By
u4ia74.
June 20, 2010 at 11:43PM (PST)
Great site for comparing antivirus products. My rankings based on data and personal opinion based on it's ability to detect viruses, both identified and not yet identified (using heuristics) to detect actual malware accurately, number of false positives, and speed.
#1. Avira - Because it's FREE and still among the fastest, and most accurate A/V software. False positives are slightly higher but still nominal. The fact that it's free, tops it off because it's speed and accuracy is bar or better than most others.
#2. G Data Antivirus - An excellent balance of accurate detection and few false positives makes this a great A/V - Excellent detection and few false positives.
#3. Kaspersky A/V - A very close second and an overall excellent A/V.
#4. ESET NOD32. Still a good A/V product but but has been edged out by the others.
I will *never* recommend Symmantec products mainly beause of their business model. You pay to buy the software, and thenk keep paying once your "live update" subscription runs out. Used to be you just had to pay to get the latetest A/V definitions and product updates, now when it runs out, your software stops cold. Never buying Norton again. And it's not even among the best A/V as it once was in years past.
Aside from that, check out the latest data at http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for your own inspection.