Consumer Summary Report 2022
Austrian antivirus testing lab AV-Comparatives has released its annual Summary Report for consumer security products (PDF available here). This includes results of all the individual tests carried out during 2022, a user-interface review for all 17 tested products, and awards given to individual programs in various categories.
AV-Comparatives has tested 17 Internet Security Products for Consumers
All tested products received the test lab’s Approved Security Product Award. This is given to all products that demonstrated they can provide competent protection against a wide variety of threats, without unduly affecting the computer’s performance or raising too many false alarms. The award is a certification of an effective and reliable product. The tested products were: Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, ESET, G Data, K7, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, McAfee, Microsoft, Norton, Panda, TotalAV, Total Defense, Trend Micro, and VIPRE.
AV-Comparatives awards Bitdefender with Product of the Year Award, while Top-Rated Product Awards go to Avast, AVG and Kaspersky.
Product of the Year
AV-Comparatives’ prestigious award goes to the program with the highest scores across all the test types. It is a demonstration of top quality in all categories. The 2022 Product of the Year Award goes to Bitdefender.
Top-Rated Products
Products that achieve high scores across all the test types are rewarded with Top-Rated Product Awards. These demonstrate that a program has achieved a high standard across all the test types. For 2022, Top-Rated Product Awards go to Avast, AVG and Kaspersky.
Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards for Individual Categories
For each individual test type, Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards go to the products that achieved the highest scores. Awards for the individual test types are as follows:
Real-World Protection Test – this checks protection against Internet-borne threats
- Gold: Avira
- Silver: Avast, AVG
- Bronze: Bitdefender
Malware Protection Test – this verifies a program’s ability to detect malicious files
- Gold: Norton
- Silver: Avast, AVG
- Bronze: Bitdefender, McAfee
Performance Test – a check on how much a security product slows down the PC
- Gold: K7
- Silver: Panda
- Bronze: ESET
Advanced Threat Protection Test – this optional test looks at protection against targeted attacks
- Gold: ESET
- Silver: Bitdefender
- Bronze: G Data, Kaspersky, Microsoft
False-Positives Test – this assesses whether each program is prone to false alarms
- Gold: ESET
- Silver: TotalAV
- Bronze: Kaspersky
As usual, the Summary Report includes a user-interface review of all the tested products. This provides a description of what each program is like to use in everyday scenarios. Topics covered include installation, security alerts, scan options, quarantine, logs, access control, and (where applicable) firewall.
“AV-Comparatives’ 2022 Summary Report provides users with a comprehensive guide to the protection, performance and usability of the tested consumer products”, said Andreas Clementi, CEO and founder of AV-Comparatives. “Once again there was a very high standard among the security products in the test, with all 17 receiving our Approved Security Product Award. The report shows the levels reached in all the individual tests, along with user-interface reviews, thus helping readers to find the best product for their respective requirements.”
