Avira Internet Security 2012

PCMag's last review of a security suite from Avira came out early in 2010, almost a year and a half ago. With the release of Avira Internet Security 2012 ($59.99, direct; $89.99 for 3 licenses), Avira has now joined the model-year cycle like most of its competition. Some of this suite's components are quite good, others not so hot.

The latest suite's appearance is quite a departure from that of Avira Premium Security Suite 10 ($79.95 direct for three licenses, 2.5 stars). In fact, the suite and standalone antivirus have the same layout and controls. In the free standalone antivirus the suite-only controls are simply disabled.

Protection against Malware and Phishing
The good people at Avira want to make sure everyone can have protection against viruses and other malware, so they pack their toughest malware protection into the free antivirus. The suite offers the same protection, so I'll simply summarize my findings here. For full details please read my review of Avira Free Antivirus 2012 (Free, 4 stars).

Almost all of the independent labs that I follow include Avira's technology in their testing, and they give it generally good marks. It attained the highest rating in on-demand and retrospective tests by AV-Comparatives.org, but only just achieved certification in whole-protect tests by AV-Test.org. For a full run-down on how I interpret independent lab tests see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Avira installed without trouble on my malware-infested test machines. An initial scan for active malware found quite a few threats. After running a complete scan on all test systems I found that Avira detected 88 percent of the threats, the same as AVG Internet Security 2012 ($68.99 direct for three licenses, 3 stars) and TrustPort Total Protection 2012 ($89.95 direct for three licenses, 2.5 stars). Avira earned 6.7 points overall.

Looking just at rootkits, Avira didn't do so well. It detected 86 percent of them but left some rootkit processes running, earning a score of 5.0 points. To learn how I measure success at malware cleanup, see How We Test Malware Removal.

Each time Avira detected a threat in my malware blocking test, it launched a mini-scan to round up any related traces. Its 91 percent detection rate matched that of Norton Internet Security 2012 ($69.99 direct for three licenses, 4.5 stars), Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 ($79.95 direct for three licenses, 3.5 stars), and BullGuard Internet Security Suite 12 ($59.95 direct for three licenses, 2.5 stars).

Avira's 8.7 points for malware blocking is quite good. Norton earned 9.0 points, though, and Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete ($79.95 direct for three licenses, 4.5 stars) aced this test, with 100 percent detection and 10 points across the board. Avira had a little rootkit trouble here too; despite its blocking efforts one rootkit managed to install and launch its stealth technology. see How We Test Malware Blocking.

Several possible components come under the heading of privacy, among them phishing protection, password management, and identity protection. Of these, Avira offers phishing protection. However, it ?isn't very effective against very, very new phishing URLs. Its detection rate lagged behind Norton's by a full 82 percent. It did block quite a few URLs that had already been taken down, but since those URLs are no longer dangerous blocking them earns no credit. The article How We Test Antiphishing lays out my technique for testing antiphishing.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/N8RpLuZziZg/0,2817,2395138,00.asp

johnny appleseed hank baskett kody brown scrimshaw jacoby ellsbury jacoby ellsbury facebook charging