2012 Antivirus Software Reviews

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Software 2012

Kaspersky continues to grow as a household name in the antivirus software world for good reason. It seems Kaspersky is always in the winner's circle, collecting top awards and earning certifications from the world's leading antivirus testing labs.

However, some parts of the software, particularly in terms of its overall usability, aren't as polished as some of their competitors--a little strange given how well Kaspersky did in this area with prior versions.

The bottom line, we like Kasperksy. It did well in our tests and their latest version, Anti-Virus 2012, is still on top of its game this year.
Despite some annoying aspects of their user interface and technical support, Kaspersky's antivirus protection is top-notch.

It all starts with their well-respected research lab. Against new and emerging threats Kaspersky is among the absolute best anywhere in the world, and it shows in the software.

Kaspersky's success in our labs against brand new viruses was excellent, with Kaspersky blocking over 95% of the new threats we tested with, and when it did clear warnings given about blocked threats.

On the downside, Kaspersky struggled to remove some threats other software cleaned the first time through, and its antiphishing feature was less than impressive.

In spite of that, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 is very effective--as it has been for years--when it comes to core, antivirus protection.
Resource usage for Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 was average during normal, real-time protection, but a little higher than average during manual scans.

CPU usage was low at 1% when running idle, with average memory usage at 59% across our test systems.

We saw little in added load from Kaspersky while we did normal things like web surfing, and interestingly, in some cases when we hit sites with known exploits, CPU usage noticeably spiked while Kaspersky dealt with the threat. (It was clear Kaspersky and the malware were duking it out.)

Given the choice of a few moments of high CPU use or an infected PC, a few seconds of high CPU use is an easy choice.

During manual scans, CPU use was consistently higher, averaging 88% with memory hovering just over 85%. Throw some peaks in there, and it's clear you're better off running manual scans when you're not at your PC. (Manual scans can take hours, so running them when you're away is common.)
The UI is clean and modern looking at first glance with a few simple buttons to access basic settings. As you dig deeper settings if you need to, you might run into some trouble as we did.

While there are lots of useful tools within the software, there can be a sense of information overload as you drill deeper--especially the first few times.

While the deeper, advanced settings are logical and accessible, it can be confusing to know what you should have selected and what you don't need to.

Then there's Kaspersky's prominent "Cloud Protection" button that opens the current state of their cloud processing with "Safe data" and "Dangerous data" numbers displayed.

That's fine, but the use of a big red "dangerous data" can leave the impression a system is somehow unprotected.

Overall, even though there are many options and some unclear labels, we like the new Kaspersky interface.
Kaspersky's support for Anti-Virus 2012 is disappointing. While there are several options for getting technical help, getting there is confusing and in some cases broken.

The support link in user interface, for instance, launches a pop-up with several support options: FastTrack, Knowledgebase, and User Forums. Click FastTrack and a new browser opens with another pop-up that's meant to guide you through some "FastTrack" help.

However, this guide didn't work in four different browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. There was an obvious bug that prevented us from using this feature at all. (How this made it into production is a mystery.)

Next, the knowledgebase is hard to use, finding information in it is a chore. Anything you click opens up more options, which open more options, and so on. While the idea is to help narrow problems, it seemed to have the opposite effect.

Finding a phone number, email, or chat is equally tough. After wading through Kaspersky's information overload, we finally found a US contact page with options for email, chat, and phone technical support.

We're glad there's a phone support option for Kaspersky, but it's clear they're doing their best to avoid talking to anyone.

The bottom line: a "poor" rating for their tech support.
We have one major concern with Kaspersky's update procedure. During installation, current antivirus updates aren't automatically downloaded. You'll need to run a manual update immediately after install.

We can't see why Kaspersky doesn't download these updates automatically as top competitors like VIPRE and BitDefender both do.

When we ran the manual update, everything downloaded just fine for us (although it took almost 10 minutes), but we didn't have that same success when we downloaded updates for Kaspersky Internet Security: there was an error. While we had success this time with Kaspersky Anti-Virus, there've been other reports that this download error is a common occurrence. That's concerning.

After this initial update, automatic updates are set to download and install when available.

Kaspersky 2012 has some interesting new features including a virtual keyboard (a rare but useful tool).

The other noteworthy extra feature is the vulnerability detection. While most antivirus software has this these days, it's even more important than ever to make sure your applications are all fully patched and up to date.

This virtual keyboard is a clever way to outsmart keyloggers that may be hiding on your computer. With the virtual keyboard, you use your mouse to click the keys instead of your keyboard.

This way, your keystrokes aren't logged by most keyloggers. It's a nice way of protecting your passwords and login information to bank, financial insititions, and other sensitive places.

One of the most common ways for viruses to infect your computer are programs like Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat/Reader. Even though Microsoft and Adobe do their best to fix the vulnerabilities, most people don't update these patches fast enough to be fully protected.

Kaspersky's vulnerability detection helps you to stay on top of those patches by checking to make sure your applications are fully patched and up to date.

While it's not perfect since it can't check for all updates to all software, it's still a great feature whose praises we can't sing loudly enough. Every antivirus software should have this feature. Even though Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 has its issues, it still presents a strong antivirus engine and great extra features that'll protect your system quite well.

Though we saw some high resource usage, it was mainly when we were doing full blown manual scans. If you do them at night or when you're not using your PC, these are unlikely to have any effect on your PC's usability.

The new for 2012 interface is good at high levels but can be confusing when you first drill down into deeper levels. Stick with it though, and you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Despite its faults in usability and tech support, in terms of core protection, Kaspersky was impressive and really does a great job.

Beyond these things, Kaspersky remains a strong antivirus contender with great protection. And even if it did take some dings from us, if you're in need of software to remove an existing virus, Kaspersky 2012 is one of the best choices.