This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.
Please note that by continuing to use this site you consent to the terms of our Privacy and Data Protection Policy .
Some of our partner services are located in the United States. According to the case law of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate data protection in the USA. There is a risk that your data will be controlled and monitored by US authorities. You cannot bring any effective legal remedies against this.
Accept

Consumer Real-World Protection Test Factsheet Feb-Mar 2023

The February/March results for the ongoing Consumer Real-World Protection Test are now available! The full results will be published in June.

As part of its ongoing consumer main-test series, AV-Comparatives has just released a factsheet with the latest test results for its Real-World Protection Test, run in February and March 2023. The Austrian antivirus testing lab conducts systematic testing of security software solutions to protect consumers against cybercrime. Certification by AV-Comparatives is considered to be a globally accepted yardstick for the approval of software performance. 

AV-Comparatives’ Consumer Real-World Protection Test simulates the actions of a typical user surfing the Internet. A highly sophisticated automated process attempts to download and execute live malware from the Internet, in just the same way that a real user might do. The test procedure allows all the relevant protection features in each product to come into play. Thus, the URL hosting the malware could be detected and blocked at the beginning of the test run; alternatively, the malware might successfully downloaded and executed, but then recognised and remediated by the security product’s behavioural detection. 

The following 16 products were tested: Avast Free Antivirus; AVG Free Antivirus; Avira Prime; Bitdefender Internet Security; ESET Internet Security; F-Secure Internet Security; G Data Total Security; K7 Total Security; Kaspersky Standard; McAfee Total Protection; Microsoft Defender Antivirus; Norton Antivirus Plus; Panda Free Antivirus; Total Defense Essential Antivirus; TotalAV Antivirus Pro; Trend Micro Internet Security. 

The results in the factsheet of the Real-World Protection Test released by AV-Comparatives are based on 260 malicious URLs. The test-cases used cover a wide range of current malicious sites, highlighting the quality of protection offered by various products. This test by AV-Comparatives provides detailed insights into the current capabilities of 16 popular anti-virus products. The results of the false-positives test are also available in the factsheet report. 

The Real-World Protection Test is currently one of the most comprehensive and complex tests available, using a relatively large number of test cases. Currently, this test is run under updated Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit with up-to-date third-party software. Every few months, we update the charts on our website showing the protection rates of the various tested products over the past months.