Talk:Comparison of antivirus software

Entries need to be checked
I did not verify the correctness of all the information that I entered. Some of the information origins from other articles in Wikipedia. Sometimes, there is the danger of mistakes when copying this information. E. g., the article about AVG Anti-Virus says that it is also available for Linux and that there is a free edition. However, the free edition is not available for Linux... --MrWiseGuy 09:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a free edition of AVG Linux Refer to the follwing link

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/29124/us/frt/0

--Venu--213.42.21.149 14:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Other Antivirus Software?
Does anybody have other well known anti-virus softwares, such as McAfee and Norton?


 * Sophos and Trend are also missing despite being major players. --DanielRigal (talk) 10:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is missing too. SEppley (talk) 19:35, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Returnil Virtual System (http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/) has an integrated antivirus. comes in free version and paid.Newtonsghost (talk) 16:00, 3 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It would be nice to add Kaspersky to the Linux list. As far as I remember it was one among the first to release their AV for the Linux OS too (as AVP and after AVP's split to AVG and Kaspersky (2 branches or forks)) and it has lots of versions today (for Linux Workstation, Mailservers, Fileservers, Antispam, etc.) (Velja) 22:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that Norton 360 isn't on the list (it's been around for a few years now and has an article on WP at Norton 360, neither is Norton Mobile Security (unsure as to whether that has an article on WP). I may be biased as I'm a Norton user so I'd rather that someone who has a more independent view of AV software update that. I'm also not very good with creating and updating tables on WP - I need to spend more time in the Sandbox learning my way around tables first.

Any thoughts? --Usual people in life (talk) 11:20, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Mac Version of avast!
There is Mac Version of avast! as well http://www.avast.com/eng/press-release-avast-mac-edition-released.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.234.201.49 (talk) 11:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Sortable columns
Why are all the license entries the same color? MSE marketing team perhaps? Or it was an arbitrary decision and I'm just lazy. Anybody up for the job, please update. Would be nice to make tables sortable by license type, price, and other stats.99.108.226.85 (talk) 23:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

What's the "live update" column?
Column titles which are neither linked or explained in a legend in this article should be removed, no? Except the obvious, self-explanatory ones. Somehow, this "live update" does not quite do it for me. --Jerome Potts (talk) 06:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Need date of product testing
while i applaud the compilation of data here, it would be good to understand it's relevance for today. meaning, what is the year/date of the testing done at the independent labs? the presumption is that these results are current which could give inaccurate information.Newtonsghost (talk) 15:56, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Missing Antivirus Vendors
1.) Adaware (by Lavasoft) has had included A-V for some time, also has standalone Antivirus. Adaware uses GFI engine. 2.) Microsoft also uses someone elses antivirus engine, not sure but they bought a major stake in G Data? 3.) Zones (Zone Alarm) Antivirus is free and rated higher than Norton et al. It is standalone from Zone Alarm Firewall. Shjacks45 (talk) 19:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Please add a section listing why each product was removed as non-notable
The footnote listing products removed as non-notable does not give any reasons for their exclusion. Because assessing the notability of anything is one of the most contentious issues amongst Wikipedians, reasons need to be given.

It would also be nice to have a specification as to which notability criteria are used for list inclusion (these surely cannot be the same as the criteria for creation of whole articles). One should also consider if notability of being the biggest scam since Madoff would pass the criteria of being a "notable" AV product (I see no such products on the list now, which is objectively good).

Currently it seems that any Wikipedian could exclude or include any product other than their own, by simply claiming notability or not without backing up their claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbohmdk (talk • contribs) 03:25, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Please add a column indicating the spying nature of some AV products
Some AV products work by routinely sending (some of) the users files to an online server for examination. Some AV products send statistics about the users files to the vendor. Some make this optional, but punish users who refuse by giving them less protection.

These factors can be critical selection criteria for anyone who has confidential materials on their computers, regardless of the apparent trustworthyness of the vendor. Thus the presence, absence or optionality of such functionality should be included as another column in the tables.

Some possible values in such a column could be "no" (green), "option" (green), "pushed" (== optional, but with penalty if refused) (yellow), "yes" (red).

A few years ago, it would be absurd to suggest any AV product did that, today it is an increasingly common practice and thus something to watch out for. Jbohmdk (talk) 03:36, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion Criteria
You should NOT add antivirus software to this list unless it has an article or you can provide citation to its notability while it remains a red link.

Also, as this "ref" is not encyclopedic content I have removed the in-line comments from the article

--Jpswade (talk) 09:18, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion Criteria Updated
Anti-Virus software must:

- Have a Wikipedia article written about it first.

or

- If software is a Red Link, it must be at least referenced within another Wikipedia Article (preferably the software vendor's article) until a Wikipedia article is written for it.

Feel free to discus below.

-- Deadhell

More antivirus software from the VirusTotal article
This is a c&p from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirusTotal

Original URL is: https://www.virustotal.com/en/about/credits/

• AegisLab (AegisLab)

• Agnitum (Agnitum)

• AhnLab Inc (AhnLab V3)

• Antiy Labs (Antiy-AVL)

• Aladdin (eSafe)

• ALWIL (Avast! Antivirus)

• AVG Technologies (AVG)

• Avira (AntiVir)

• Baidu (Baidu-International)

• BitDefender GmbH (BitDefender)

• Bkav Corporation (Bkav)

• ByteHero Information Security Technology Team (ByteHero)

• Cat Computer Services (Quick Heal)

• CMC InfoSec (CMC Antivirus)

• Commtouch (Command Antivirus)

• ClamAV (ClamAV)

• Comodo (Comodo)

• Doctor Web, Ltd. (Dr.Web)

• Emsi Software GmbH (Emsisoft)

• Eset Software (ESET NOD32)

• Fortinet (Fortinet)

• FRISK Software (F-Prot)

• F-Secure (F-Secure)

• G DATA Software (GData)

• Hacksoft (The Hacker)

• Hauri (ViRobot)

• Ikarus Software (Ikarus)

• INCA Internet (nProtect)

• Jiangmin

• K7 Computing (K7AntiVirus, K7GW)

• Kaspersky Lab (Kaspersky Anti-Virus)

• Kingsoft (Kingsoft)

• Malwarebytes Corporation (Malwarebytes Anti-malware)

• McAfee (VirusScan)

• Microsoft (Malware Protection)

• Microworld (eScan)

• Nano Security (Nano Antivirus)

• Norman (Norman Antivirus)

• Panda Security (Panda Platinum)

• PC Tools (PCTools)

• Qihoo 360 (Qihoo 360)

• Rising Antivirus (Rising)

• Sophos (SAV)

• Sunbelt Software (Sunbelt antivirus)

• SUPERAntiSpyware (SUPERAntiSpyware)

• Symantec AntiVirus

• TotalDefense (TotalDefense)

• Trend Micro (TrendMicro, TrendMicro-HouseCall)

• VirusBlokAda (VBA32)

Tobias B. Besemer (talk) 02:23, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Cleanup
The "Criteria" section is NOT encyclopedic as it is self-referencing. The criteria of 'still active' is NOT encyclopedic either, inactive entries are encyclopedic and should not be excluded from this list. --Jpswade (talk) 11:14, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

OPSWAT
I sincerely don't understand why there is a column for OPSWAT. I don't think there is any encyclopedic value in it, for a much-too-wide table. Even after I visited the article on OPSWAT (which is about a private company), I couldn't know what the meaning of the categories in that column is. I propose to delete it from this article (and at the most to add it to the article on that company). --Jasón (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Totally agree. Came to say exactly this; there's nothing useful in this column since there's literally no explanation of what any of the values in this column mean.
 * Vynce (talk) 06:23, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

features should be verified and differentiated when dealing with free vs. paid
Kaspersky for Android is free for on-demand but paid for on-access. I imagine a lot of them are like that and that is a significant feature. It's misleading to imply something is a free product with X feature, but really you have to pay for that feature.Jawz101 (talk) 18:12, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

there should be feature parity when dealing with desktop vs. mobile products
I think of AV heuristics as even more important today on a mobile device when compared to a desktop. The columns for mobile and desktop should be the same, regardless. Also, when comparing AV products on mobile, the random extra features they bake in which have nothing to do with the AV engine. They all add some sort of backup solution, parental controls, SMS blocking, AntiTheft and privacy advisors but that has nothing to do with the AV engine's capabilities. They're just throwing in extra features to justify some sort of value to their product. An android app privacy advisor? Come on. All that does is read app manifests for permissions- hardly an antivirus thing. Just some unsophisticated thing they throw in to pretend to be relevant.

I have yet to see a mobile AV engine actually go into technical detail on their AV engine on the mobile OS which leads me to believe most are crude. The focus should be on the Anti-Virus detection and not fluff features.

Add Malwarebytes
I noticed that Malwarebytes is not on this page. Could someone put it on? Info2Learn (talk) 03:51, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Added Generud (talk) 08:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Updates to Microsoft - Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection
The table comparison is out of date, can someone please refresh it? The following links provide information on what Windows Defender can/can't do, hoping we can get that updated!

https://wincom.blob.core.windows.net/documents/Windows10_Commercial_Comparison.pdf (linked to from the 'Download Full Comparison Table' link/button towards the bottom of https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsforbusiness/compare)

They also list latest test scores from AV-TEST: https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/business-windows-client/ Iaanw (talk) 23:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Email Security
As of this writing, the term "Email Security" refers to the protection of emails from viruses and malware. The term is also defined by contrast to "AntiSpam". Now, while the latter is a clear indication that the software additionally endeavors in recognizing spammy messages —a feature outside its bailiwick— the fact that an anti-virus software can recognize viruses and malware is so obvious that it certainly doesn't deserve a column on its own. However, there are some lines where Email Security is set to No. For example:


 * ClamAV: On their site I read ClamAV® is an open source (GPL) anti-virus engine used in a variety of situations including email scanning,....
 * ESET: They have a page about Email clients.
 * Fortinet: They have a FortiMail product, for email gateways.
 * Kaspersky: Likewise, Secure Mail Gateway.
 * Quick Heal: They claim it Efficiently blocks emails that might carry infected attachments or links to compromised or fake and phishing websites.

The above lines result from a quick googling for "mail" on the web sites where the column says "No", limited to the Linux table. So, the table is wrong, isn't it? Think about it: Viruses are not propagated via diskettes as in the 1980s. Email and the web are the main propagation channels. Here I concentrate on email because the web features binary content while email attachments can be encoded in a variety of ways. In fact, in the early 2000s email scanning implied extracting MIME attachments before invoking an AV scanner. Nowadays, it is highly unlikely that an AV product cannot scan email messages directly. AV filters are deployed on email servers as well as on end users' devices. The question is about email handling software, be it an SMTP daemon or an IMAP client. That software is responsible for scanning new email messages. Otherwise, there are anti-virus tools which scan everything on every file access, intercepting system calls whenever the disk is read, thereby relieving email (and browser) software from their responsibility. Even if the latter method can catch viruses in email attachments, I wouldn't tag it Email Security, as it is a totally different feature.

That Email Security column is not only wrong, it is deceptive. ale (talk) 11:55, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Outdated info
The Kaspersky products listed here are discontinued. ￼ TheMaggster (talk) 04:51, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * ? 2405:9800:BA20:4D21:C481:B829:9264:19C3 (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Antivirus for Linux : adding eScan ?
Can someone add the indian company eScan please ? (website). Dadu (talk) 16:51, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

F-Secure for Linux
I can not find any evidence that F-Secure offers, of ever has offered, an antivirus program for linux. Either someone made it up to confuse people or f-secure are great at stopping me from buying their products 2A10:D582:6397:0:703E:7155:61F1:F13E (talk) 14:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)