14 DAY TRIAL // German security institute AV-TEST performed a series of tests in late November to determine the best antivirus solution for Windows 10, putting Avira Antivirus Pro, Bitdefender Internet Security, Kaspersky Internet Security, and Norton Security at the top of the charts.
Now researchers are providing us with a closer look at these Windows 10 tests, explaining that Windows Defender was used as a benchmark “that all the other products should be able to beat.” This is one of the reasons Windows Defender is among the last in the charts, but as you can see, not every included app actually managed to obtain a better score.
Malware detection
As far as malware detection is concerned, antivirus solutions developed by Avira, F-Secure, AVG, Ahnlab and Kaspersky Lab spotted every single dangerous file without absolutely any error, while Panda Security achieved the best detection rate among freeware products.
“Panda Security scanned with detection rates of 99.4 and 99.9 percent. Windows Defender, tested for comparison, detected only 87.7 and 99.5 percent,” AV-TEST explains.
Performance impact
If you’re afraid that an antivirus solution could slow down your computer, then you should go for the products developed by Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and Symantec because these are said to have the highest detection rate, without a huge impact on system performance.
While freeware app Panda excelled in terms of detection, it also hampered performance, so it received only 3.5 points. Windows Defender, on the other hand, scored 4.5 points.
Product usability
The majority of tested security products obtained the maximum of 6 out of 6 points in usability tests, but that’s not at all a surprise.
“The result is so positive for nearly all the security packages that they received 5 to 6 points in this test. Only the product from K7 blocked a few benign programs and falsely quarantined clean files. For this, it only received 4.5 points. All the freeware programs and even Windows Defender received a good to very good rating,” the security institute explains.
Overall, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a security product for Windows 10, but hopefully, Microsoft too will continue to improve the operating system to block malware and other threats. Keep in mind that a Windows 10 + antivirus combo is not impossible to break, so it’s always a good idea to stay away from content that could pose a threat to your data.