IT Security Survey 2016

The graph above shows the top 20 countries of origin of our survey participants. Altogether, respondents came from 103 different countries.

Age distribution by continent is shown below. Asia had the youngest respondents, with over 75% in the 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 brackets. North America had the oldest respondents, over 50% being in the 45 to 54 or 55 to 64 groups.

Worldwide, over 70% of users who took our survey described themselves as computer enthusiasts or professionals. The highest number of computer professionals was found in South America (45%), while the highest number of basic users was for Asia (10.6%).

Overall, just under 2/3 of users pay for a security solution, as was the case last year. 3.8% of the users answered to do not use any security solution.

In Asia, free Internet security suites are more common than in the rest of the world, with 15.1%; major Chinese companies (Baidu, Qihoo, Tencent, etc.) offer free IS solutions as part of their offerings / software packages. Free antivirus programs are more popular in North America (30.1%) than anywhere else.

The most widely used operating system amongst respondents is Windows 10, accounting for almost half of the total OS usage. Windows 7 was the second most popular system, with almost a third of participants using it. Windows 8/8.1 took third place, with XP down to fifth place behind Apple’s Mac OS X. As in previous years, our survey respondents tend to use more recent versions of Windows than the general public (according to figures for all users provided by various metrics companies, such as NetMarketShare and Statista).

In July 2015, we issued our fourth review/test of Mac security products.
This report is available at https://www.av-comparatives.org/mac-security-reviews/

In May 2015, we issued our first review of Linux security products.
This report is available at https://www.av-comparatives.org/linux-reviews/

Android is the most popular mobile OS with our survey participants, accounting for over two thirds of users worldwide. In North America, iOS is more popular than in other regions, accounting for 30%.

In August 2015, we issued a report reviewing Mobile (Android) security products. This report is available at https://www.av-comparatives.org/mobile-security/

As shown in the diagram, Google Chrome is the most popular browser amongst survey participants worldwide, followed closely by Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox is more popular than Chrome in North America (41% vs. 35%) and Europe (39% vs. 38%). However, Chrome is the clear favourite in Asia (50% vs. 31%).

Internet Explorer comes in third place overall, a long way behind the other two browsers.

Despite the fact that nearly half of survey respondents use Windows 10, only 3.5% of all participants use the Edge browser (which is found only in Microsoft’s latest OS). This means that of Windows 10 users, only 7.7% use Microsoft Edge.

We do not have any information as to why nearly two thirds of respondents believe that an Internet security suite will provide more protection than a basic antivirus program. Many AV vendors like to give the impression that users can increase their protection by buying the more expensive suite, although this is not necessarily the case.

Respondents who state that they have reconfigured their security program change the following settings most:

29.2% of respondents overall do not use any security solution on their mobile phones. In North America, the figure is higher, at over 36%, while in South America and the rest of the world it is lower, at 25%. Figures for Asia and Europe are very much in line with the average.

Worldwide, the ten most commonly used manufacturers of mobile security products are, in decreasing order, Avast, ESET, Kaspersky Lab, Bitdefender, Cheetah Mobile, AVIRA, AVG, Qihoo, Symantec Norton and McAfee (Intel Security).

The list below shows the 10 most popular mobile security manufacturers used by survey participants, according to continent. There were not enough responses from some regions to produce significant results. Therefore, Australia/Oceania and Africa are not shown.

Avast took either first or second place on all four continents with significant results. In Asia, Cheetah Mobile (aka CM Security / CleanMaster) and Qihoo took the first and third places respectively, and have now appeared in the top 10 products in Europe and South/Central America as well.

Major products for mobiles were reviewed by AV-Comparatives in a report in August 2015.

AV-Comparatives offers a free scan service (AVC UnDroid) to check Android apps for suspicious traits. It is located at https://www.av-comparatives.org/avc-analyzer/

Survey respondents clearly value independent tests very highly when it comes to choosing security software, with approximately two thirds using these to select their security solution. Recommendations in online forums and from friends/family members then accounted for most of the remainder. We should point out that some of the forum members/family members/friends etc. may themselves consult independent test-lab results before recommending a product.

Worldwide, the twelve manufacturers of anti-malware products for Windows platforms most commonly used by survey participants are (in this order): Kaspersky Lab, ESET, Bitdefender, AVIRA, Avast, Panda, Microsoft, Symantec Norton, Emsisoft, F-Secure, Qihoo, AVG, McAfee, Trend Micro and MalwareBytes.

Comparison with 2015

The worldwide top 5 products last year were the same as this year, but in a slightly different order: Avira has leapfrogged Avast to take fourth place.

Differences between continents

The table below shows the twelve products most commonly used by survey participants, by continent:

Europe: European vendors feature in the top 5 here.

North America: MalwareBytes reaches 6^th place on the continent. Microsoft and Symantec (both headquartered in the USA) make it into the top 5. Malwarebytes has been expanding and features in the top 12 in Europe, and top 6 in North America.

Asia: the Chinese-based Qihoo appears in the top 12 here, but not on any other continent.

South/Central America: The top five vendors here are the same as the top five globally, in Europe and in Asia, albeit in a different order.

There is a strong correlation between the most popular products amongst survey respondents and products that perform well in AV-Comparatives’ tests. On 3 out of 4 continents, the most popular product was Kaspersky, our Product of the Year 2015; everywhere except North America, the top 5 most popular products were all Top Rated by AV-Comparatives in 2015.

Below are the 15 most-requested products. Users had to choose at least 10 products. Note that a number of the vendors listed below offer both free and paid products.

1. Kaspersky Lab
2. Bitdefender
3. AVIRA
4. Avast
5. ESET
6. AVG
7. Symantec/Norton
8. Microsoft
9. Trend Micro
10. F-Secure
11. McAfee
12. Panda
13. Emsisoft
14. G DATA
15. MalwareBytes

In order to take part in our public main-test series, a vendor has to agree to our conditions of participation, which include the requirement to take all of the compulsory tests. Some of the vendors who are frequently requested by survey participants decline to participate in all of these, and so these vendors cannot be included in the main test series. Most of these vendors however usually participate in some of our other public tests and reviews, such as the Mobile Test/Review and the Business Review. Some big-name companies also commission and participate privately in certain tests.

In 2016, AV-Comparatives’ File Detection Test, Performance Test and Malware Removal Test will be run under Windows 10. All of these tests will be compulsory. The current English-language version of Baidu Antivirus is not compatible with Windows 10, and Baidu have stated that they do not intend to develop the English-language version any further. Consequently, as we test mainly on Windows 10, we will not include Baidu in our main test series this year.

One vendor had to be excluded from the tests of 2015 due to irregularities. We offered that vendor the opportunity to participate in the 2016 tests, on the strict understanding that they would have to play fair, but they have declined the offer.

2.7% of respondents stated that their security product failed to protect their system within the last week. Over 86% stated that the last time their security product had failed to protect their system was either over six months ago or not at all.

35% of the users stated that they encountered malware and that their security product successfully protected their system less than a week ago. 11% of the users said that the last time that their security product warned/protected them against malware was over six months ago. About 7% have never had any warnings from their security product.

The results of questions 14 and 15 together may provide some insight into the effectiveness of current security software.

Perhaps due to our continued emphasis on the importance of our Real-World Protection Test, this test tops the list in what our respondents are looking for.

Whilst we feel that the Real-World Protection Test is the most relevant single test that we carry out, we also provide users with an all-round view of a product’s capabilities. Thus, we also perform File Detection, False Alarm, Performance, and Malware Removal Tests for Windows products, in addition to the Real-World Protection Test. The first four tests will be compulsory tests in 2016. The behavioural test will be performed only if commissioned and not be part of the public main-tests.

Additionally, we publish combined reviews/test reports of Mac Security and Mobile Security products, as well as user-interface reviews of business security software, all the tested Windows products (Summary Report), and (on request) single products.

Our 2015 awards for Windows consumer products were based on the Real-World Protection Test, Overall Performance Test, File Detection Test, and False-Positive Test (all of which were compulsory), along with the optional Proactive Test and Malware Removal Test.

Users had to rate various security product testing labs and institutes by giving a score from 1 to 5, where 5 meant reliable/trustworthy and 1 unreliable/biased. Note that not all respondents were aware of all the labs, so each lab was only rated by those who were aware of it.

AV-Comparatives, AV-Test and Virus Bulletin reached a mean score of 4 or higher. These are also the three best-known AV testing labs in the world. We hope that our high rating is down to the carefully prepared methodology of our tests, meaningful number of samples, transparency, and freely available test reports, which describe the tests in detail. Our willingness to allow other publications to cite our results (subject to proper attribution) has also increased our visibility.

For products that are not tested by us, we recommend our readers to look at the tests done by other well-known testing labs or at least certification bodies. A list of some other testing labs, can be found here.

Users had to give a score from 1 to 5, where 5 meant reliable/trustworthy and 1 unreliable/biased.

Reviews on YouTube were regarded as the least reliable, probably because they are largely provided by users who are effectively anonymous. These reviews are typically focussed on user experience only. Often, the user may review/test only one product. Whilst some reviewers may write competent articles with integrity and give users a good overview of the user interface and certain aspects of the products, other writers may base their opinions on e.g. a one-off bad experience with a particular product, or deliberately deceive readers in order to promote a product they have a commercial interest in, or to malign competitors. The same applies to reviews and opinions expressed on forums. In fact, there are paid bloggers, forum/YouTube posters etc. who provide e.g. biased or fake Amazon reviews and feedback.

Users were asked to select the charactersistics of an anti-virus product which they considered most important to them. It is interesting to note that the second most popular item this year, after “Good detection rate of malicious files”, was “Low impact on system performance”. This suggests that respondents are wary of security products that slow their systems down. Respondents also appear to recognise the limitations of file detection tests, as both proactive/heuristic and online protection were important to over two thirds of users. Malware removal/cleaning was similarly popular. This may be because many respondents have found that their security software finds malware but cannot remove it, or possibly that they provide technical support for family, friends or colleagues whose machines have already been infected.