14 DAY TRIAL // During the past year, AV-Comparatives has been busy subjecting 21 antivirus engines to a series of grueling tests, and as the year came to a close, the company published its annual report for 2015, an indicator of what could be the best antivirus solutions for this current year.
The trials not only included file detection and malware removal tests, but also looked for performance issue, AV-Comparatives searching for the antivirus engine that had the best protection tools, but which also didn't clog up your PC when the AV was performing a scan.
The 21 antivirus that AV-Comparatives tested are: Avast Free Antivirus, AVG Internet Security, Avira Antivirus Pro, Baidu Antivirus, Bitdefender Internet Security, BullGuard Internet Security, Emsisoft Anti-Malware, eScan Internet Security Suite, ESET Smart Security, F-Secure Internet Security, Fortinet FortiClient (with FortiGate), Kaspersky Internet Security, Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+, McAfee Internet Security, Microsoft Windows Defender for Windows 10, Panda Free Antivirus, Quick Heal Total Security, Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, Tencent PC Manager, ThreatTrack VIPRE Internet Security, and Trend Micro Internet Security.
As AV-Comparatives drew the line at the end of the year, Kaspersky and Bitdefender tied for the top spot, but since Bitdefender got the Product of the Year Award in the previous edition (based on some internal rules), AV-Comparatives decided to give this year's award to Kaspersky.
As a consolation price for the other high-scoring antiviruses, AV-Comparatives also gave out the Top Rated Product of the Year award to Avast, Avira, Bitdefender, Emsisoft, eScan, and ESET.
Here are some other awards you may find interesting:
Best Real-World Protection
Gold Medal - Bitdefender, Kaspersky Silver Medal - Avira Bronze Medal - Tencent
Best File Detection
Gold Medal - Bitdefender, Kaspersky Silver Medal - Avira Bronze Medal - Emsisoft, Lavasoft, BullGuard, eScan
Lowest False Positives
Gold Medal - Microsoft Silver Medal - ESET Bronze Medal - Panda
Best Overall Speed
Gold Medal - Avast Silver Medal - Avira Bronze Medal - Emsisoft, Kaspersky
Best Proactive Malware Detection
Gold Medal - Bitdefender Silver Medal - Kaspersky Bronze Medal - ESET
This test evaluated how antiviruses worked against new, unknown threats.
Best Malware Removal
Gold Medal - Kaspersky Silver Medal - Avast, Bitdefender Bronze Medal - AVG, Avira
You can go through the entire AV-Comparatives Summary Report for 2015, and read the company's reviews for each tested security product.