Antivirus 2010 software reviews

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. 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. You can read about how we test antivirus suites below. There is a lot to like here, including a good price, good performance, and useful extra features.

See links to all of our antivirus reviews at the bottom of this article. The pricing now covers fewer devices, but you get a good number of extra features such as Dark Web Monitoring and VPN access, making for an overall excellent value. If Windows 10 is already working, why add anything else? If its built-in security suite, Windows Security, performs on par with the best of the free AV options—as we discovered in our roundup of the best free antivirus —why add the extra baggage of a third-party program?

To learn more, see our video on How to use Windows Security , or read our full review. The company claims the software has been downloaded million times and counting. The suite is advertised to be easy to use and operates automatically in the background. Our testing will reveal how well-rounded this software actually is.

A trial version can be downloaded for free however the full version must be purchased to remove infections. The install, when it actually completes more on that in a second is simple and takes about five clicks and five minutes; the software updates itself during the install which can take quite a while depending on the download size ours was 68MB, which was odd considering the program download was half the size.

We did not like how the installer wanted to put the Google toolbar on our system; we have no qualms with the toolbar itself but when bundled with an unrelated program it is essentially a paid advertisement. The program installer actually froze the first time we attempted to install Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus. We were unable to pinpoint why that happened; while the odds are likely stacked against a failed install for most users it was discomforting nonetheless.

Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus has a clean and welcoming interface. This protection fully supports management over the Internet or virtual private network via the Sophos Remote Management System. Sophos also supports a variety of methods of providing centralized updates, which can be hosted for both internal and external clients through formats including HTTP, Universal Naming Convention, Server Message Block and Advanced Function Presentation.

These formats apply to home use installations, and updates are delivered through the standard Sophos Update Manager. However, because Sophos was not technically what we were looking for in terms of this review, it was not compared to the others here.

In a nutshell, everything about this program is terrific. And easy-to-access features, such as Real-Time Shields, which demonstrates the program monitoring your computer on an X-Y graph as you perform operations or surf the Web, add a peace-of-mind element to this antivirus tool. The use of a high-end graphical user interface and well-positioned 3-D graphics make Avast a much cleaner and easier-to-use solution than most of the other participants in this roundup, particularly AVG.

And new performance enhancements that look at virus detection from a unique angle make Avast a leader among its competitors in this roundup. And Avast remembers scanned files so it will not rescan old files unless it detects changes in their makeup or structure. Since the company maintains its own list of more than 50, safe applications, scanning time is further reduced. A multithreaded design enables the software to scan individual processes, not just files, and split between many threads using all available CPU processor cores in order to scan at a more efficient rate.

This program architecture increases the efficiency of scanning large files because now these large files are not solely assigned to a single core processor. This feature is particularly beneficial to telecommuters because viruses are typically spread within layers of old files, which is how they trick detectors.

The multithread design makes malware detection faster and more secure when switching files from a work to home PC environment. Avast has a new code emulator that acts as a virus buffer, taking suspicious executable code discovered during scanning and emulating it in an isolated environment.

This code emulator also uses dynamic translation for both generic unpacking and in the heuristics engine, making this process a lot faster than the basic engine emulator. With strong protection engines and features such as the wake-up for scan, which lets users schedule scans during PC sleeping or hibernation cycles, Avast establishes itself as one of the best antivirus solutions in the review.

Cons: Nothing significant. AVG offers some features that apply specifically to that work environment. Most notably, AVG gives you the choice of tailoring the solution to protect either a static home PC or a mobile work computer. The interface of the AVG console is still less easy to use and more outdated when compared to Avast, but it's still simple enough for you to find the basic features, such as running an update or scanning your PC. As a result, you might be left wondering whether you really got the virus removed.

Another negative to the program was its constant intrusions. It seemed as though every move I made caused the program to interrupt my execution to inform me of what I had initiated, such as opening a Web portal. The only drawback is that the toolbar comes with a Yahoo search engine portal, which I never use and which seems to clutter the window and take up a lot of space. AVG does gain a big advantage over many of its competitors by offering identity theft protection, essentially blocking any activity to your data that seems suspicious.

AVG offers a scanning optimization feature that searches the Windows and Program file folders, where it saves the information on the current structure of key operating files into a centralized file called checksum. Your key files are then only scanned when the software notices change in the checksum file. The time we saved was considerable, but you have to perform an initial full-system scan, which can take more than 30 minutes to complete.

The heart of the AVG program is the Resident Shield, which gives your computer continuous protection by scanning every single file that is being opened, saved or copied. Resident Shield also guards the system areas of the computer. If a virus launches on your hard drive, Resident Shield stops the operation currently being performed by a virus and does not allow the virus to activate.

Resident Shield also removes the threat. Cons: Interface getting a little dated, not enough antivirus feedback. Among the antivirus tools we tested, Norton has made by far the most changes from the previous version of its antivirus platform, most notably in the look and feel of the product.

Norton had the easiest install in the roundup. It was literally one click, and it only took about two minutes to get it up and running. One of the most common ways to get a virus is to jump to a site from a search engine as you navigate the Internet.

With Norton , an easy-to-see color coding of red or green makes it easy for you to avoid Web sites with potential malware waiting to install on your computer. Unlike antivirus software, Malwarebytes Free can't prevent a PC from being infected. But it does an excellent job of cleaning out malware that's already on your system, as well as removing legal adware and potentially unwanted programs that antivirus software often ignores.

Malwarebytes Free doesn't interfere with any antivirus software that's already installed, so it's perfectly safe to install it alongside one of our recommended brands. Just don't upgrade to the paid Malwarebytes Premium, true antivirus software that does poorly in lab tests and which will conflict with other AV programs.

We recommend Malwarebytes Free as a complement to any of the best antivirus programs, free or paid. Read our full Malwarebytes Free review. Before you buy antivirus protection, figure out what you need. If you have young children at home, then consider midrange antivirus products, most of which include parental controls. Do you want an all-encompassing security solution?

Or are you a techie who understands and the risks of using the internet? Then a low-priced basic program might be all you need. MORE: How to buy antivirus software. Once you've got your priorities figured out, then determine how many machines you'll need to protect.

Most vendors offer single-device licenses for Windows PCs. But multi-device, multi-platform licenses for five, 10 or more computers and mobile devices are available in midrange and premium antivirus packages, covering Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and sometimes even Linux. Some vendors offer plans that cover an unlimited number of devices. Gone are the days when you could walk into a store and pay a one-time fee for an antivirus product that came in a box off a shelf.

All the vendors now sell their software licenses as yearly or multiyear subscriptions. The upside is that you'll always get the latest software, which you can download and install straight from the internet. Many antivirus products are sold online for much less than their list prices. But each brand offers basic, midrange and premium configurations of features and pricing, with every step up adding more features.

Think of autos at a dealership. You can get a base-model car that will get you from place to place just fine. For a few grand more, you can buy a car with satellite radio, but no heated side-view mirrors, alloy wheels or in-car Wi-Fi hotspot. Or you can spend a lot more to get a loaded car with all the fixin's.

Antivirus makers also hope you'll spring for extra options, whether you need them or not. The one thing you can't trade up to is a bigger engine: All the Windows antivirus products in a given brand's lineup will use the same malware-detection engine and provide the same level of essential protection.

The software will have essential malware protection and maybe a password manager or a two-way firewall. They generally add parental controls, some of which are very good, plus a few other features such as webcam protection.

They often include multi-device licenses and antivirus software for Mac and Android devices. At the top are the premium "security suites," which toss in all the extra security tools an antivirus brand can offer, such as password managers, VPN client software, backup software, online storage and even identity-protection services.

The password managers are often quite good, but the online storage can be paltry and the VPN services often don't give you unlimited data. We've collected the best premium antivirus packages on this list of the best internet security suites. Our evaluations are based on each antivirus program's interface, performance, protection and extra features. Was the interface intuitive and user-friendly? How badly did malware scans slow performance?

How well did the program detect and remove malware? Does the program offer useful additional tools? Some of our newer performance tests were done on a Lenovo ThinkPad T with a 2. To assess a program's impact on system speed on both Windows and macOS, we used our own custom tests, which measure how long a CPU takes to match 20, names and addresses on an OpenOffice or Excel spreadsheet. The longer it took the laptop to finish either test, the heavier the performance impact.

Each lab subjects the major antivirus brands' products to stress tests involving thousands of pieces of malware, including hundreds of previously unseen samples. Kaspersky antivirus products have been banned from U.

Because the company is Russian and antivirus software can peer deep into a PC, using Kaspersky software would create an unacceptable risk for persons and organizations involved in national security and critical infrastructure. However, we still think Kaspersky software is perfectly safe for home users. We've seen no evidence to convince us otherwise. Kaspersky researchers are well respected throughout the antivirus industry, and the company has publicly exposed Russian cyberespionage campaigns as well as those from the United States and other countries around the world.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews. If you use a Windows PC, you'll need to have one of the best antivirus programs installed, whether free or paid. View Deal. Bitdefender offers the best value in antivirus software.

Norton packs in everything but the kitchen sink. Kaspersky Total Security. Specifications Anti-theft: Yes. Backup software: Yes. Firewall: Yes. Game mode: Yes. Hardened browser: Yes. Parental controls: Yes. Password manager: Yes. Ransomware rollback: Yes. Webcam protection: Yes. Virtual keyboard: Yes. VPN: Limited upsell. Wi-Fi scanner: Yes.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus.