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Avast, McAfee, and Ashampoo all scored above 9.0. Neither of these scores is very good, but I give more weight to Bitdefender's amazing lab scores.įor comparison, Webroot detected 100 percent of this same sample set and scored 9.7 of 10 possible points.
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In the end, the free edition scored 7.7 points to the paid edition's 8.0 points. The additional protection layers of the commercial edition caught a few nasties that the free edition missed. Other differences cropped up when I launched the surviving samples. In two instances, the free antivirus left samples present but blocked all access, where the commercial edition removed them. It took a few minutes to get through them all, but in the end the results were almost identical to those of the commercial Bitdefender. When I opened my folder of samples, Bitdefender started picking off those it recognized. In this case, the labs have already made it very clear that Bitdefender is a winner. If I don't get enough data from the labs, my hands-on malware protection test is the only way I can rate antivirus accuracy.

I always run my own hands-on testing, just to get a feel for the way a product handles malware. Once again, these results reflect the commercial Bitdefender antivirus the free edition may not have fared as well in testing. Bitdefender, tested by three labs, holds the top score overall, a perfect 10. In terms of aggregate score, Kaspersky rules that group, with 9.9 of 10 possible points. Avast, Avira, and Kaspersky Free are among the products that appear in reports from all four labs. I have contrived an algorithm that maps all the test results onto a 10-point scale and returns an aggregate lab score, as long as the product has results from at least two labs. When last tested, it took AA certification. Alas, Bitdefender doesn't appear in the latest report from SE Labs. Certification from this lab comes at five levels, AAA, AA, A, B, and C. SE Labs attempts to simulate the real world of malware as closely as possible for testing purposes, using a capture/replay system to present each product with a real-world Web-based attack.
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It also received Level 1 certification in the broad-spectrum test, along with Kasperky, Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center, and seven others. Bitdefender passed the banking test, along with Avira, ESET, and Kaspersky. If some malware gets through, but is eliminated within 24 hours, that earns Level 2. If a product absolutely blocks every installation attempt, it passes at Level 1. Another test using a wide variety of malware offers two passing levels.

To pass this lab's banking Trojans test, a product needs a perfect score anything less is failure. The tests performed by MRG-Effitas are a bit different from the rest. Kaspersky did nearly as well, with three Advanced+ and one Advanced. Bitdefender took Advanced+ in all four tests. Products that pass a test earn Standard certification, while those that do significantly better receive Advanced or even Advanced+ certification. The researchers at AV-Comparatives perform a wide variety of tests I follow four of them. F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, and Norton also earned the maximum points. In the three-part test regularly reported by AV-Test Institute, Bitdefender earned 6 of 6 possible points in all three categories, for a perfect 18 points. Three of the four labs that I follow include Bitdefender in their testing.

Results discussed below are for the commercial edition.
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Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (29.99 3 devices / 1 year – 50% off at Bitdefender) did slightly better in my hands on tests, so chances are good the free antivirus wouldn't reach the same level in lab tests. However, the independent labs test the commercial product, not the free one. While Bitdefender Free doesn't include every feature of the commercial edition, its core antivirus engine is the same as what the independent labs test.
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As always, you should run a full scan right after installation, to root out any nasties that invaded the system before you installed antivirus. However, that scan clearly performed some optimization, as a repeat scan finished in not quite 13 minutes.

A full scan took an hour and a half, a bit over the current average of an hour and a quarter. When you launch a scan, the scan's progress appears in the events timeline, unless you click it to see the full scan window.
