IT Security Survey 2022

The graph above shows the top 20 countries of origin of our survey participants. Altogether, respondents came from 98 different countries.

Age distribution by continent is shown below. Asia had the youngest respondents, with about 57% being younger than 35. North America had the oldest respondents, with over 41% of them being older than 55 years. South America had about 51% in the 25 to 44 age groups, and Europe had about 50% aged between 35 and 54.

About 63% of users pay for a security solution. Free solutions are used more by the younger generation (24 or younger) to about 56%, while of the older generation (above 55), only about 29% use free versions.

The most widely used operating system amongst respondents is Windows 10, accounting for over 65% of the total OS usage. Windows XP, Vista, 8, 8.1 are now defunct and hardly used anymore. Windows 7 usage has also dropped further to less than 4%. Nearly one quarter have already switched to Windows 11. This suggests that the survey’s audience might be very tech-oriented, as Windows 11 usage among the general public is only about 8%, according to statistics. Over 3% of respondents use macOS. In North America, Apple’s macOS is more commonly used than in the rest of the world, with about 8% market share. Our review/test of Mac security products is available at https://www.av-comparatives.org/consumer/testmethod/mac-security-reviews/

A list of Mac security products can be found here: https://www.av-comparatives.org/list-of-av-vendors-mac/

As shown in the diagram, Google Chrome is still the most popular browser amongst survey participants worldwide, with 35.4% of respondents using it. In second place is Mozilla Firefox (27.9%). Microsoft Edge is gaining market share rapidly and reached the third place with 18.8%, apparently at the expense of Mozilla Firefox. We would encourage AV vendors who use browser plug-ins for their URL-blocking features to make these work for as many browsers as possible, not just the most popular ones. Microsoft Internet Explorer can now be considered as defunct.

Android is the most popular mobile OS among our survey participants, accounting for over 74% of users worldwide. In North America, iOS is more popular than in other regions, accounting for about 43%. In Asia and South America, most users (over 84%) use Android. Our Mobile (Android) security review/test report is available at https://www.av-comparatives.org/consumer/testmethod/mobile-security-reviews/

An overview of security products for Android can be found here: https://www.av-comparatives.org/list-of-mobile-security-vendors-android/

37.6% of respondents overall do not use any security solution on their mobile phones.

Worldwide, the ten most commonly used manufacturers of mobile security products are, in decreasing order: Bitdefender, Kaspersky, ESET, Avast, Malwarebytes, McAfee, Sophos, Norton, Avira and Trend Micro.

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, Bitdefender, ESET and Kaspersky were the most popular mobile security product in all 4 regions.

Major products for mobiles were reviewed by AV-Comparatives in a report in 2021. It is located at: https://www.av-comparatives.org/consumer/testmethod/mobile-security-reviews/

Worldwide, the twelve manufacturers of anti-malware products for Windows platforms most commonly used by survey participants are (in this order): Kaspersky, Microsoft, Bitdefender, ESET, Avast, Norton, Malwarebytes, Avira, McAfee, Panda, AVG and Trend Micro.

On all 4 continents with significant results, the same 4 vendors can be found in the top 5 places. These are (alphabetically): Bitdefender, ESET, Kaspersky and Microsoft.

Differences between continents

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

Over 85% of the survey participants are satisfied or very satisfied with their current security solution.

Just over half of survey respondents do not use any of the additional features included in their security product. Amongst those who do, the four most popular additional features (over 20% of those users who make use of additional features) were webcam protection, antispam, VPN, and a secure browser. Webcam protection was the most popular individual feature; given that many people are working from home and conducting virtual meetings, this is perhaps not surprising.

System performance tuner, cryptomining, data shredder, backup, ransomware folder shield and data breach detector were the least used (less than 10% of those users who make use of additional features). Cryptomining clearly has nothing to do with security, and carries its own risks. It is questionable whether it should be included in a security product. Whilst data-breach detectors can be useful, many are available for free on the Internet, and in some cases, the feature in a security product may just connect to one of these services.

As a general rule, we would argue that having more additional features does not automatically mean that a product is better. Some added functionality, such as password managers and cloud backups, may serve to keep you tied to a particular security vendor, as it could be difficult to move your backed-up data or passwords to alternative services. Other features may be added for the vendor’s marketing purposes, rather than genuine needs of the user.

Almost two thirds of respondents have not tried to contact their AV vendor’s support services recently. Among users of paid-for products, almost one third have contacted their vendor’s support service and found it easy, and also got satisfactory assistance. Among users of free products, just over one tenth have contacted support, found it easy, and been satisfied with the help received. This might suggest that relative to free products, paid-for AV programs might provide more effective, easier-to-reach support when needed.

Below are the 15 most-requested consumer/home-user products:

1. Kaspersky
2. Bitdefender
3. ESET
4. Microsoft
5. Avast
6. Malwarebytes
7. Avira
8. Norton
9. McAfee
10. Trend Micro
11. G Data
12. Panda
13. F-Secure
14. Sophos
15. AVG

Below are the 20 most-requested business/enterprise products:

1. Kaspersky
2. Bitdefender
3. ESET
4. Microsoft
5. Avast
6. Malwarebytes
7. Sophos
8. McAfee
9. Trend Micro
10. F-Secure
11. Cisco
12. Symantec (Broadcom)
13. CrowdStrike
14. FireEye
15. G Data
16. VMware CarbonBlack
17. WatchGuard (Panda)
18. Fortinet
19. Check Point
20. Acronis

Most of the popular vendors are usually included in at least some of our public tests and reviews, while most of the other vendors commission separate tests and/or participate privately in certain tests.

You can find our test and reviews here:
Consumer: https://www.av-comparatives.org/consumer/
Enterprise: https://www.av-comparatives.org/enterprise/

Users had to rate various security product testing labs and institutes by giving a score from -2 to +2, where +2 meant reliable/trustworthy and -2 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. For more information, please see the next page. Labs which were unknown to over 75% of all respondents are not listed.

Only AV-Comparatives and AV-Test reached a score higher than 1. 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) also increases 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. For a list of some other testing labs, go to http://www.av-comparatives.org/list-of-av-testing-labs/

Which are the best-known AV testing labs?

We asked which testing labs were known to the survey participants. Obviously, anybody who has seen our website, newsletter or social media accounts will be aware of AV-Comparatives. Consequently, for AV-Comparatives we tried to remove the survey responses that came directly from our website, our newsletter and our social media accounts, in order to create a level playing field. Testers that were unknown by over 75% all survey participants have been removed from the results shown below.

Below you can see the percentages of participants that have heard of the respective labs:

AV-Comparatives and AV-Test are the best-known labs overall, and in each of the 4 regions.

The table below ranks the testing labs based on how well they are known on each continent:

Please note that not all the testing labs have the same testing focus. That is to say, some may test only business products, others only consumer products; some may only provide certification (i.e. simply verify that products reach a certain minimum level, without providing comparative data); some may limit their tests to products from a particular country or region, or in a certain language