BEFORE YOU READ:
If you are a Windows Defender/Microsoft Security Essentials user, then please happy with it and do not read this post. IMHO, that is not an AV, it is just a name, doesn't do anything, doesn't have any kind of protection to new threats. I have cleaned many PCs in the past year which all had MSE or Defender installed . Just check out Windows Defender/MSE score here at the end of this page and you will know what I am talking about. But hey, if you're happy with it and feel safe, by all means, do use it.
This is NOT a technical review of the below AntiVirus solutions, I am sure professional virus testing labs such as AV Comparatives or AV-TEST do an excellent job at testing antivirus programs hundreds of malware samples and many AVs look great in those tests. Using that AV in your daily workflow as a user is a totally different subject. That's what this post is all about, call it USER EXPERIENCE with different AVs if you will.
I have a license for almost every well known Antivirus out there as I am a perfectionist and wanted to try each one to find the perfect balance between security, not being very heavy on the system, and most importantly, no quirks or false positives that would only hinder the user experience!
ESET NOD32 Antivirus:
This has been my favorite AntiVirus for more than 7 years. Back then when it was still at version 2, it was known to be the only AV that does not miss a virus in the wild for many years consecutively. Yet, it was super light. It was the Antivirus for gamers!
Unfortunately, with each new version, it just kept getting heavier, and heavier!
The last light version was version 4, then 5 was heavy, 6 was the same as v5 in terms of heaviness, but again, it only brought a few improvements of how it handles HIPS and 0 day attacks. Version 7 came to destroy NOD32 completely. It is the heaviest Antivirus I have tried out of the whole lot!
Installing programs would take double the time they regularly needed! I am talking about small 5-6 MB programs! Let alone big programs like Microsoft Office or Nero Platinum Suites!
When I raised this concern on the forums, they told me that's probably because NOD32's scanning engine is checking each file. Well that's good! but so does every other AV, and it doesn't yield this huge performance impact! Now I don't know how it would affact playing games or running resource hungry programs, but just as I started to install a few programs I could tell this is not the Antivirus for the performance enthusiast or gamer!
Want more proof? check out its performance rating here under ESET ... AV-TEST - Jan/Feb 2014
============================================
Kaspersky Antivirus:
It has improved vastly over the years in terms of system impact. It was one of the heaviest AntiVirus programs out there along with McAfee, but now it is actually very light!! Also, it has for many months and consecutively scored the top ranks at AV Comparatives!
So why don't I use it? It has many quirks! I want an Antivirus to protect my system not to give me headaches. For a long time, it had problems with Nero Platinum Suite 2014, it wouldn't allow the burn process to complete successfully. They claim to have fixed the issue in update Patch G but while things did improve, I was able to complete burning an Audio CD the first time, then reburning that same project of that Audio CD again failed the next time.
Additionally, just browsing their forums scare the living hell out of me! So many problems it is beyond normal, ranging from the Antivirus program not starting, not updating, not allowing some other program to work properly, it's the best Antivirus in terms of detection rates, but the worst in terms of system stability.
============================================
Bitdefender Antivirus:
One of the top antivirus programs when it comes to detection rates consecutively each and every month! But it acts as a virus on its own! Just head to the Bitdefender forums and read their horror stories, slow internet, slow system, unable to boot, etc.
Another issue is with its updates. You install the AV, then perform your first update, then it shows you a red exclamation mark in its desktop widget and you think "oh my! what the hell is this now" It is simply telling you to reboot to complete the update! oh well, I reboot, then update, then again, and again, and again, then sometimes I get problems with AutoPilot not running properly and I have to enable the real time AV component manually.
Additionally, it requires you to create an account and keeps nagging about it. I hate all these new AVs that seem to be like you are registering for some social network rather than simply installing an AV and forgetting about it.
============================================
Norton Antivirus:
One of the former heavy Antivirus programs out there, that has improved vastly over the years. In fact, it is one of the lightest that I have tested! It has a few false positives, but nothing to complain about. What I don't like though if it detects a virus or an FP, the file just vanishes from your system! it doesn't ask you what you want to do whether you want to clean, quarantine, delete, exclude from detection!
A big visual bug in its interface is what stopped me from using it completely and never buying anything from Symantec anymore...
Randomly, you will get 2 icons of the AV program in your taskbar. Many users complained about this on their forums since 1 year and all the support people say is it will be fixed in the future but is not one of the top priorities on their list since it is just a cosmetic bug! Really? Well I paid for a fully functional and working product I don't want some buggy fugly icon in my taskbar appearing twice! Terrible reasoning and customer service!
============================================
BullGuard Antivirus:
Uses the Bitdefender Engine BUT minus all the Bitdefender quirks! Was great when I used it, light on the system, until they decided to mess with its simple interface and make it all tiles and big boxes. What's worse, is the person who created the GUI sort of forgot to add extra space to fir all the icons, you will see a few icons and then the next ones are chopped off the screen until you scroll down or to the right! Wow! what a professional look. I know one needs an Antivirus to protect and not for the looks, but still, I cannot live with such an ugly user interface
============================================
avast! Antivirus Pro:
avast! Antivirus both Free or Pro was one of the very light AVs out there that had excellent detection rates and 0 false positives. Only until the recent changes where they decided to make the interface resemble the Metro interface of Windows 8 did things start to go bad.
Not only is the interface a joke to look at as if some 10 year old child designed it, but not you keep getting random security message which you never asked for, keep getting spam offers, even in the paid version. What really made me stop using it was it has become very very heavy. I mean heave to the point where even a simple task such as opening a new tab in Firefox was jerky and slow. My internet became slower and so did my entire system.
I head over to their forums to make a complain, and I get banned + my post deleted for no reason! Then I read other users' complaints and with the myriad of problems + horror stories you read, you don't even wanna get close to this marketing spam Antivirus.
============================================
Webroot Antivirus:
This was my favorite AntiVirus until recently! When I first discovered it, I was shocked by how light it was! It seemed as if I didn't even have an AV installed! so light and yet very secure...but here is the problem...it is very secure that gets in the way of your daily workflow!
I got over 30 False Positives with it, ranging from legitimate programs being flagged as a virus, all the the way to websites being marked as malicious! I am not talking about some new unknown website, I am talking about popular sites being flagged as malicious! It seems like Webroot blacklists every website on the web and every file, and only unblocks them one by one when a customer complaints or submits a false positive! wow! great way for detection! Block the whole world and let your customers tell you what is NOT a virus!
I made many complaints on their forums, and all I got is promises that things will be better and I was told that I could be part of the solution rather than complain! So now I have to work for them for free and keep reporting FPs rather than use my PC normally!
============================================
Emsisoft Anti-Malware:
After almost giving up on finding a light AntiVirus that has no quirks or so much false positives, I was checking detection rates/FPs on AV comparatives and noticed Emsisoft Anti-Malware.
I installed it, it started its first deep scan which took about 10 minutes to complete since it was checking every single file of my 3 TB data. It only came up with one false positive which was Private Internet Access (a VPN service installer) but not a big problem since it's only one which I quickly excluded from detection.
System impact is very low, close to how light Webroot SecureAnywhere was but without 10s of false positives! The interface is very clean and easy to use and I cant probably say that out of the whole bunch I've tried, this one's a keeper as it doesn't interfere with my daily workflow, doesn't slow my PC down, and has excellent detection rates where at the time of typing this, it had a 98.8% detection rate at AV Comparatives and 0 False Positives.
If you are a Windows Defender/Microsoft Security Essentials user, then please happy with it and do not read this post. IMHO, that is not an AV, it is just a name, doesn't do anything, doesn't have any kind of protection to new threats. I have cleaned many PCs in the past year which all had MSE or Defender installed . Just check out Windows Defender/MSE score here at the end of this page and you will know what I am talking about. But hey, if you're happy with it and feel safe, by all means, do use it.
This is NOT a technical review of the below AntiVirus solutions, I am sure professional virus testing labs such as AV Comparatives or AV-TEST do an excellent job at testing antivirus programs hundreds of malware samples and many AVs look great in those tests. Using that AV in your daily workflow as a user is a totally different subject. That's what this post is all about, call it USER EXPERIENCE with different AVs if you will.
I have a license for almost every well known Antivirus out there as I am a perfectionist and wanted to try each one to find the perfect balance between security, not being very heavy on the system, and most importantly, no quirks or false positives that would only hinder the user experience!
ESET NOD32 Antivirus:
This has been my favorite AntiVirus for more than 7 years. Back then when it was still at version 2, it was known to be the only AV that does not miss a virus in the wild for many years consecutively. Yet, it was super light. It was the Antivirus for gamers!
Unfortunately, with each new version, it just kept getting heavier, and heavier!
The last light version was version 4, then 5 was heavy, 6 was the same as v5 in terms of heaviness, but again, it only brought a few improvements of how it handles HIPS and 0 day attacks. Version 7 came to destroy NOD32 completely. It is the heaviest Antivirus I have tried out of the whole lot!
Installing programs would take double the time they regularly needed! I am talking about small 5-6 MB programs! Let alone big programs like Microsoft Office or Nero Platinum Suites!
When I raised this concern on the forums, they told me that's probably because NOD32's scanning engine is checking each file. Well that's good! but so does every other AV, and it doesn't yield this huge performance impact! Now I don't know how it would affact playing games or running resource hungry programs, but just as I started to install a few programs I could tell this is not the Antivirus for the performance enthusiast or gamer!
Want more proof? check out its performance rating here under ESET ... AV-TEST - Jan/Feb 2014
============================================
Kaspersky Antivirus:
It has improved vastly over the years in terms of system impact. It was one of the heaviest AntiVirus programs out there along with McAfee, but now it is actually very light!! Also, it has for many months and consecutively scored the top ranks at AV Comparatives!
So why don't I use it? It has many quirks! I want an Antivirus to protect my system not to give me headaches. For a long time, it had problems with Nero Platinum Suite 2014, it wouldn't allow the burn process to complete successfully. They claim to have fixed the issue in update Patch G but while things did improve, I was able to complete burning an Audio CD the first time, then reburning that same project of that Audio CD again failed the next time.
Additionally, just browsing their forums scare the living hell out of me! So many problems it is beyond normal, ranging from the Antivirus program not starting, not updating, not allowing some other program to work properly, it's the best Antivirus in terms of detection rates, but the worst in terms of system stability.
============================================
Bitdefender Antivirus:
One of the top antivirus programs when it comes to detection rates consecutively each and every month! But it acts as a virus on its own! Just head to the Bitdefender forums and read their horror stories, slow internet, slow system, unable to boot, etc.
Another issue is with its updates. You install the AV, then perform your first update, then it shows you a red exclamation mark in its desktop widget and you think "oh my! what the hell is this now" It is simply telling you to reboot to complete the update! oh well, I reboot, then update, then again, and again, and again, then sometimes I get problems with AutoPilot not running properly and I have to enable the real time AV component manually.
Additionally, it requires you to create an account and keeps nagging about it. I hate all these new AVs that seem to be like you are registering for some social network rather than simply installing an AV and forgetting about it.
============================================
Norton Antivirus:
One of the former heavy Antivirus programs out there, that has improved vastly over the years. In fact, it is one of the lightest that I have tested! It has a few false positives, but nothing to complain about. What I don't like though if it detects a virus or an FP, the file just vanishes from your system! it doesn't ask you what you want to do whether you want to clean, quarantine, delete, exclude from detection!
A big visual bug in its interface is what stopped me from using it completely and never buying anything from Symantec anymore...
Randomly, you will get 2 icons of the AV program in your taskbar. Many users complained about this on their forums since 1 year and all the support people say is it will be fixed in the future but is not one of the top priorities on their list since it is just a cosmetic bug! Really? Well I paid for a fully functional and working product I don't want some buggy fugly icon in my taskbar appearing twice! Terrible reasoning and customer service!
============================================
BullGuard Antivirus:
Uses the Bitdefender Engine BUT minus all the Bitdefender quirks! Was great when I used it, light on the system, until they decided to mess with its simple interface and make it all tiles and big boxes. What's worse, is the person who created the GUI sort of forgot to add extra space to fir all the icons, you will see a few icons and then the next ones are chopped off the screen until you scroll down or to the right! Wow! what a professional look. I know one needs an Antivirus to protect and not for the looks, but still, I cannot live with such an ugly user interface
============================================
avast! Antivirus Pro:
avast! Antivirus both Free or Pro was one of the very light AVs out there that had excellent detection rates and 0 false positives. Only until the recent changes where they decided to make the interface resemble the Metro interface of Windows 8 did things start to go bad.
Not only is the interface a joke to look at as if some 10 year old child designed it, but not you keep getting random security message which you never asked for, keep getting spam offers, even in the paid version. What really made me stop using it was it has become very very heavy. I mean heave to the point where even a simple task such as opening a new tab in Firefox was jerky and slow. My internet became slower and so did my entire system.
I head over to their forums to make a complain, and I get banned + my post deleted for no reason! Then I read other users' complaints and with the myriad of problems + horror stories you read, you don't even wanna get close to this marketing spam Antivirus.
============================================
Webroot Antivirus:
This was my favorite AntiVirus until recently! When I first discovered it, I was shocked by how light it was! It seemed as if I didn't even have an AV installed! so light and yet very secure...but here is the problem...it is very secure that gets in the way of your daily workflow!
I got over 30 False Positives with it, ranging from legitimate programs being flagged as a virus, all the the way to websites being marked as malicious! I am not talking about some new unknown website, I am talking about popular sites being flagged as malicious! It seems like Webroot blacklists every website on the web and every file, and only unblocks them one by one when a customer complaints or submits a false positive! wow! great way for detection! Block the whole world and let your customers tell you what is NOT a virus!
I made many complaints on their forums, and all I got is promises that things will be better and I was told that I could be part of the solution rather than complain! So now I have to work for them for free and keep reporting FPs rather than use my PC normally!
============================================
Emsisoft Anti-Malware:
After almost giving up on finding a light AntiVirus that has no quirks or so much false positives, I was checking detection rates/FPs on AV comparatives and noticed Emsisoft Anti-Malware.
I installed it, it started its first deep scan which took about 10 minutes to complete since it was checking every single file of my 3 TB data. It only came up with one false positive which was Private Internet Access (a VPN service installer) but not a big problem since it's only one which I quickly excluded from detection.
System impact is very low, close to how light Webroot SecureAnywhere was but without 10s of false positives! The interface is very clean and easy to use and I cant probably say that out of the whole bunch I've tried, this one's a keeper as it doesn't interfere with my daily workflow, doesn't slow my PC down, and has excellent detection rates where at the time of typing this, it had a 98.8% detection rate at AV Comparatives and 0 False Positives.