19 products officially for Windows 10

In this initial comprehensive test under Windows 10, the laboratory experts evaluated all the products over a two-month period. The findings are based not only on individual functions, but also on the complete security performance of the products. All the tested versions are officially approved by the manufacturers for Windows 10. This means in the event that test results are mediocre for particular manufacturers, they can't use the version as an excuse.

However, a brief look at the final results indicates that a total of four products achieve the best point score of 18: Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Symantec. Three additional products followed close behind with 17.5 and 17 points.

The scores of the embedded Windows Defender serve as a benchmark that all other products should be able to beat. Particularly with respect to the detection scores, users would expect the suites to render higher performance. All test candidates did manage to do so, yet some by just a small margin. That is why they are no true alternatives to Windows Defender.

Partially mixed detection performance

In the test, all the products were required to detect and eliminate just under 21,000 malware threats in the real-world test and the AV-TEST reference set. The initial test is especially difficult, as laboratory uses new and therefore unknown malware. The test involving the reference set evaluates whether the solutions can also detect a load of old known threats.

The suites from Symantec and Bitdefender are the only products that were each able to complete the detection test with a 100 percent score. The products from Avira, F-Secure, AVG, Ahnlab and Kaspersky Lab also detected everything error-free in the real-world test, but each overlooked old malware in the reference set. That is why they all achieved 99.9 percent. Well-known products from McAfee, G Data or ESET were unusually weak in the real-world test, with scores of 96.3 to 97.6 percent.

The best freeware product from Panda Security scanned with detection rates of 99.4 and 99.9 percent. Windows Defender, tested for comparison, detected only 87.7 and 99.5 percent.

Putting the brakes on Windows 10

Laboratory also discovered how heavily a security solution slows down a Windows 10 PC. In this test, daily routines, such as launching websites, copying data or installing programs, were performed on a reference PC without security software, and the performance levels were recorded. Afterwards, the identical tasks were repeated with the respective security solution and the performance levels were compared.

The products from Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky Lab and Symantec indicate that it is possible to achieve the highest detection performance without putting the brakes on the system. For ESET, G Data, ThreatTrack and Quick Heal, it's a whole different story under Windows 10: they all receive only 2.5 to 3.5 points out of a possible 6 due to what is partly a considerable system load. The best freeware program from Panda Security in terms of detection also slows down the system noticeably and thus also only received 3.5 points. Windows Defender also slightly slows down the system, but not as heavily: 4.5 points.

Quiet workhorses in the background

How easy the suites are to use was tested in the usability segment. It was evaluated, for example, whether the suites blocked benign programs or clean websites or frequently tagged basic files as infected. These false positives were logged during a test in which 500 websites were visited, programs were installed and just under 1.5 million clean files were scanned.

The result is so positive for nearly all the security packages that they received 5 to 6 points in this test. Only the product from K7 blocked a few benign programs and falsely quarantined clean files. For this, it only received 4.5 points. All the freeware programs and even Windows Defender received a good to very good rating.

Good protection products for Windows 10

The basic protection delivered by Microsoft through Windows Defender may be good, but it's a long way from being very good. Especially in the vital detection of malware, 17 out of 19 products were mostly far better. That is why users ought to rely on one of the tested security solutions. The laboratory awarded the 4 products from Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Symantec the highest achievable point score. Strictly according to the scan ratings, Bitdefender and Symantec showed the best results, whereby the products following close behind in the table had nothing to be ashamed of.