The German AV-Test lab compared 19 antivirus products, including the free Windows Defender which comes with the Win10 OS. Defender reached the max detection score, which was better than a slew of commercial products. As we all know, AV home and commercial products use the same engines but enterprise tools come with a management layer.
The upshot of this test: Ultimately, 3 packages score the maximum 18 points: F-Secure, McAfee, and Symantec. Windows Defender gets 17, and does better than 8 other commercial packages.
AV-Test said: "During January and February 2019 we continuously evaluated 19 home user products using settings as provided by the vendor. We always used the most current publicly-available version of all products for the testing. They were allowed to update themselves at any time and query their in-the-cloud services. We focused on realistic test scenarios and challenged the products against real-world threats. Products had to demonstrate their capabilities using all components and protection layers."
Here is a picture of the final score. I have been saying this for a while now, but Defender is a pretty impressive AV engine.
As Win10 Guru Ed Tittle said: "Good Enough” Free AV Software Argues For Security Awareness Training". He makes the point that you can rely on Defender and do not have to spend budget on commercial AV.
Are you going to upgrade to Windows 10, rely on Defender and use your AV budget for new-school security awareness training?
Find out how affordable new-school security awareness training is for your organization. Get a quote now.
