As for 'Windows Defender' (or Microsoft Security Essentials) - almost all the alternatives are considerably better.
Yep, no kidding. Microsoft's available AV products are horrible (and that's an understatement) compared to virtually any other AV protection, free or commercial.
Re 'AVG' - AVG Free AV is very good, although most labs testing show 'avast! Free AV' to be a bit better.
Very good is highly subjective.
I've been shocked at the amount of malware I've found on hard drives moved from PCs running Windows that were running fully updated AVG when I scanned them later with other products. ;-)
Yes - perhaps it would be better if I'd just said 'good' rather than
'very good'.
It's not the best - but it is 'good' protection, compromised some 6~7 times fewer than Microsoft's MSE - and why people like
AV-Comparatives.org still give it an 'Advanced **' award, ref: their
'Real World Protection Test (March-June 2013)' .
One significant point of note though, which is easily overlooked - the AVG version tested there, is actually a paid for 'Internet Security' version - it's not the 'AVG Free Antivirus' version - whereas the 'avast!' version tested there, which performs better than 'AVG IS', is actually avast's free version.
Infact, I believe the only 'Free' versions in that test series are 'avast!', 'Qihoo 360', Panda (and of course Microsoft), just 4 of the 21 products tested - though a few others do have free counterparts not tested there.
My advice at this stage would be to consider swapping AVG for 'avast! Free AV'.
Yes, Avast does tend to do very nicely on some tests. But, if you look at the most recent av-comparatives real world tests that you linked to, it still missed malware (even though it did better on some of the previous tests). It let machines running it be compromised.
'avast! Free AV' did every bit as well as most of the other products tested -
all of the products tested allowed machine to be compromised, to varying degrees, at some point.
In a couple of the last six months, it had better results than your beloved 'Emisoft'. -)
I'm not sure why, but those interactive charts don't work on my PC (XP with IE8) - they used to work some time ago - any suggestion as to what I'm missing, settings/plugins?
The problem anymore is that the amount of new malware being seen every month is increasing at an alarming level. See some of the stats at av-test.org for an example of that:
http://www.av-test.org/en/statistics/malware/
So, a product that had 99% protection in the past may have been great. But, in today's environment, that's just not good enough, as there is simply so much new malware being introduced that you need better protection.
You really are being overly alarmist and misrepresenting the risk.
The number of new viruses simply does not indicate the risk of infection.
For example, Microsoft's most recent survey statistics (albeit stat's only from their own security products) show that in recent quarter year periods just 17%, i.e. 1 in 6 computers 'encountered' any malware - so the majority, 5 out of 6, or 83% of computers didn't even 'encounter' any malware, for months at a time.
Further to that, we can reasonably assume that somewhere in the region of say 98% (sometimes higher, sometimes lower) of 'encounters' fail to infect/compromise due to patched vulnerabilities, and anti-malware software blocking them.
So, by some crude mathematics, that would suggest that the risk of compromise/infection for most people is probably, on average, only about 0.3%.
Examining even further - only a small percentage of infections/compromises actually result in significant harm/loss - so if we speculatively that say 2% of infections/compromises result in significant loss/cost (I doubt it was even that high), the risk at this level might be as small as only 0.006% or just 1 in 17,000.
The risk of significant harm/loss/cost is far lower than you might suggest - and even lower if people exercised best practice/reasonable caution.
I see members argue all the time that if you're careful about not opening attachments, don't visit sites that are not reputable, etc,. you won't get infected.
It won't necessarily stop infection, but it certainly will go a long way to greatly reducing the risk.
The vast majority of infections are the result of such easily exploited human failings - email 'phishing', attachments, downloading software/pirated content from untrustworthy sources, and visiting 'dubious' web-sites.
I disagree, as "legit" sites are hacked into on a regular basis with malware planted on them.
It certainly happens - but most people will rarely encounter it that way.
That's the just times we live in. So, I'd try to find the absolutely best protection you can; as a few bucks/month is a small price to pay versus the time and effort you may need to go through if your computer is compromised (not to mention the problems with bank accounts being emptied, other online accounts compromised because of your passwords being stolen, etc.)
Again - you are being alarmist.
It can happen - but just as, every day, people get 'run over' crossing the streets - but that doesn't mean that you absolutely have to go out walking in full body armour and helmet.
.....
Now, frankly, I try to limit my time running in Windows to as little as possible anyway. But, when I do need to run Windows (using 64 Bit Win 7 currently), I want to make sure I have everything up to date (OS patches, browsers, plugins, etc.) using the best AV protection I can find. Of course, why I don't like to use Windows any more than absolutely necessary is another topic. ;-)
Frankly, I think you are being excessively paranoid.
I'm still using Windows XP (SP3) - I've only ever used Microsoft IE browsers (and XP only supports up to IE8) - and I've only ever used 'free' anti-virus/security products.
I do all my banking/investing/insurance/utility accounts, on-line shopping, etc, etc - all using the above system - and all without the slightest problem for well over 10 years (and a few years before that using Windows 98).
