Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart. The Consensus Report also appears in the Full Story.
Note that some of the listings on this chart come from recent reviews of discontinued versions. Because reviewers do not appear to be changing their tunes about the new versions, reviews of the old versions that were conducted this year (especially if tested with Windows Vista) still have some validity. Be aware, though, that all new versions were released within the past four months, and until we see a significant number of user reviews, we won't know which of the new versions introduce new problems. The 2007 versions of Trend Micro, McAfee and BitDefender programs were considerably worse than their predecessors, according to people who used both 2006 and 2007 versions.
We found the most recommendations for versions 6 and 7 of Kaspersky Anti-Virus and versions 2.7 and 3.0 of ESET's NOD32. NOD32 2.7 is universally praised for its effectiveness, and equally discredited for its clunky, counterintuitive interface. That's the only reason why not all experts have historically rated it as the best program. Now, version 3.0 has a new interface. Reviewers say it's still ugly (from an aesthetic standpoint), but some feel that the new two-tiered (novice/expert) interface overcomes previous objections. Kaspersky also is very effective and has some conflict issues, but all credible reviewers rank both programs among the two or three best.
Norton AntiVirus 2008 continues to be controversial. The 2007 version was redesigned to be much less of system hog, but its drain on computing speed was still worse than that from most competitors. Conflicts with ZoneAlarm (the top-rated firewall program) and Spy Sweeper (the top-rated anti-spyware program) also plagued Norton AntiVirus 2007, according to some reports we've seen. We await user reviews that tell us whether the new version overcomes those issues. Tests by all the independent labs show that Norton works well.
AVG is the most popular free antivirus program. It does well in some tests and not as well in others. It offers little user control and no free tech support, but you can't pay less. AntiVir is more effective in a few tests.
If you need more than just antivirus software, consider a security suite, which also includes a software firewall, a spam filter, spyware protection, parental filters, popup blockers and anti-phishing features. See the ConsumerSearch report on Internet security suites for more information.
| # of Picks | Model (with Retailer Links) | Details from Amazon.com |
| 7 | ESET NOD32 3.0/2.7 (*est. $40) | details |
| 5 | Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0/6.0 (*est. $40) | details |
| 4 | Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5 (free) | - |
| 2 | Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic (free) | - |
| 2 | Norton AntiVirus 2008 (*est. $40) | details |
| 1 each | Alwil avast! Home Edition 4.7, BullGuard Anti-Virus, CA Antivirus 2008 , F-Secure Anti-Virus 2008, McAfee VirusScan Plus , Norton AntiVirus 2008 , Panda Internet Security 2008 , Trend Micro AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware 2007 | |
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