IT Security Survey 2023

The graph above shows the top 20 countries of origin of our survey participants. Altogether, respondents came from 109 different countries.

Age distribution by continent is shown below. Asia had the youngest respondents, with about 71% being younger than 35. North America had the oldest respondents, with over 30% of them being older than 55 years. South America had about 51% in the 25 to 44 age groups, and Europe had about 43% aged between 35 and 54. This year we had a lot more younger respondents, compared to previous years.

About 59% of users pay for a security solution. Free solutions are used more by the younger generation (24 or younger) to about 60%, while of the older generation (above 55), only about 28% use free versions.

The most widely used operating system amongst respondents is Windows 10, accounting for nearly 51% of the total OS usage. As of January 10^th 2023, all Windows version before Windows 10 have reached end of support. These Windows versions are used by less than 4% of respondents. About 38% are already using 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 17%, 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 9% 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/

Nearly 85% of respondents stated, that they will probably not or definitely not switch to Windows 11 in the next six months.

There are a variety of reasons given for not switching to the newest version of Windows. The most common one, given by 55% of respondents, being that they simply prefer Windows 10. 44% gave hardware and software incompatibility as the reason for not switching.

Due to the specific hardware requirements of Windows 11, and with Windows 10 being supported until at least October 2025, it seems that many users don’t see much benefit or need for switching to Windows 11 anytime soon.

As shown in the diagram, Google Chrome is still the most popular browser amongst survey participants worldwide, with 33.2% of respondents using it. In second place is Mozilla Firefox (27.5%). Microsoft Edge reached the third place with 18.1%. 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 is now defunct and is not shown in the above graph anymore. The Brave browser is a new entry at 7.8%, surpassing Opera and Safari.

Android is the most popular mobile OS among our survey participants, accounting for nearly 75% worldwide. In North America, iOS is more popular than in other regions, accounting for about 37%. In Asia and South America, most users (over 83%) 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/

44.5% 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, Norton, AVG, McAfee, Malwarebytes, Sophos and Avira.

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 2022. 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, F-Secure, Avira, AVG, McAfee and Panda.

On all 4 continents with significant results, the same 4 vendors can be found in the top 4 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 83% of the survey participants are satisfied or very satisfied with their current security solution.

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

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

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

1. Kaspersky
2. Bitdefender
3. ESET
4. Microsoft
5. Avast
6. Sophos
7. CISCO
8. CrowdStrike
9. Trellix
10. Malwarebytes
11. Trend Micro
12. Fortinet
13. Symantec (Broadcom)
14. G Data
15. Check Point
16. VMware CarbonBlack
17. Palo Alto Networks
18. WatchGuard (Panda)
19. VIPRE
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 consumer and enterprise test 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. The chart above only shows labs which were known by 70% or more of respondents.

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/

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 70% 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 four 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. MITRE seems to almost unknown in South America.

Please note, that while 45% of the participants have heard of ICSA Labs, this AV testing lab is now defunct.

The table above shows which of AV-Comparatives’ test reports were seen by the respondents in the last two years. The tests are split into consumer and enterprise tests and are ordered by popularity. The Enterprise Report and the Consumer Summary Report also contain the Real-World Protection Test, the Malware Protection Test, the Performance Test, the False-Positives Test, and single product reviews.

Users responded, that the Real-World Protection Test, Advanced Threat Protection, Malware Protection, Performance and False Positive Tests are the most relevant tests for them. All of these tests are part of our main-test series (although the Advanced Threat Protection Test is an optional test). False Alarm Tests are included in all protection tests.