14 DAY TRIAL // If Windows Defender isn’t exactly your cup of tea and you are looking for a third-party antivirus solution, German security software testing firm AV-TEST lends you a hand to make the right decision.
The most recent antivirus tests that it performed on Windows 10 comes with some pretty big surprises, as this time giants like Kaspersky and Bitdefender failed to secure the leading spots.
Instead, AhnLab V3 Internet Security and Avira Antivirus Pro 15.0 are the highest-rated security solutions in the April 2018 antivirus tests, with 6 out of 6 points received for each of the three categories, namely protection, performance, and usability.
On the other hand, Kaspersky and Bitdefender aren’t far from the top places and gained an overall score of 17.5 points to be ranked second. Trend Micro also scored 17.5 points in this round of tests.
Avast, which at this point is one of the most popular providers of free antivirus protection, scored particularly well, with a final rating of 17 points.
Windows Defender performance
The lowest score this time was obtained by PC Pitstop’s PC Matic, which received only 4 points for protection, 6 points for performance, and 3 points for usability. With a final rating of 13 points, this app scored even worse than Microsoft’s Windows Defender, whose results are improving in nearly every new research.
This time, Windows Defender gained 5.5 points for each of the three tests, and although it’s not the among the top-rated security products this time, this performance is a substantial improvement over the scores it got a couple of years ago.
Windows Defender comes bundled by default in Windows 10 and remains active as long as no other third-party security product is installed on a system. It’s turned off automatically when users install such a solution but is once again enabled when a security product is no longer detected.
