Antivirus Security Shootout: Microsoft Vs. Symantec Vs. McAfee Vs. Kaspersky Discussion

[Charles P. Jefferies]

We've reviewed four popular antivirus security products from Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee and Kaspersky over the past few months. So how did they all stack up when we put them to the test? In this antivirus software buyers guide, we reveal the name of the winner of our latest software security shootout, and how we got the scores.

Read the full content of this Article: Antivirus Security Shootout: Microsoft Vs. Symantec Vs. McAfee Vs. Kaspersky

Related Articles:

• McAfee Releases 'All Access' Security for PCs, Macs, Tablets & Phones
• McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 Review
• Norton AntiVirus (NAV) 2011 Review
• Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) Review
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011 Review

[farsang]

Actually it would have been good if you had included Eset Nod32 antivirus in this review?

[Mitlov]

I really like MSE. I've never used the current version of Norton, but with previous versions, it never let me forget it was working. It wasn't very "invisible," if that makes sense. What I love about MSE is how invisible it is. Updates are rare and easy-to-handle, and it doesn't seem to affect the machine's overall performance. Sure, maybe scans aren't as fast as other programs, but that doesn't bother me at all.

And the price is right. No up-front costs, no subscription fees. Just love MSE.

[hoofhearted]

I agree. I have dealt with Norton and McAfee at work. Those have to have been the most intrusive things in the IT world.

I discovered MSE a couple of years ago and haven't looked back since. A buddy of mine (who collects alot of 'stuff' across the internet) brought his removable HD over and it had one of those autorun viruses on it. I had AVG on the machine and it bypassed it and cause me hours of headscratching, finally combofix took care of it. The following week I discovered MSE and put it on my machine. My friend came over with his diseased drive (I had autorun disabled this time), but it probably wouldn't have mattered. MSE discovered it (I think it was confiker or something like that) and cleaned it right off. I haven't had a virus problem since and I have put it on 20 of my own computers, and at least 10 or so friends computers that I have fixed or cleaned up.

[Big_Monty]

I've been using Panda Cloud for awhile now and never had any problems. Anyone else use it or have any experience with it?

[martynas]

I think, this whole review is kinda not objective :/
that is - no memory usage or processor load/disk-access frequency comparison..

anyway, like other commentators, I also like MSE very much, for price, small memory and processor load footprint, and for being not intrusive.

Before MSE I used free version of Avira AntiVir, but got bored with frequent popping advertisement windows

[taelrak]

Indeed, not much discussion of intrusiveness. Also, why these particular four? They're not the top 4 antivirus software by market share or anything. ESET, AVIRA, etc. deserve some love too!

To Mitlov: Norton's rep for being bloated and a huge drain on system resources was well deserved until a couple of years ago, but the latest versions are really quite good and unobstrusive.

[Mitlov]

Yeah, the three factors I really care about are intrusiveness (both pop-ups that interrupt you and resource drains that interfere with what you're doing), effectiveness, and price. I personally couldn't give a rip about differences in interface, installation process (so long as you don't need an associate's degree to install it), or scan speed. Just my $0.02.

[MidnightSun]

To Mitlov: Norton's rep for being bloated and a huge drain on system resources was well deserved until a couple of years ago, but the latest versions are really quite good and unobstrusive.

Starting from Norton 2009, its intrusiveness/bloatedness has been far reduced from before (was a ground-up rewrite from the 2008 version).

When I used it (for the '09, '10, and '11 versions), I noticed that Norton used less system resources (combining all processes), both RAM and especially CPU, than MSE, Kaspersky ('10, '11), McAfee ('09), and even ESET SS (Ver. 4).

I barely received any notifications at all (similar to MSE). Kaspersky and McAfee, on the other hand, were ultra-paranoid and alerted me for everything (most of which were false-positives).

During file transfers and large file manipulation in particular, Norton and ESET SS made the smallest dent in performance, while funnily enough, I noticed that Kaspersky added the largest overhead.

During updates, MSE and ESET SS used noticeable CPU resources (well, noticeable only when monitoring or using it on my old Averatec), while Norton's very frequent pulse updates made no impact at all.

Scan speed is also extremely fast in Norton, about on par with Kaspersky from my testing.

So in conclusion: From my experiences, if you insist on paying for an AV/IS, Norton is probably one of, if not your best option (particularly with its frequent $0.00 AR deals at Fry's--they'll take competitors' UPCs for their upgrade rebate as well). Otherwise, MSE is probably the way to go simply because it's easy and works perfectly fine.

[rkj__]

I used to use AVG, but it would really cripple system performance when starting up and undergoing its frequent updates.

I've switched to MSE on Windows 7, and like others have said, it is not a bother. I honestly can barely tell it is there.