[BlackBlade]

Part III





Pay-For Programs:

1. Panda Security AntiVirus 2008
   Score: 786
   Scoring as #1 on my review is this wonderful program. Panda is the highest ranking anti-virus that I tested, and it deserves all of its 5/5 stars. Scans with this program were quick, it detected and removed all of the viruses while also detecting the suspicious files and removing them too, all in the first scan! I also noticed that, on my system, it wasn't that bad with memory usage, as I had previously posted before. Updates to this program's database are delivered daily, or even multiple times in one day. Panda is really keeping up with the latest virus happenings. Honostly, I was slightly surprised with the result of this test. It looks like underdogs can come out on top.
2. Kaspersky Anti-Virus:
   Score: 694
   Arriving in second place is Kaspersky's latest Anti-Virus. Again, I was shocked at the detection ability of this program. It detected all of the viruses, suspicious files, and even the tiny residue left over from the test before it (McAfee) on the first sweep. So, why didn't this program come in first place? It, unfortunately, detected files as viruses that were not viruses and tried to delete them. These files were left over from the McAfee testing (take a good look at their review...). This detected the viruses running in the system memory immediately, something that took the other scanners some time. Overall, this product still gets its 5/5 stars!
3. F-Secure Anti-Virus:
   Score: 623
   Third place is F-Secure Anti-Virus. This program received a similar score as avast! above, something that I took note of. This anti-virus program speaks for itself. It is slightly pricey, but it offers great protection and security to your computer. This also detected all of the virus programs, but missed on half of the suspicious files. The viruses were cleaned on the first sweep, but I did see that this tended to hog CPU cycles. 4/5
4. Panda Security Online Active Scan:
   Score: 320
   Panda Active Scan is not a full anti-virus product. It is an online ActiveX scan that will detect and disinfect the viruses on your computer. One of the test viruses actually stopped it from working. Once I removed that one myself, the scan detected the virus files, but only disinfected half. Bottom line, go with the full and real version of this software.
5. McAfee VirusScan Plus:
   Score: 20
   No, that is no typo. This got a score of only 20. Why? The virus programs actually disabled this program, not allowing it to run, scan, or disinfect. The 20 points come from the UI.
6. Symantec Norton AntiVirus
   Score: 20
   Same as McAfee review above.

Overall

Overall, all of these products (except for McAfee and Norton) worked very well at cleaning up the infected system. For the free user, avast! looks like the way to go, with the pay software winner going to Panda. Some of these “battles” were really close and came down to a few key points.