The Best Antivirus in 2006 & The Best Free Software Firewall

September 5th, 2006 · No Comments

I use OS X at home, so what do I care, in work though I’m an IT Security Consultant stuck using Windows XP, just like most other people.

If you are using XP what antivirus and firewall should you have installed these days? It used to be AVG and Zonealarm, back in the day. Have things changed? Virus.gr has run a test and the results are surprising:

Rank

1. Kaspersky version 6.0.0.303 - 99.62%

2. Active Virus Shield by AOL version 6.0.0.299 - 99.62%

3. F-Secure 2006 version 6.12.90 - 96.86%

4. BitDefender Professional version 9 - 96.63%

5. CyberScrub version 1.0 - 95.98%

6. eScan version 8.0.671.1 - 95.82%

7. BitDefender freeware version 8.0.202 - 95.57%

8. BullGuard version 6.1 - 95.57%

9. AntiVir Premium version 7.01.01.02 - 95.45%

10. Nod32 version 2.51.30 - 95.14%

11. AntiVir Classic version 7.01.01.02 - 94.26%

12. ViruScape 2006 version 1.02.0935.0137 - 93.87%

13. McAfee version 10.0.27 - 93.03%

14. McAfee Enterprise version 8.0.0 - 91.76%

15. F-Prot version 6.0.4.3 beta - 87.88%

16. Avast Professional version 4.7.871 - 87.46%

17. Avast freeware version 4.7.871 - 87.46%

18. Dr. Web version 4.33.2 - 86.03%

19. Norman version 5.90.23 - 85.65%

20. F-Prot version 3.16f - 85.14%

First of all it is not surprising that Mcafee and Norton performed so badly. Those two products cost a fortune to either buy or keep updated (if you got it free somehow, like with a new PC) and they just don’t seem to work well at all. Mcafee and 13/14 and Norton didn’t even manage to get in the top 20. Avast beat AVG, the two biggest freeware antivirus products; but a new free product beat them both. AOL Virus Shield. It’s effectivly joint first as AOL Virus Shield is Kaspersky rebranded.

AOL doing something good? Ice rink in hell? Seems so. The current best Windows antivirus is AOL Virus Shield, it’s free and beats any of the pay for products.

What about firewalls? The free firewall that is winning all the awards right now, like ZoneAlarm did once upon a time, is called Comodo. I really recommend it for Windows users, download it and save it to a CD. Then when you need it you have a copy you can install on Windows before connecting Windows to the Internet. I advise the same with AOL Virus Shield.