AV-TEST has tested a total of 25 security products for Windows 7

Mar 24, 2014 14:22 GMT  ·  By

AV-TEST has performed a new series of tests to determine the best anti-virus product for Windows 7, this time involving a total of 25 security products, all of them compatible with the world’s number one operating system.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s Security Essentials, available with a freeware license on Windows 7, has served as the baseline product for the new round of tests, receiving 0 out of 6 points for protection, 4 out of 6 for performance, and 6 points for usability.

All but one product received certification, as AhnLab: V3 Internet Security 8.0 performed poorly during the test and received a low score, which indicates that protection offered to users is minimal.

As far as protection goes, security products from Trend Micro, G Data, McAfee, MicroWorld, F-Secure, Kaspersky, Qihoo, Bitdefender, and Avira received the maximum number of points.

No product achieved the maximum score in the performance tests, but Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2014, Tencent PC Manager 8.5, McAfee Internet Security 2014, Kaspersky Internet Security 2014, Qihoo 360 Internet Security 4.2, and Bitdefender Internet Security 2014 got the highest marks.

In terms of usability, almost every single anti-virus product involved in the test performed remarkably, with the exception of Comodo Internet Security Premium 6.3 and Norman Security Suite Pro 10.1 which were ranked among the products with the lowest scores.

The big winners of this new round of tests are Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 and Bitdefender Internet Security 2014, both of which have received the maximum points for protection and usability and scored almost perfectly in performance tests.

The best freeware anti-virus on the market was Avira Internet Security 2014, which also received the maximum number of points for protection and usability, but got only 3.5 points out of 6 for performance. Both AVG and Avast! Free Antivirus 2014 performed reasonably well, but in the latter’s case, security engineers have awarded the app with only 3 points for the protection offered to consumers using computers running Windows 7 64-bit.

“During January and February 2014 we continuously evaluated 25 home user security products using their default settings. We always used the most current publicly-available version of all products for the testing. They were allowed to update themselves at any time and query their in-the-cloud services,” AV-TEST explained.

“We focused on realistic test scenarios and challenged the products against real-world threats. Products had to demonstrate their capabilities using all components and protection layers.”