How are you funded?

AV-Comparatives receives funding for its work from a number of different sources:

• As IT security is a matter of concern to society as a whole, we receive funding for our work from public bodies such as the European Union and the regional government of Tyrol.
• We also work on joint projects with the University of Innsbruck, which contributes funds to this co-operative work.
• We perform tests of multiple products commissioned by bodies such as computer magazines and private companies looking for test results of products not yet included in our public tests.
• As regards individual tests and test series, we distinguish between the “Public Test Series” and “Commissioned Tests”. Participation in the Public Test Series is free of charge, but vendors can subscribe to our post-test consultancy and feedback services, and obtain licensing rights to our logos, for which a fee may be applicable. We reserve the right to include or not include any individual product in these tests, based on capacity, technical limitations, and demand. Commissioned tests are clearly shown as such, along with the name of the commissioning body. This is audited and verified each year as part of our ISO 9001:2015 certification. AV-Comparatives holds a TÜV Austria certificate for its management system for the scope “Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software”.

As well as making test results and reviews available to the public for free, we also provide other free services to our readers. These include for example our yearly Android research studies of hundreds of security apps, AVC Undroid app analyser, our free security advice and security market overviews and opinions.

We do not take money for advertisements and our website is free of any ads or paid referrer links (so-called “affiliate commissions”).