Thousands of new malware samples appear on the Internet every day. Virus-writers invent more and more new methods to prevent detecting and removing malware code from the system such as using rootkit-technology masking. No antivirus can guarantee 100% protection of your computer under such conditions that is why an ordinary user will always run into a risk of infection even if he has an antivirus protection installed.

In many cases, a malware let into your computer can stay unnoticed for quite a log time even if an antivirus is installed. In this case, a user will have a false feeling of protection as his antivirus will not alarm any danger while the malefactors will be collecting confidential information or use his computer capacities with the help of their active malware application. If also often happens that an antivirus detects a malware but cannot delete it that makes the user apply for technical support or remove infection by himself using some extra tools.

Antivirus vendors can protect their customers developing malware detection and removing technologies. But practice proves that only some of them pay due attention to this protection aspect.

The objective of this test is to check personal antiviruses for their capacity to detect and remove malware successfully (without interfering with operation system operability) after it penetrated into your computer, started acting and hid its activity.

Methodology used for testing antiviruses for the treatment of active infections »
Analysis of test results and awards »

Contents:
- Introduction
- Comparison of healing possibilities
- Final test results and awards
- Analysis of changes as compared to the previous tests

Key results of the testing

Key results of the testing of antivirus products for the treatment of active infections in HTML»

Complete results for each antivirus product are available only in PDF or Microsoft Excel format:

Complete testing results in PDF format »

Complete testing results in Microsoft Excel format »

Antivirus performance is the most important characteristic for most users as well as the quality of protection itself. This characteristic is the one that both home users and corporate customers pay their attention to when buying an antivirus. Nobody needs powerful but too resource-intensive protection with which you just cannot use your computer for doing what you would like to.

If the protection quality is very hard to evaluate all by yourself it is quite easy to notice immediately when the operating system and other programs slowdown or file copying and web-pages downloading "hang up". A reliable and practically unnoticeable antivirus is the biggest dream of every usual user.

The objective of this test is to show how personal antivirus software influences the typical operations performed by the user, slows down its work and utilizes the system resources. 

While performing the tests, we measured and compared parameters having a direct influence on the user's perception of antivirus performance, namely:

1. Operation system boot time.
2. Memory & CPU used by antivirus software.
3. File copying performance (on-access antivirus scanner performance testing).
4. Scan speed (on-demand antivirus scanner performance testing).
5. Boot time for the five most popular office applications.

The test results give a clear idea of the performance of antivirus represented in the market. Having compared this information with Anti-Malware.ru test results, every user can make an informed choice in favor of this or that antivirus solution.

Methodology used for antivirus performance testing »
Analysis of the test results and awards »

Contents:
- Introduction
- Antivirus effect on the operation system boot time
- Antivirus resource-intensiveness comparison
- On-access antivirus scanner performance comparison
- On-demand antivirus scanner performance comparison
- Antivirus performance comparison for office applications

Key results of the testing

Award	The fastest antivirus on-access scanners	The fastest antivirus   on-demand scanners	The fastest office application antivirus scanners
Platinum Award	Avast	Avira	-
Gold Award	Avira Norton BitDefender Sophos AVG Kaspersky Panda	Kaspersky Norton BitDefender F-Secure Outpost	BitDefender Avira McAfee Microsoft Eset Avast AVG
Silver Award	Trend Micro F-Secure Outpost	Trend Micro Avast Sophos AVG Panda	Dr.Web VirusBlokAda Sophos
Bronze Award	Eset	McAfee VirusBlokAda Eset	Outpost Panda
No award	McAfee Microsoft Dr.Web VirusBlokAda	Microsoft Dr.Web	Kaspersky Norton F-Secure Trend Micro

 Key results from the antivirus antivirus preformance test in HTML»

Complete results for each antivirus product are available only in Microsoft Excel format:

Complete testing results in Microsoft Excel format »

Many antivirus malware protection tests performed round the world were criticized by professionals as they considered them synthetic and far from reality. The first and the main claim was that only some antivirus protection components (such as classical signature detect or heuristics) are tested during the file collection test launch. At the same time, no contribution of other technologies (such as behavioral analysis, HIPS or reputation services, firewall/IDS, HTTP on-the-fly traffic, etc.) is taken into consideration.

The second sound reason is that a real user does not store and launch any old malware on its hard drive. As a rule, only Zero-day samples penetrate there and no antivirus can protect against them.

The work efficiency can also to some extent depend on the penetration method as some antivirus software can eliminate the infection threat at the stage of malware script launch at the web-page, others do that during loaders activation downloaded with exploit, and the third ones do it even later, with the installed malware start.

In this test we analyzed the complex antivirus protection effectiveness to Zero-day malware spread via websites.

We collected links to infected websites from different sources. As a rule, everyone can come across such links in search engines, E-mail, ICQ, Skype and other instant messengers or social networks.

• Methodology of antivirus testing for the detection of Zero-day threats
• Analysis of the test results and awards

Key results of the testing

Award	Products
Platinum Zero-day Protection Award	DefenseWall 2.56
Gold Zero-day Protection Award	Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 Comodo Internet Security 3.9 Trend Micro Internet Security 2009
Silver Zero-day Protection Award	Sophos Anti-Virus 7.6 Safe'n'Sec Personal 3.5 Avira Premium Security Suite 9.0 Norton Internet Security   2009 Avast Antivirus Professional 4.8
Bronze Zero-day Protection Award	Eset Smart Security 4.0 AVG Internet Security 8.5 Microsoft Security Essential 1.0 G-DATA Internet Security  2010
Failed	F-Secure Internet Security 2009 McAfee Internet Security Suite 13 Outpost Security Suite 2009 Panda Internet Security 2010 BitDefender Internet Security 2009 Dr.Web Security Space 5.0

Key results from the antivirus antivirus preformance test in HTML»