Avast and AVG are the big stars in the AV-Comparatives comparison test. Microsoft Defender performed less well than usual.

The new school year has also begun for antivirus suites. AV-Comparatives regularly examines the most popular business packages from Microsoft, Norton, McAfee and other well-known providers. 254 simulations were run on the antivirus software to test how many attacks it could stop and how often it gave a false positive.

Four programs received an excellent report: AVG, Avast, F-Secure and Trend Micro. The first two are rated best in class by AV-Comparatives due to their low false positive rate (1). This value is significantly higher for F-Secure (10) and especially for Trend Micro (23). Avast has other things on its mind.

Microsoft Defender performs less well

There are also a few less good students. Microsoft Defender received a lower score than in previous AV Comparatives tests. While the antivirus solution preferred by many Windows users recently achieved an almost error-free percentage of 99.8 percent, this has now fallen to 99.2. This sounds like a limited outage, but one malicious link getting through is enough to crack your device.

The lowest value was achieved by Panda, which allowed more than one and a half percent of simulated attack attempts. Norton seems to have started the school year with good intentions: Norton and TotalAV already performed significantly better than last time with scores of 99.6 and 99.2. However, we advise you not to be fooled by their aggressive marketing techniques.

AV-Comparatives warns that the results of its tests are not always representative of practice. Even with AVG and Avast, there is a chance that a malicious link can still get through, so you should always be vigilant. The test results can help you find the best antivirus solution for your device. AVTest also regularly compares popular business antivirus solutions.