AV-COMPARATIVES: Real-World Protection Test Feb-March 2020 https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/real-world-protection-test-feb-mar-2020-factsheet/ Chart: https://www.av-comparatives.org/com...chart_month=Feb-Mar&chart_sort=1&chart_zoom=2
a) Avira & Kaspersky: Blocked= 100%, FP= 0 b) We have a new FP champion. c) Microsoft Windows Defender: False Positives = only 5
True, AVs have come a long way and are all good in terms of protection. I only base my choice now on performance, as in, how light it is on my system and it has to be bloatware free, no toolbars, system optimizers, etc. That's why I chose VIPRE @Minimalist I was a huge Avira fan back in the day but I stopped giving them my business ever since they introduced the Avira launched. Same with Bitdefender after they added all those system optimizers.
Basically yes. That's what I've been saying for a long time. None will offer you 100% protection all the time so just choose one of the major brands, test it on your machine for the full trial period to be sure it does not block anything you need or use and if it does if it's easy to unblock then choose the one that had the best behavior, you liked the most and has the better price...
I have mostly just settled for Defender the past couple years. On occasion I will try something else, but never seems to win me over enough that I don't just go back to the standard windows protection.
Yes, I also don't like all those added "features" and a launcher. They could also update interface of their software - it looks like 1990s software to me. But looking at protection results it looks like they are doing something right. They skipped last year's enhanced real-world test so IDK how they would do in it. I hope that they will participate in this year's if there will be one.
Although WD appears scoring pretty well in these tests on paper, my experience is that it's pretty bad letting scripts type of malware such as browser hijackers slip through. This happened quite often if you visit websites such as file hosts and "content sharing" websites. Kaspersky free is pretty good all around and is what I settle on after test driving many different AV suites over the years. It provides much better real world protections.