Top Antivirus Software

This product receives superior scores in performance and has very good South African support.

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BitDefender Antivirus

Performance: Excellent,
Ease of Use: Very Good
Effectiveness: Excellent
Features: Very Good
Installation: Very Easy
Scanning Capabilities : Excellent
Negatives : none
Overall: 9.2

With good heuristics VirusScan provides solid protection.

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McAfee VirusScan

Performance: Excellent
Ease of Use: Very Good
Effectiveness: Very Good
Features: Very Good
Installation: Good
Scanning Capabilities : Very good
Negatives : Very expensive support calls and heavily promotes other McAfee security products
Overall: 8.7

This program had the quickest response to new malware outbreaks. It is also light on computer resources and everything seems to be configurable.

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Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Performance: Excellent
Ease of Use: Good
Effectiveness: Very Good
Features: Good
Installation: Very Good
Scanning Capabilities : The Best
Negatives : The interface is not the best
Overall: 8.5

The F-Secure heuristic scanner is considered by many to be one the best and most complete. F-Secure is also very good at releasing updated news on malware outbreaks.

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F-Secure Anti-Virus

Performance: Excellent
Ease of Use: Good
Effectiveness: Very Good
Features: Good
Installation: Good
Scanning Capabilities : Good
Negatives : There is no webmail protection or file sharing protection
Overall: 8.3

Scans only files and processes at risk using Norton Insight. It also uses very little system resources and has free support. The new interface looks great.

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Symantec AntiVirus

Performance: Good
Ease of Use: Very Good
Effectiveness: Very Good
Features: Good
Installation: Good
Scanning Capabilities : Good
Negatives : updates are still too large
Overall: 8.0

The software has a clean appearance and very few options making it very easy to navigate.

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Panda Titanium 2009

Performance: Good
Ease of Use: Very Good
Effectiveness: Very Good
Features: Good
Installation: Excellent
Scanning Capabilities : OK
Negatives : cannot password protect your settings
Overall: 7.9

AntiVir performed one of the best in the free programs, although it failed to clean several old macro viruses.

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AntiVir AntiVirus

Performance: Good
Ease of Use: Good
Effectiveness: Good
Features: Good
Installation: Very Good
Scanning Capabilities : OK
Negatives : failed to clean old macro viruses
Overall: 7.8

Scan speed was slow but has a advanced and standard interface option.

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Avast AntiVirus

Performance: Fair
Ease of Use: Fair
Effectiveness: Good
Features: Good
Installation: Good
Scanning Capabilities : OK
Negatives : Slow scan speeds
Overall: 7.7

Although the best interface of all reviewed products, Trend Micro does lack .

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Trend Micro

Performance: Fair
Ease of Use: Excellent
Effectiveness: Very Good
Features: Very Good
Installation: Good
Scanning Capabilities : Fair
Negatives : Can cause problems with freezing and seems to conflict with Firefox and MSN Live Messenger.
Overall: 7.7

Interface has improved over the years and AVG free software is fast becoming the most popular free antivirus .

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AVG Anti-Virus

Performance: Fair
Ease of Use: Excellent
Effectiveness: Very Good
Features: Very Good
Installation: Good
Scanning Capabilities : Fair
Negatives : Lacks password protected settings
Overall: 7.7