Viruses are capable of various things, from stealing hard disk space to gaining access to your personal data or draining your CPU. There are many anti-virus programs on the market to protect your gadgets from these problems. The most important thing is to select one that is not likely to have an impact on the performance of your system. Every antivirus program we offer is tested against this aspect. The results are based on how long it takes each program to complete an operation. For instance, Kaspersky Security Cloud Free had an impact on the background of 6.6% when it was running a full scan, and ESET had a slightly higher impact of 12%.
Avira, a German-based company is a reputable brand in our tests. It consistently scores above 90 percent in the three categories of Protection (False positives), Performance (False Positives) and Usability. Its user interface offers a wide range of features as well as a smart “firewall” and a variety of privacy tools. Avira’s subscriptions are priced on a monthly basis rather than a predetermined 1-3 year period, which makes it simpler to cancel or change the subscription at any point without having to worry about second-year renewal price shocks.
Essentware, formerly known as PCKeeper, is a relatively new name for our tests. It uses the Avira Engine underneath the hood. Overall it scored quite well. The interface is easy to use and its performance was decent in the month of March, however a few stability issues – mainly with scan jobs locking up reduced the score. The detection was good and a perfect run of the certification sets was rewarded with VB100.
