2013 Best Antivirus software reviews

#	Name	Usability	Features	Efficiency	Support	Overall
1	Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013	90%	100%	100%	95%	96%	Review Buy Now $49.95
2	Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013	80%	100%	100%	100%	95%	Review Buy Now $39.95
3	F-Secure Anti-Virus	90%	90%	100%	95%	94%	Review Buy Now $39.99
4	G Data AntiVirus 2013	80%	95%	90%	85%	88%	Review Buy Now $29.95
5	avast! Pro Antivirus	90%	90%	80%	80%	85%	Review Buy Now $39.99
6	Panda Antivirus Pro 2013	80%	90%	80%	80%	83%	Review Buy Now $49.99
7	PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus	80%	80%	70%	90%	80%	Review Buy Now $39.99
8	VIPRE Antivirus 2013	85%	60%	70%	90%	76%	Review Buy Now $39.95

What is antivirus software and why is it so important?

It’s totally naive to think that installing antivirus is merely an option these days. Responding to dynamic propagation and continuously increasing sophistication of cyber threats at large, necessity of having an AV program at one’s disposal has definitely become an inalienable attribute of a modern user and is not up for discussion.

Viruses are literally everywhere, thriving in the depths of the worldwide web and never abandoning the attempts to infect computers, which is actually what they are intended to do in the first place. Moreover, you don’t necessarily see obvious signs of their activity as they may reside latently in your system and gradually destroy it from the inside or stealthily harvest your private data. This is another relevant reason why it’s critical to have a reliable antivirus installed, because otherwise you cannot possibly spot and handle these infections.

The present-day antivirus programs efficiently address some of the issues that used to make people doubt about reasonability of using them: they are no longer affecting PC performance nearly as much and can even contribute to optimizing and improving computer usability. The latest cutting-edge antivirus trends are about proactive defense, heuristic virus detection and cloud computing security.

Evaluation criteria

Whereas different antivirus clients may provide specific sets of functions, there still are the common ones that are mandatory for this sort of software. Along with high virus detection and removal scores, the best antivirus application should be intuitively simple to use and ‘light’ enough for the average computer. The most relevant criteria we take into account when rating antivirus software are as follows:

Usability: When installing an antivirus, you should be ideally just a few clicks away from setup completion and the first system scan as that’s where user experience starts. This procedure should as well take a reasonable amount of time. It’s preferable that further use of the product be just as comprehensive. Although modern antivirus software is technically sophisticated and complex by nature, it shouldn’t require advanced skills to use. A sensibly self-contained program demanding a minimum of user interference, consuming a sensible amount of system resources, and providing complete protection is the perfectly balanced one.
Features: It’s always a judicious idea to review the feature set of an antivirus application and see if it precisely matches your needs and meets your expectations. If you are using email a lot, you should probably be looking for inbound and outbound email protection and anti-phishing functions. In case you often connect external devices to your machine, it’s a good idea to install an antivirus that has the auto USB detect feature in store. Should it be in your interest to prevent sensitive information from getting retrieved by third parties, seek a secure file erase functionality and history cleaner. If you want to stay on the safe side when traveling, the netbook mode is what helps you save the battery resources. We deem the availability of these and similar features to be an additional advantage for this evaluation.
Efficiency: When it comes to analyzing a random antivirus program, the determinative measurement unit here is how good it is at coping with the task of detecting and removing the bad stuff. The better this particular objective is performed, the higher grade the app deserves. So the definition of reliable AV software incorporates the capability of combating different types of malicious objects, including stealthy and hard-to-spot rootkit infections, self-replicating worms, privacy-infringing keyloggers, rogue antispyware, etc.
To effectively resist the latest threats out there, antivirus database should be up-to-date and include the fresh signatures so that new infections can be identified and taken care of. Database updates are typically scheduled to be performed automatically at certain intervals, or may be rolled out by security software vendors once a new database version is available. We consider the smoothness and timeliness of these critical processes to be some of the important factors in our rating. Along with providing evaluation results of our own by this criterion, we also resort to the verdicts by some of the reputable testing institutions such as AV-TEST, AV-Comparatives, Virus Bulletin, etc. so as to make the reviews as comprehensive as possible.
Support: It should by no means be a problem seeking help when some issue or inquiry occurs related your antivirus software. The contact channels must be clearly stated and perfectly functional at any time. Availability of user manuals, frequently asked questions and other supplementary support components are also some of the significant criteria we take into account. Furthermore, a special focus is on whether or not direct support via the phone and live chat is part of the vendor’s help policy.

G Data AntiVirus 2013 review

Posted by David Balaban on December 24, 2012

$29.95 G Data AntiVirus 2013 is a streamlined and highly effective solution for everyday security provision. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Buy Now Not only does the motto “Security Made in Germany” being currently used in G Data product...

VIPRE Antivirus 2013 review

Posted by David Balaban on September 25, 2012

$39.99 VIPRE Antivirus 2013 makes inherently complex protection easily manageable. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Download GFI Software, the owner of the VIPRE brand which was originally introduced to the security world by Sunbelt Software, appears to...

Panda Antivirus Pro 2013 review

Posted by David Balaban on July 14, 2012

$49.99 Panda Antivirus Pro features robust security architecture and delivers dependable protection for everyday use. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Buy Now The first and major thing to outline in terms of analyzing Panda Antivirus Pro software is the...

avast! Pro Antivirus review

Posted by David Balaban on May 10, 2012

$39.99 Customize your security with avast! Pro Antivirus to fit your computing needs. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Buy Now It’s turn for the antivirus brainchild of avast! Software to undergo our scrutiny, so let’s see how good it performs to...

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013 review

Posted by David Balaban on April 17, 2012

$49.95 You can confidently outsource your virus protection to Bitdefender Antivirus Plus. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Buy Now Even with the Caps Lock on, the phrase ‘virus protection is important’ wouldn’t be nearly as expressive and...

F-Secure Anti-Virus review

Posted by David Balaban on February 23, 2012

$39.99 We recommend F-Secure Anti-Virus as a reliable instrument for adequate everyday computer guard. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Buy Now The benefits of using F-Secure Anti-Virus are obvious, judging from its features, speediness and protection...

PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus review

Posted by David Balaban on February 18, 2012

$39.99 PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus definitely deserves high rating as one of the industry’s most reliable utilities. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Buy Now The high and deserved reputation of Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus from PC Tools is...

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013 review

Posted by David Balaban on February 9, 2012

$39.95 Based on our analysis, we definitely recommend this software as a great virus protection tool. Usability: Features: Efficiency: Support: Overall: Buy Now The line of Kaspersky security products has been exhibiting drop-dead stability and efficiency for years,...