Comparatives The The

[Heberto Calderon]

Atthe end of every year, AV-Comparatives releases a Summary Report to comment on the various consumer anti-virus products tested over the course of the year, and to highlight the high-scoring products of the different tests that took place over the twelve months. Please bear in mind that this report considers all the Consumer Main-Test Series of 2023, i.e. not just the latest ones. Comments and conclusions are based on the results shown in the various comparative test reports, as well as from observations made during the tests ( -comparatives.org/consumer/test-methods/).

In 2023, AV-Comparatives subjected 16 consumer security products for Windows to rigorous investigation. All the programs were tested for their ability to protect against real-world Internet threats, identify thousands of recent malicious programs, defend against advanced targeted attacks, and provide protection without slowing down the PC.

F-Secure was successful this year, reaching Advanced level in five out of six tests. It excelled in terms of very rapidly deleting malware samples on USB drives and network shares, thus preventing any chance of them being copied to the system. Testers also noted an easy-to-navigate interface, along with helpful explanations of features.

K7 gets the Gold Award for the Performance Test this year, and also took two Advanced+ and two Advanced Awards in the 2023 tests. Its highly sensitive on-access protection detects malware on external drives or network shares as soon as they are opened. Reviewers noted optimal access control, and a simple, easy-to-use interface.

TotalAV takes the Silver Award for Low False Positives, and a Bronze Award for the Malware Protection Test, this year. It also got three Advanced+ and two Advanced Awards in the 2023 tests. It very rapidly deletes malware samples on USB drives, thus preventing any chance of them being copied to the system. Malware alerts are informative, and let you manage multiple detections from a single dialog box.

As in previous years, in 2023 we are giving our Product of the Year Award to the product with the highest overall scores across all the tests in the Public Consumer Main-Test Series. This depends on the number of Advanced+ awards received in all the tests. As the overall scores are considered, a product can receive the Product of the Year award without necessarily reaching the highest score in any individual test. A product cannot win the Product of the Year Award in two consecutive years if in the second year there is another product (or other products) with the same highest award levels.

The vast majority of products from the 16 vendors tested have earned the prestigious AV-Comparatives 2023 Approved Windows Security Products certification, underscoring their commitment to excellence in security solutions. These are listed below:

Security products include various different features to protect systems against malware. Such protection features are taken into account in the Real-World Protection Test, which tests products under realistic Internet usage conditions. Products must provide a high level of protection without producing too many false alarms, and without requiring the user to make a decision as to whether something is harmful or not.

False positives can cause as much trouble as a real infection. Due to this, it is important that anti-virus products undergo stringent quality assurance testing before release to the public, in order to avoid false positives. AV-Comparatives carry out extensive false-alarm testing as part of the Malware Protection Tests. Additionally, also false alarms from the Real-World Protection Test are counted for this category.

Security products must remain turned on under all circumstances, while users are performing their usual computing tasks. Some products may have a higher impact than others on system performance while performing some tasks.

Before agreeing to purchase a product with auto-renewal, we suggest that you find out what the renewal price will be when your subscription expires. In some cases, this may be very much higher than the initial purchase price. However, it might also be cheaper. It is also possible that if you opt out of auto-renewal at the time of purchase, the price shown in the basket will increase. Although also our Security Survey indicates that most users are not happy with mandatory auto-renewal, more and more vendors are nowadays imposing mandatory auto-renewals.

In the table below we have listed the (rounded) current discount price, full list price and auto-renewal prices (where applicable), including sales tax, for the paid products in the 2023 Main-Test Series.

It is possible that some vendors may offer additional discounts at specific times or under specific circumstances.

Key: Ratio of rounded autorenewal price to rounded discounted first-year price is (green) no more than twice; (yellow) more than twice but no more than three times; (red) more than three times.

The landscape of accessing antivirus trial versions has significantly transformed, departing from its former simplicity of anonymous usage for a set duration. Previously, users could freely download trial versions without the need to disclose payment details or personal information. However, today (as of December 1st, 2023), accessing these trials frequently involves sharing sensitive payment information, such as credit card data, potentially leading to automatic charges once the trial concludes. We searched for trials on the main product pages of the international/global and various localized websites. Furthermore, vendors commonly request personal details like email addresses and phone numbers, which might expose users to subsequent promotional emails or unwanted solicitations aimed at pushing product purchases. This evolution in trial procedures not only complicates the initial user experience but also raises concerns about privacy and unwarranted marketing intrusions.

Requires Payment Information: This may include details such as credit/debit card information or PayPal account. Users may face automatic charges after the trial period if the otherwise-applicable subscription is not cancelled.

Requires Account Registration: This may involve providing or creating an account with personal details like name, email, password, mobile phone number, and country. Users might receive promotional emails or calls to encourage product adoption. For trial purposes, users could try to use pseudonyms and disposable/fake email addresses to maintain privacy.

In the case of TotalAV, there is no real trial offered; users must buy the product but can cancel within 30 days. It is important to mention that all vendors in the list above offer a 30- or 60-day money-back guarantee.

Many vendors have different websites for different countries. In some cases, you may have to contact the support service in the country whose website you purchased the product from. Help and support options available for a product may vary from country to country. You should also consider that for telephone support, you may have to call a number in another country, which could mean higher telephone charges. Also, you might not get support in your native language, and you might have to call at an inconvenient time for you, if the vendor only provides support e.g. during their own office hours.

The aim of the user-experience review is to give readers an idea of what each tested product is like to use in everyday situations. For each of the tested products, we have looked at the following points (where applicable).

We check what sort of alert each program shows when malware is encountered. To do this, we try to copy some malware samples from a network share to the Windows Desktop of our test PC. If the AV product does not detect the copied malware, we then execute one of the samples (by this stage at the latest, all the tested programs will detect the malware samples used).

At whichever point the malware is detected, we look to see what sort of alert is shown, if the user has to take any action, and how long the alert is shown for. If the message box provides a link to more details, we click on this to see what information is provided. We also note whether multiple alerts are shown when multiple malicious files are detected at the same time.

We suggest that persistent alerts, which are displayed until the user closes them, are ideal, as they ensure the user has time to read them. If a separate alert box is shown for every malicious file discovered, it can be a nuisance to have to close them all when multiple detections are made at once. We would say that a single alert box that lets you browse through detections, but can be closed with a single click, is optimal.

In this section, we take a quick look at whatever help features can be directly accessed from the program itself. Some vendors will have additional online resources, such as manuals and FAQ pages, that can be found by visiting their respective websites.

All the tests in the 2023 Consumer Main-Test Series were performed using Windows 10. We also used Windows 10 for the review functionality checks described in this section. However, all of the tested/reviewed products are fully compatible/supported with Windows 11.

The interface of Avast Free Antivirus is clean, touch-friendly, and easy to navigate. We liked the informative malware detection alerts, which let you manage multiple detections from a single alert box, and persist until closed by the user. The setup wizard provides the choice of a simple, one-click installation, or a fully customisable installation, making it ideal for both non-experts and power users. There is a good range of scan options, and on-access protection means that files are scanned for malware if you try to copy them to your PC.

The setup wizard offers to install the Avast Secure Browser, and make this the default browser, but you can easily opt out of this by removing the relevant ticks (checkmarks). We chose not to install the Avast browser for our functionality test. The setup wizard also lets you select the interface language, after which you can simply click Install. Power users can opt to customize the installation. With this option, you can select individual components to be installed. We used the default configuration. After completing setup, we were shown an option to upgrade to the paid version, and then prompted to run a first scan.

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