Best antivirus of 2014

It's fall, and you know what that
means in the antivirus business.
Just like auto dealers, the big
security software vendors are poised
to release their 2015 models. And,
just like the latest cars, the new
antivirus models may get an external
makeover, or they may boast new
protective features that are entirely
under the hood. Before the fall flood
of security products really gets
rolling, it's time to take a look at the
products that have arrived already.
If you don't have antivirus
protection installed, shame on you!
Pick a paid or free solution and
install it now. If you've already set
up protection, see how your choice
stacks up to the competition.
Name
Webroot
SecureAnywhere
AntiVirus (2015)
Norton AntiVirus
(2014)
Kaspersky Anti-Virus
(2015)
Bitdefender
Antivirus Plus 2015
F-Secure Anti-Virus
2014
Editor Rating
Lowest Price
$19.99
Webroot
$49.99
Norton
$29.22
Amazon
$39.95
BitDefender
$39.99
MSRP
Type Personal,
Professional
Business, Personal,
Professional
Business, Personal,
Professional
Personal,
Professional
Personal,
Professional
OS Compatibility
Windows Vista,
Windows XP, Mac OS,
Windows 7, Windows
8
Windows Vista,
Windows XP,
Windows 7, Windows
8
Windows Vista,
Windows XP,
Windows 7, Windows
8
Windows Vista,
Windows XP,
Windows 7, Windows
8
Windows Vista,
Windows XP,
Windows 7, Windows
8
Read the Review Read the Review Read the Review Read the Review Read the Review
Year after year, most of the same
products retain their positions at
the top of the heap, though we do
have some new Editors' Choice
honorees in the antivirus arena.
Independent Lab Tests
We spend hours or even days with
every product performing hands-on
testing, but the independent
antivirus labs have whole squads of
researchers who conduct even more
in-depth testing. We follow six major
labs that perform ongoing tests and
make their results public:
AV-Test
AV-Comparatives
Dennis Technology Labs
ICSA Labs
Virus Bulletin
West Coast Labs
We take independent testing quite
seriously, and I've worked up a
rating system to evaluate each
product in light of its lab results.
I've identified five important
categories: detection, cleaning,
protection, false positives, and
performance. When there's enough
data from the labs, we use it to
calculate a star rating in each
category, and an overall rating.
As you can see in the chart below,
Panda, Kaspersky, and Bitdefender
get really excellent scores across the
board. That's certainly a good sign.
Even the independent labs don't
have unlimited resources, so there's
a dearth of results for some
products. I'll be talking with some of
the more flexible labs about the
possibility of expanding the
collection of products they test.
Best Antivirus Lab Tests Chart
The cloud-based behavioral
monitoring of Webroot
SecureAnywhere Antivirus
(2014) $19.99 at Webroot is wildly
different from almost any other
product, and it's just not compatible
with many test setups. As a result, it
hardly gets tested at all. That's a
shame, because it's amazingly tiny
and scans amazingly fast.
See How We Interpret
Antivirus Lab Tests
Hands-On Testing
For every antivirus review, we run a
hands-on test of the product's
ability to detect and prevent
malware attacks. We also check each
product's ability to detect and
prevent downloads of the very latest
malware. Starting with a feed of
links from London-based MRG-Effitas ,
we sift out those that point directly
to a malicious executable online.
Using executable file links makes it
easy for me to measure success. If a
malicious download reaches the
desktop, the antivirus failed. If it
wipes out the file during download,
or blocks access to the URL
completely, it succeeded.
The links we use are never more
than a day old, sometimes just
hours old. That means each product
hits a different set of links, but in
every case they're extremely recent.
we do plug away until I've tested
about 100 links, figuring the daily
differences will average out. This is
definitely more real-world than
our standard malware blocking test,
which necessarily uses the same
samples for as much as a year.
Best Antivirus Malware Blocking
Chart
I've been running the URL-blocking
test for nearly a year, and have
found a very wide range of scores.
avast! Free Antivirus 2014 detected
79 percent of over 100 malicious
URLs, blocking access to most at the
URL level. Panda Free Antivirus 2015
managed a respectable 64 percent.
Kaspersky and Bitdefender clearly
concentrate their efforts in other
protection layers; neither did well in
this particular test.
See How We Test Malware
Blocking
The Best Products
The antivirus field is huge; we
currently track 40 products. In a
field that big, there's room for
multiple products to earn the title of
Editors' Choice.
Four products share the Editor's
Choice honor for best overall
antivirus: Bitdefender Antivirus Plus
2015 $39.95 at BitDefender ,
Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015) $29.22 at
Amazon , Norton AntiVirus
(2014) $49.99 at Norton , and
Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus
(2014) $19.99 at Webroot .
When tech support agents at other
vendors hit the wall, they sometimes
turn to Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
2.0 for relief. It won't handle your
day-to-day protection; rather, it's
designed to root out resistant
malware. It's our Editors' Choice for
free, cleanup-only antivirus.
With excellent scores from the
independent labs, Panda Free
Antivirus 2015 joins AVG AntiVirus
FREE 2014 as Editors' Choice for free
antivirus.
Whatever your antivirus needs, one
of the 40 tools listed here should do
the job. Don't want to cough up any
cash? Check out our top free
antivirus picks .