2012 Antivirus Software Ratings

VIPRE Antivirus 2012

The first thing we saw when we began testing this year's antivirus software is that installing VIPRE 2012 takes longer than other software.

Once it's installed, the next thing you'll notice is the new interface. While it's new for 2012, it's mostly a rehash of the 2011 version.

If you've used VIPRE before, it'll be very familiar; if you haven't and are used to other antivirus software, you might think it's not as pretty as your old software.

In spite of these minor shortcomings, it's still the best antivirus software we know of, again earning our top spot for 2012 and our Editor's Choice award.

For starters even though installation is a little lengthy, it's incredibly easy, needing only four clicks. And, it even installed well for us onto our heavily infected PCs.

Next, as for the interface, once you use it even for a few minutes, you'll see it's fast and easy to use.

Next, the most important part: detecting and removing viruses. In this part, VIPRE again outperformed the competition on both old and new malware alike.

Customer / technical support--often weak spots in good software--continue to be the best of any software we tested. Since we began our reviews, no other antivirus company has matched the level and quality of service we see routinely with VIPRE.

Everything from installation help to complete virus removal is included for free with VIPRE. (Few others offer this, those that do charge hefty fees.) And, their tech support is even based in the U.S. in Clearwater, Florida.

So because of strong antivirus protection, good spyware blocking, and unmatched tech support, VIPRE earns our Editor's Choice again for 2012.

BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012

BitDefender does it again with another great antivirus software this year. BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012 continues to be a winner in several categories including excellent antivirus protection as well as a simpler user interface.

Exactly how well does BitDefender Antivirus match up to the competition?

BitDefender earned several awards and certifications from us and the top testing labs around the world. They scored excellent for real-time antivirus protection, resource usage, and virus removal.

BitDefender was light on resource usage with no significant system drain even during a full-system scan.

The improved user interface is stream-lined and easy to navigate. You can find any setting or option you need easily.

On the down-side, BitDefender's customer service remains their biggest weakness with no phone or chat support. However, their help articles and video tutorials are extensive enough for most people.

Overall, BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012 remains one of our top choices due to their easy to use interface, light resource usage, and most importantly, powerful virus, spyware, and malware protection.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Software 2012

Kaspersky continues to grow as a household name in the antivirus software world for good reason. Over the years, they continue to gain top awards and certifications from all of the major testing labs around the world.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 is strong as ever when it comes to solid, antivirus protection. However, parts of their overall usability is not as polished as some of their competitors.

The Kaspersky user interface, for instance, still has some nagging issues that could've been easily resolved this year but weren't.

Kaspersky's anti-phishing scored lower, in some tests, than Internet Explorer by itself. Their social network protection could be stronger as well.

On the plus side, Kaspersky did excellent when it comes to stopping zero-day threats and emerging viruses.

For solid, core antivirus protection, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 is still on top of their game this year.

AVG Anti-Virus Software 2012

AVG has built their reputation on solid, free antivirus software for some years now. It's always been a good "go to" software for a lot of consumers to try out when they thought they might have a virus infection.

Since then, AVG has put a lot of technology into their core product: AVG Anti-Virus 2012. It's much more complete antivirus software than their basic free offering, so it provides protection against different types of virus attacks.

The user interface is one of the better ones for 2012 for basic tasks, which is what most people, most of the time will need. It's not often you need to dig deep into the menus of antivirus software to get the job done.

Despite being one of the smaller companies, AVG's technical support is better than most. While the self-help options aren't as extensive as we'd like to see, they do offer free phone support for basic issues, which most companies don't. Unfortunately, if you do have serious problems like a virus infection that AVG can't remove, you'll need to pay for their premium support services.

As for actual antivirus protection, AVG received strong certifications from all major testing labs, so along with our own testing, there's plenty of evidence that AVG is making good software.

The bottom line is, AVG Anti-Virus 2012 is very good antivirus software. For people who only think of AVG as a 'free' product, this version proves AVG is a lot more than that.

avast Pro Antivirus 2012 (6.0)

Avast Pro Antivirus 6 stacks up well against the competition with some good antivirus and spyware protection this year.

Despite these good results, there are a couple of things that weren't ideal. Virus removal from an infected machine could be better, as could avast's anti-phishing filter.

Interestingly though, they are one of the few antivirus programs to even offer antiphishing in their basic software, so we're happy to see it here even if its performance wasn't ideal.

In both our own testing and in looking at other independent testing labs you'll see the same thing: avast! does well at virus detection and prevention.

Resource usage was average but still among one of the better performers.

There's plenty of online technical support, but phone support is limited to basic issues only.

Its interface is well-lableled and it even offers more control for power users than a lot of competing products.

So, despite some drawbacks, avast Pro Antivirus 2012 continues to be a strong antivirus software competitor.

Norton Antivirus Software 2012

Who hasn't heard of Norton Antivirus?

Norton is easily one of the best known products in the antivirus and Internet security marketplace.

Despite its size and clout, recent years haven't been kind to Norton.

Their software earned an unfortunate (but well-deserved) reputation for being a slow, resource-hog.

We're happy to report Norton AntiVirus 2012 is making a good comeback this year; gone are the days of their bloated, system-draining antivirus software.

This year's version is leaner and comes with one of the best, fastest, and easiest to use installers of any 2012 product.

Customer and technical support remains a challenge for Norton. While they provide most of the standard self-help options (articles, FAQs, forums, etc), they still don't have 100% free tech support for serious issues.

In fact, it'll cost you up to $99 if you have any real problems like virus removal that self-help options can't always solve.

The user interface is modern looking and polished but has some areas that seem to be bolted on where there are things like mismatched styles. Not a show stopper, but not the best either.

On the plus side, Norton's actual antivirus protection--particularly its realtime protection--is among the best anywhere. It stands up well with all of the major testing labs around the world, including our own.

They've managed to improve their game with good virus removal, too.

Overall, Norton AntiVirus 2012 makes a big leap forward this year. We like the core antivirus protection and removal it provides and continue to hope for better tech support and a interface improvements.

Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus + Antispyware 2012

From one year to the next, we have high hopes for improvements and revisions from all antivirus companies.

In the case of the 2012 version of Trend Micro Antivirus, we were worried when they added the word "Titanium" to its name. Why?

Often when a manufacturer does something like that, it means there's nothing new under the hood, so they're hoping a name change will be enough for them to get away with calling it a "new" version.

We're happy to report this is not the case with Trend. Their 2012 edition brings excellent improvement over the 2010 version in the way of real-time antivirus protection and virus detection.

We also saw improved ability to actually remove the malware (of all sorts, viruses, worms, trojans, keyloggers, spyware, etc.) that it detected.

That said, we're still disappointed with its resource usage and their technical support options, and their new update mechanism leaves a lot to be desired.

It's entirely unclear when your software last updated and gives no option for manually updating it yourself if you need (or just want) to.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 5

ESET NOD32 Antivirus software 5 (2012) may still have that same, funny-sounding name, but it's still a serious contender in the antivirus software world, and we take that very seriously.

The user interface is quite attractive and professional looking. It looks like software is supposed to. The left-side navigation is a bonus, and even though some of the inner settings are too sparse and thin sometimes, it still feels like one unified program with no bolted on parts.

As for actual antivirus protection, ESET has made a great leap forward this year with much better real-time protection against zero-day threats, one of the things that concern us the most, but their scanning and virus clean-up left behind troublesome traces during some tests, including things like incomplete malware removal that kept triggering detections despite being unable to fully remove the detected threat.

Overall, ESET despite placing where it did in our tests, it's actually quite good software and it should still be considered viable antivirus software because of its strength against zero-day threats and its good interface.

Panda Antivirus Pro 2012

Not so long ago, Panda was among our favorite products. It offered good protection and important features no one else did.

Sadly, about the same time other companies started to catch up with Panda's features, they seemed to be slipping elsewhere in the technology race.

We thought Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 was going to at least be an average antivirus software this year, but Panda dropped the ball on several levels.

For one, we experienced some very strange, frustrating issues during the installation process. Most notably we were continually directed and re-directed back to their Spanish section when getting the Panda download for some reason, and there was no way around it.

There was also an issue with a component of Panda crashing inexplicably during testing, which rendered our test PCs vulnerable to threats.

The user interface is too basic, dark and dreary for our liking. On top of that, there isn't the correct level of control over the settings that we'd like to see.

As for actual antivirus protection, Panda earned average scores across the board from independent testing labs which we also saw in our own extensive testing.

Their real-time protection wasn't up to par with the competitors, and we saw issues issues with Panda not being able to clean up the mess some viruses left behind.

Add on a poorly designed support system, and we have no choice but to rank Panda at the bottom of our list this year.

McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2012

Up there with Norton in consumer name recognition is McAfee. It's easily one of best-known and most popular competitors in PC security.

The problem is that despite their size, McAfee in many ways just isn't making the grade anymore.

We're sorry to say that McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 just isn't up to our standards again this year. And even though McAfee has had a long life in the antivirus software world and is well-known, that doesn't automatically mean that it's good antivirus software.

For starters, the virus removal and detection were far below acceptable. Somehow McAfee failed to remove over 40% of the embedded viruses during our testing. That said, however, we do have to give them credit for good real-time protection.

Put another way, it was great at preventing viruses but not great at removing them on systems that were already infected.

We saw McAfee successfully detect and block just about all the live threats that came at it; however, the big trade-off was a very slow system. McAfee took a lot of system resources while scanning and stopping these incoming virus threats.

Even when running idle, McAfee has more system processes running that any other antivirus software we've seen this year. While that makes sense in some respects, it can make an older PC significantly slower in day-to-day use, particularly web use.

The user interface is small and tightly confined making it difficult and uncomfortable to use. Most everything you do requires scrolling and hunting for the option you're after.

Practically speaking, it's a rehash of the same user interface McAfee used last year. We didn't like then, and we don't like it now, so there's no improvement there.

Overall, McAfee just isn't what it could be, especially given the size of a company like theirs.

Avira Antivirus Premium 2012

Avira Antivirus Premium 2012 proves to be a good contender this year in the antivirus software arena. Their core, antivirus engine scored well in its first year in our tests.

One thing it falls short on is its antiphishing filter. It did stop attacks, but not as many as the best software of the year.

That said, it is one of the few programs that offers antiphishing in all their products, even their entry level one, so if you're considering Avira, this is one feature you're unlikely to get from the competition.

Aside from that, we also saw a couple of instances where Avira had problems removing rootkits from PCs that were already infected with them.

Luckily, Avira's customer service is very good. For starters, it's free for all levels of technical support, including virus removal. Theirs is the only product other than VIPRE to offer this great feature.

This is one of those things you hope you never have to use, but that they offer this service is a significant benefit to this software and to their customers.

The user interface is clean and simple. There's a Basic mode and an Expert mode that should satisfy any user. The interface is fast and responsive and works like you'd expect it to.

Overall, Avira Antivirus Premium 2012 shapes up to be a very good antivirus program that we wish we'd tested sooner.