New Antivirus Rankings…Kaspersky Still on Top

One of the most popular articles on CyberNet is in regards to the best antivirus software. More than 160,000 people have read that article, and so I thought it is a good time to write a follow-up on it.

The latest test from virus.gr includes 52 different antivirus applications. They were rigorously tested using 174,770 virus samples, and the settings of each application were tweaked to ensure that they all caught maximum number of viruses (despite increasing the possibility that the the software would be more likely to return a false positive).

So let’s take a look at the condensed list that I put together. On it I list the top 20 antivirus applications followed by some of the other well-known solutions. If you look closely you might also notice that the top 5 options on the list are all powered by Kaspersky!

Note: I have hyperlinked all of the antivirus solutions to their respective websites. None of the links contain a referral code.

1. Kaspersky version 7.0.0.43 beta - 99.23%
2. Kaspersky version 6.0.2.614 - 99.13%
3. Active Virus Shield by AOL version 6.0.0.308 - 99.13%
4. ZoneAlarm with KAV Antivirus version 7.0.337.000 - 99.13%
5. F-Secure 2007 version 7.01.128 - 98.56%
6. BitDefender Professional version 10 - 97.70%
7. BullGuard version 7.0.0.23 - 96.59%
8. Ashampoo version 1.30 - 95.80%
9. eScan version 8.0.671.1 - 94.43%
10. Nod32 version 2.70.32 - 94.00%
11. CyberScrub version 1.0 - 93.27%
12. Avast Professional version 4.7.986 - 92.82%
13. AVG Anti-Malware version 7.5.465 - 92.14%
14. F-Prot version 6.0.6.4 - 91.35%
15. McAfee Enterprise version 8.5.0i+AntiSpyware module - 90.65%
16. Panda 2007 version 2.01.00 - 90.06%
17. Norman version 5.90.37 - 88.47%
18. ArcaVir 2007 - 88.24%
19. McAfee version 11.0.213 - 86.13%
20. Norton Professional 2007 - 86.08%
…
23. PC-Cillin 2007 version 15.00.1450 - 84.96%
…
27. Sophos Sweep version 6.5.1 - 69.79%
…
33. Comodo version 2.0.12.47 beta - 53.94%
34. Comodo version 1.1.0.3 - 53.39%
35. A-Squared Anti-Malware version 2.1 - 52.69%
…
38. ClamWin version 0.90.1 - 47.95%
…
52. Abacre version 1.4 - 0.00%

There aren’t many free antivirus solutions that made the list, or were even tested for that matter. Active Virus Shield, at number 3, is not only one of the highest-ranked antivirus solutions on the list, but it is also completely free. Both AVG and Avast have a free version that they offer, but their paid solutions were tested instead.

So if you’re just looking for an antivirus application that gets the job done well, Active Virus Shield is probably the route you want to go. Of course the software is provided by AOL which is probably what holds most people back from immediately downloading it, but in my opinion it is a great application. After all, the software itself is created by Kaspersky and the only thing AOL did was put their logo on it. For right now I’m using Avast, but when Active Virus Shield becomes compatible with Vista I’ll probably be switching over.