Compare The Best Antivirus Software
Best Antivirus Software Comparison Chart
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Detection
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False
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Scanning
Speed
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Good
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(Worth A Look)
VIPRE Antivirus passed VB100 testing but unfortunately was not included in the most recent Anti-Virus Comparative.
How We Compared The Best Antivirus Software
It's not easy to define what antivirus software is the best.
The best antivirus software isn't necessarily the same for every computer user.
Some may prefer faster scanning, while others may conclude that the best antivirus will catch nearly everything.
While no anivirus software is 100% bulletproof, some will stop more malicious attacks than others.
Others may be a little too effective and tell you a file is infected that really isn't.
This behavior is referred to as detecting false positives.
In order to compare what might be considered "The Best Antivirus Software", let's look to the experts.
The comparison displayed above is based on antivirus tests performed by two of the best known agencies in the industry.
The first is Virus Bulletin.
Their VB100 award is simply a "Pass" or "Fail" result for the antivirus software tested.
In order to pass, the antivirus software must detect all "In the Wild" viruses during both on-demand and on-access scanning.
It also has to generate no false positives when scanning a set of clean files.
The antivirus software must meet this criteria in its default state.
Only antivirus software that has passed the most recent tests for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are included here.
The Other is AV-Comparatives.
Their results tend to be a bit more detailed which makes it a bit more difficult to say which is the best antivirus software.
Rather than explain where each antivirus ranked for each of the tests performed, the chart above gives a summary of why it is being compared among the best.
Only the softwares with an "Advanced+" rating are included.
This rating is for the antivirus with the highest detection and the lowest false positives.
Another test that is relevant is the scanning speed.
Speeds will vary from one computer to the next, but this gives us a good idea of which is the fastest.
