AV-TEST, the well-known firm that evaluates anti-malware solutions and the situation around malware, is back at work after testing eighteen security packages on Windows 10, including the coming Microsoft Defender (formerly Windows Defender) by default in the system. The company has tested these eighteen security packages against 12,000 malware samples and processes scanning 1.5 million files in order to see if they correctly distinguish between those that are benign and malicious.
Among the security packages tested on Windows 10 are, how could it be otherwise, the best known: AhnLab, Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, ESET, F-Secure, G DATA, K7 Computing, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, McAfee , Microsoft, Microworld, Norton, PC Matic, Protected.net and Trend Micro. The tests were carried out between the months of January and February 2023 and the company has evaluated each package through three separate sections, protection, performance and usability, with a maximum score of six for each one.
It seems that developers of anti-malware solutions take AV-TEST’s evaluations seriously, since Fourteen of the eighteen security packages have obtained their “top product” seal, which the firm awards to those that are at least close to perfection.. Because there are three sections with a maximum score of six points each, the maximum mark is 18. The packages that have received the “top product” seal achieved a score of 17.5 or 18.
From the published results, you might be surprised to see Microsoft Defender or Windows Defender without the “top product” tag. This contrasts with the fact that the Redmond giant’s anti-malware got the best score three years ago in AV-TEST tests. As can be seen in the table, in the protection and usability sections it gets a six, but in performance it has only achieved a five.
Regarding the performance score, AV-TEST has explained that “the highest system load in testing was generated by Windows Defender Antivirus. As the system load is considerably higher than that of the other products, Defender lost a full point, so they finished with 5 of 6 points.” The firm highlighted Avast, Avira, Bitdefender, G DATA, K7 Computing, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, PC Matic, Protected.net and Trend Micro for their efficiency in the use of resources, while AhnLab, AVG, ESET, F-Secure, McAfee, Microworld and Norton, according to their version, have behaved well, but they have not turned out to be round.
Regarding the tests of scanning with 1.5 million files, to which in each case was added the visit of 500 benign websites, sixteen of the eighteen security packages were perfectly compliant to score a 6 out of 6. Here only Microworld made a few mistakes to reach a score of 5.5, while PC Matic has gone off the rails with a 3 due to returning “more than two dozen false positives and blocked apps”.
The latest AV-TEST results are, at least to some extent, another blow to Microsoft Defender, which was recently found to have a bug that caused increased processor usage in Firefox when used on Windows. That, as is logical, angered the users and followers of the Mozilla browser.
