The Best Antivirus Software: New Winners and Losers

Those malware coders who cobble
together all the Trojans, viruses, and
other nasty programs are constantly
working on new creations, hoping to
get past existing antivirus defenses.
Security vendors are likewise
constantly working on new
technologies to foil the bad guys. That
means PCMag's long running Best
Antivirus story is a work in progress.
The latest revision, published earlier
this week, adds nine new or updated
programs, some of which are quite
interesting.
New Editors' Choice
Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ 10.5 is only
a point-five revision, but my Lavasoft
contacts insisted it merited a new
review. They were right; it earned
great scores in my hands-on tests. Its
score in my malware blocking test,
9.4 points, beat out all other products
tested using the same collection of
samples, and only one of those
products matched its 94 percent
detection rate. With 83 percent
detection and 5.8 points overall, it
also beat all of the latest products,
though it didn't stay at the top.
These dandy scores along with a
super-smooth installation process
earned Ad-Aware the designation of
Editors' Choice for free antivirus. It
joins existing free Editors' Choice AVG
Anti-Virus FREE 2013 .
Funny-looking Newcomer
Funded using Kickstarter, Jumpshot is
definitely the strangest-looking
antivirus around. All antivirus and
system tune-up tasks are handled by
cartoonish "minions," each with its
own specific task. For example,
Kobayashi the ninja is in charge of
wiping out malware.
This product is actually a bootable
Linux antivirus, but you won't see any
signs of Linux. After a scan, restuls
are presented by the various minions
in cartoon talk-balloons. The
surprising fact is that Jumpshot
outscored all other recent products in
my malware removal test, even Ad-
Aware, with 86 percent detection and
6.5 points. Its tuneup measurably
improved performance on a physical
test system. Do note, though, that
you'll still need a regular antivirus for
ongoing protection, as Jumpshot is
strictly a scan-and-clean tool.
Not So Hot
The antivirus field in general is
growing and evolving, with most
products doing at least a decent job of
rooting out malware and preventing
new infections. IObit Malware Fighter
2 , recently reviewed for the first time
by PCMag, is a notable exception. In
both my malware blocking and
malware removal tests, it achieved
new low scores.
For malware removal, IObit scored an
unprecedented 0.8 of 10 possible
points; the next-lowest score was 4.2
points. IObit identified seven of my
twelve malware-infested systems as
perfectly clean. It earned just 1.5
points for malware blocking, far below
the next-lowest score of 5.9 points,
yet still managed to identify some
valid programs as suspicious. The
best thing I can say about this
program is that it has plenty of room
for improvement.
These are just three of over forty
recent antivirus reviews.