Be it Mac or PC, there are plethora of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware, or just in general anti-malware software suites out there, that all ofter to sell you exactly the same thing: the ability to make a computer that you already own in to one that you can feel confident is both secure, and running at peak performance.
While all of these claim to have the same goal, and most of the solutions that have risen to popularity have comparable results, they are far from all being the same thing.
Notably, there are three main metrics that are important to properly understanding the differences between these programs: Cost, Sensitivity/Specificity, Cost in performance.
Cost
This is a big one, and for good reason, the amount of money that you spend on a program that will inherently only be good for a year or so (most programs charge on a yearly subscription biased scheme) Is important, and is a big factor for many people when deciding what anti-virus program to use.
Fortunately for the sake of simplicity, The big two come in at roughly the same price, making the decision between them relatively easy.
But don't be too quick to assume that they are your only two options, or your only two well established options for that matter. There are many other programs out there that when compared to McAfee and Norton fair just as well, if not better for less than the chunk of change others demand.
Microsoft Security Essentials, is one of my favorite out of the "free" variety mainly because it is the only one that it's fair to really call free, sure AVG and Avast have options that won't cost you a dime, but they are constantly begging you to upgrade to their premium versions, while MSE offers you the full experience right out of the box.
But how good is it? How do each of these stack up against each other? and how likely is it to stop an infection, verses annoy you with "threat detected" notifications every time a web page wants to load a photo.
Sensitivity/Specificity
Sensitivity is how likely a program is to detect the potential malware that you installed it to protect your computer from, whereas Specificity is how likely it is to only throw up notifications when you need them; basicly specificity is how likely your Antivirus is to "cry wolf".
When comparing antivirus programs it's important to keep BOTH of these factors in mind, because while a high sensitivity is great, but if that comes with a low specificity it means virtually nothing. By the time it catches something worth your attention, you will have already trained yourself to just ignore it's notifications. Which can be as bad as having no Antivirus at all.
So, with that in mind, it becomes clear that what we are looking for is a program that offers a good level of sensitivity but a HIGH level of specificity. There are many options that provide this, and most suites can be configured to give you a high level of either sensitivity or specificity, but we will try to compare each of them with standard configurations.
Fortunately the good guys over at AV-comparatives.org put together a compareison of the best and worst Antivirus programs for seperating the good the bad and the out right rediculious, you can check out their bi-yearly reports over here, but I have summerized it in the next few grapics:
McAfee comes in with a modest 16 false alarms out of that 9 are likely to affect a large number of users, and 4 pose a serious concern.
AVG had 22 such false alarms, but it is important to note, that while there number was higher than McAfee's it was also less likely to affect as many users meaning that their 22 false alarms where less serious than McAfee's 16.
Microsoft scored the best so far with a total of 5 False positives, and none of them being likely to affect a large number of it's users.
Avast falls dead last with over 100 false detections, making it what many would consider unusable. There were so many false detections that I couldn't fit them all on this page.
Which that brings us to the next metric that's important when evaluating an Antivirus suite, how much are you going to be paying in performance for the peace of mind that it can offer you?
Cost in performance
It's important to keep in mind that all of this protection, no matter how good it might be as discussed earlier in this blog comes at a non-monetary cost; the power in your computer that you're giving up allowing it to run.
For these numbers to make since, you need to keep in mind the specific needs and demands that you have in your computer, and how much of that you are willing to sacrifice to maintain security. For many people I find that having no anti-virus what-so-ever is the best option, however many people would like the peace of mind that a constant scanner can offer. In this respect please keep in mind a few things when choosing your AV software, and then refer to this table to gain a better understanding of which AV software will support your performance needs:
For more general users, I would like to refer you to AV Comparatives awards section, and suggest you choose a product from the advanced+ section that fits your needs the best.
While I will thoroughly stand behind Microsoft Forefront and Security Essentials for being one of the few truly free anti-virus programs out there (without the annoying sales pitches every few minutes, or paid advertisements bundled) It is clear to see that there are plenty of compelling offers that may bring more to the table than MSE in certain area's.
I would like to think our good friends over at http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for allowing us to use thier data and many of their graphics to produce this article, and would highly recomend that you not only look for thier Advanced+ award when shopping for anti-virus software, but stop by thier website and view some of there indept reviews and analtics on any security software before buying it.
For these numbers to make since, you need to keep in mind the specific needs and demands that you have in your computer, and how much of that you are willing to sacrifice to maintain security. For many people I find that having no anti-virus what-so-ever is the best option, however many people would like the peace of mind that a constant scanner can offer. In this respect please keep in mind a few things when choosing your AV software, and then refer to this table to gain a better understanding of which AV software will support your performance needs:
For more general users, I would like to refer you to AV Comparatives awards section, and suggest you choose a product from the advanced+ section that fits your needs the best.
While I will thoroughly stand behind Microsoft Forefront and Security Essentials for being one of the few truly free anti-virus programs out there (without the annoying sales pitches every few minutes, or paid advertisements bundled) It is clear to see that there are plenty of compelling offers that may bring more to the table than MSE in certain area's.I would like to think our good friends over at http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for allowing us to use thier data and many of their graphics to produce this article, and would highly recomend that you not only look for thier Advanced+ award when shopping for anti-virus software, but stop by thier website and view some of there indept reviews and analtics on any security software before buying it.
