Which AV Software Is Best At Removing Malware

[Andy Dixon]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/12/av-comparatives_rates_anti-mal.php' target='_blank'>http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatc...es_anti-mal.php</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Last week AV-Comparatives.org released the results of their recent "Whole Product Dynamic Test" - a test challenging anti-malware products to protect test systems as if in the real world. This week they've got a new one for us - a performance test on the same collection of products. The virus experts timed a variety of commonplace actions with and without each product installed and compared the results to determine which had the least impact on system performance."</em></p><p><img height="359" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1261650386.usr11334.jpg" style="border: #d2d2bb 1px solid;" width="498" /></p><p><em>Image courtesy of </em><a href="http://www.sunna.info"><em>www.sunna.info</em></a></p><p>PC Mag have posted a blog entry about a recent test by AV Comparatives comparing the different Anti-Virus products on the market, and how they perform when dealing with malware. The usual big boys are&nbsp;the&nbsp;best performers in this test, but what surprised me is how well Microsoft Security Essentials did in comparison.&nbsp; Considering MSE is a free product then&nbsp;this is the package I will be&nbsp;making sure my family install on their PC's, after all, I am the one they call when something is wrong! Have a look and see how the product you are using performs.</p>

[Jason Dunn]

I've installed MSE on a couple of computers for other people, and am impressed with how lightweight it is. It's very similar to Windows Defender, which is also light on resources. What I've never been sure about is how good it is at stopping a virus, but it seems to work quite well!

[randalllewis]

I am running an experiment of sorts. I have MSE installed on two of my three computers and Norton AV on the third. I hadn't used Norton in many years but an HP computer I bought recently came with a 15 month subscription rather than the usual annoying 60 day trial. I decided to keep it. So far, so good. Norton does send me a notice once in a while to remind me it is there. I've noticed MSE doesn't do that. Their scores on this test were very similar. I don't notice any impact from Norton running on my system, but it is running on the most powerful computer, and not on my notebook or my kitchen all-in-one.

[Jason Dunn]

I don't notice any impact from Norton running on my system, but it is running on the most powerful computer, and not on my notebook or my kitchen all-in-one.

The newest version of Norton is a radically different than previous version - it's apparently much nicer on system resources than previous versions. And a 15 month version is pretty nice! Much more realistic than the 60 or 90 day trial that typically comes with most PCs...

[Chris Gohlke]

I've been really pleased with MSE. I'm running it on all my computers. Don't even notice that it is running, even on some older hardware. Hard for me to ever gauge the effectiveness on my own since I can't remember the last time I ever detected a virus.