Microsoft Security Essentials impressed in the latest test of the well known German AV-Test. Microsoft's free antivirus software performed better than many paid antivirus scanners and internet security suites.
AV-Test tested 19 virus scanners and internet security suites for consumers against more than 11,000 malware samples. The tests were performed on Windows 7 and all
The antivirus software was scored on protection, performance and usability. Each software could earn 6 points for each test item, thus a perfect score would be 18 points.
The detection of malware was tested by providing the software with 195 zero-day malware samples (real world testing) and about 11,524 malware samples which were discovered in the last 4 weeks (the AV-TEST reference set). Kaspersky Lab and Symantec both detected 100% of all malware, enough for 6 points on that part of the test.
Microsoft's Security Essentials scored a 5.5, by detecting 100% of all zero-day malware and 99.3% of the 11,524 samples in the tests AV-Test performed in January and 99.6% in the tests performed in March. Microsoft's free antivirus software outperformed many paid suites, such as Comodo and McAfee (4 points), Microworld (4.5 points), AVG, Avira, Bullguard, Eset and K7 Computing (all 5 points).
The second part of the test concerned the performance of the software when visiting websites, downloading files, installing and running software and copying files. In this test Bitdefender, F-Secure, Kaspersky Lab, Symantec and Trend Micro scored the maximum 6 points. Comodo was last with 3 points and Security Essentials scored 5 points.
The last part of the test concerned false positives which was no issue for most software. False positives are when the software detects legitimate files as malware. Almost all home user security products scored the maximum 6 points, including Security Essentials.
When the scores of all tests were combined only Bitdefender, Kaspersky Lab, Symantec and Trend Micro achieved the perfect score of 18 points. Comodo is last with 12 points followed by McAfee with 14.5 points.
Security Essentials scored 16.5 points just like AVG, Avast, Ahnlab, G-Data and Threattrack.
