Our sorting and testing methodology and the FAQ's can be found here (PDF). [08/2008]

<-- please click on the submenus to access various test reports

Detection Tests / Retrospective Tests (File Scanning Tests)

These tests are released about every three months. They are usually split into "on demand" and "retrospective" detection rate tests. The file detection rate is still one of the most important and reliable factors in determining the effectiveness of an anti-virus engine which works without asking for user interaction, decision or opinion. The file detection tests show the detection rates of products over an actual and full malware test set from the previous months. The retrospective tests evaluate the same products against new and unknown malware to measure the proactive detection capabilities (e.g. through heuristics, generic signatures, etc.). Both tests also take into consideration the false positive rate.

Test Candidates: At AV-Comparatives we limit the number of participants in our tests to not more than twenty vendors and where possible we include only good and reliable products/vendors. Due to this, we have devised various requirements in order to take part, which also aids us identifying and filtering out rogue anti-virus vendors.

Summary Reports: Annually we release a summary report that collates the results of the various tests. We then give awards and comment on product abilities.

Archive: Contains main tests from previous years.

Performance Tests

These tests evaluate the impact of anti-virus software on system performance.

Whole-Product Dynamic ("Real-World") Protection Tests

This section contains full product long-term dynamic test reports. These tests evaluate the suites "real world" protection capabilities with default settings (incl. on-execution protection features). It is our aim to do these tests rigorously. Due to that, these tests are time and resource expensive, so only products chosen for the yearly main test-series are included.

Removal / Cleaning Tests

These tests evaluate the cleaning / malware removal capabilities of anti-virus products. For this test we use prevalent "in-the-field" samples from infected PC's of customers.

PUA Tests

(Potentially Unwanted Applications); This subtest has been discontinued.

Corporate Reviews

We often get asked about reviews of corporate/enterprise products, with special emphasis on product features which are important to administrators. This section contains these reviews.

Single Product Reviews

This section contains single product reviews and tests.

Archive: contains reviews/tests from past years.