV-Comparatives also gave
Windows Defender a high rating. In its real-world protection test for July and August, using 352 samples, Windows Defender blocked 100 per cent of the threats. That’s fantastic, but Windows Defender also had the highest false positives rate at 39.
AV-Comparatives’ malware protection test from September 2019 was a mixed bag. In that test of more than 10,000 samples, Windows Defender had a 29.7 per cent offline detection rate, which is terrible and the second lowest. The online detection rate was the absolute lowest at 76.3 per cent, whereas most security suites are hitting around 97 to 99 per cent. The online protection rate, however, was very high at 99.96 per cent. There were 13 false alarms, which is a mid-range result.
Finally, we looked at SE Labs, which gave Windows Defender a AAA rating. SE Labs put Microsoft in the second tier of AAA products along with ESET and McAfee, all of which missed one public threat, but stopped everything else including targeted attacks.
From these results we can gather that Windows Security is highly cloud dependent for malware detection, and probably isn’t up to the job if your PC spends a good amount of time disconnected from the internet. It also means there are still far better choices for protection despite Windows Defender’s top ranking.
Verdict
Windows Security has all the elements you need in a solid security suite, including antivirus scans, ransomware protection and parental controls. It doesn’t have a lot of the extras you’ll
see in other suites, but some of those things, such as automated backups, are built into other parts of Windows.
If you’re all about the added features of a top-tier security suite then Windows Security will not be a satisfying option. It doesn’t have encrypted cloud storage for sensitive documents, secure file erase, a password manager, or a VPN subscription. Granted, many of these features would likely land Microsoft in hot water with anti-trust authorities. For that reason we wouldn’t expect the tech giant to push much beyond the equivalent of third-party free antivirus suites, which is what we’re seeing now.
Windows Security offers good protection, but if you look at the testing comparisons to other suites, there are still better options. Nevertheless, Windows Security has come a long way and should continue to improve its basic protection and detection capabilities.