Microsoft Security Essentials vs Avira vs avast! vs AVG: Best free anti-virus/anti-malware program for Windows [3rd Edition]
December 18, 2011 402
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Without a doubt one of the most popular questions I am asked is “which security software should I use for my computer?” Often times the person asking me the question is looking for a free security solution as opposed to a paid one. To address this question, I have already created a post on best security software. However, now – in this article – I am going to directly address the issue of “should I use Avira, avast!, or AVG?” Of course there are many other free anti-virus/anti-malware software. However, I feel these three are the most popular and most commonly inquired about, hence why I picked them.
Update on December 3, 2010: Because of its growing popularity, and requests made to me by many people, Microsoft Security Essentials is now included in this comparison.
When evaluating security software and trying to decide which one you want to use, there are two main areas which you should look at: Features and performance. So, lets get started.
This review is part of our Best Free Windows Software section. Check out more articles on the best free Windows programs from here.
Table of Contents
Summary of Update
Features Comparison
Performance Comparison
Detection Rates
Malware Removal Effectiveness
Computer Impact
In the 3rd edition of dotTech’s guide on Best Free Windows Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware the following changes have been made:
- Features Comparisonsection has been updated to reflect new features added to Avira Free, avast! Free, AVG Free, and Microsoft Security Essentials since the 2nd edition of this article was written. All four made tweaks and modifications to their existing features; the major new features are:
- Avira Free – “WebGuard”
- avast! Free – Behavior blocker, “Auto Sandbox”, “Script Shield”, “WebRep”
- AVG Free – Largely unchanged
- Microsoft Security Essentials – Behavior blocker, “Network Inspection System”
- Performance Comparison section has been updated to reflect new on-demand and retrospective detection rates for Avira Free, avast! Free, and Microsoft Security Essentials. AVG Free did not participate in the latest retrospective tests so AVG Free’s detection rates have been updated only for on-demand tests.
- Performance Comparison’s sub-section Speed and Computer Usage has been rewritten with a new source and renamed to Computer Impact.
- Performance Comparison now includes a new sub-section, Malware Removal Effectiveness.
(Click on the chart to view it in full size.)
In terms of features, as you can see in the chart above, all four programs provide the necessary fundamental protection. However, it is worth noting that neither of the programs provide full/advanced phishing protection; you will have to cough up money for paid versions to get full/advanced phishing protection. Or, you could just be careful about what links you click; and double-check to make sure the website you are at is who it claims to be since phishing success heavily depends on social engineering and user ambivalence.
Furthermore, while all four programs provide the fundamentals, avast! is the most notable one for going “above and beyond” the basics and providing a little extra bang for the buck (or lack thereof). In other words, avast! provides more “extra” features than the other three, although AVG Free also has some nice extras. It also should be noted Avira Free’s “WebGuard” requires users to install Avira Toolbar, which is powered by Ask.com; and Microsoft Security Essentials has an interesting feature called “Network Inspection System” — a guard against network-based exploits.
Lastly, even though Microsoft Security Essentials is the only one to not prompt users with advertisements it must be noted that the ads in avast! Free are non-intrusive and embedded within the main console window – they are not the popup ads Avira Free is notorious for and AVG Free sometimes displays.
(Click on the chart to view it in full size.)
(Click on the chart to view it in full size.)
When viewing the above test results, keep a few things in mind:
- The On-Demand Anti-Malware Tests are tests done on the security software with all their features enabled (with all settings set to the highest possible). The Retrospective/Proactive Anti-Malware Tests are tests done specifically on the security softwares’ heuristics capabilities; their capabilities to protect against unknown/new malware that have no signatures. It needs to be mentioned that heuristics is not the only feature that security software use against unknown/new malware. Other feature, such as behavior blocking, also help detect unknown/new malware; however only the heuristics feature (and no other features, such as behavior blocking) was tested in the Retrospective/Proactive Anti-Malware Tests.
- For the The On-Demand Anti-Malware Tests
- Microsoft Security Essentials had “very few” false positives; Avira had “few” false positives; avast! had “few” false positives; and AVG had “many” false positives.
- Avira scanned at “fast” speed; avast! scanned at “fast” speed; AVG scanned at “average” speed; and Microsoft Security Essentials scanned at “slow” speed.
- The tests were conducted 1-5 months ago. In other words, Avira, avast!, AVG, and MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) may have improved (or degraded) their performance since these tests were conducted. These are the versions of each program used for both of the above tests:
- The tests were conducted using the free version of Avira (“Avira AntiVir Personal” is another name for Avira Free); free and paid version of AVG, respectively for each test; and free version of avast!. Microsoft Security Essentials, of course, is free by definition.
Because of the above mentioned points,
- The performance of each software today may be different than when the tests were conducted.
- The performance of the free edition AVG may perform slightly differ than what is shown above since paid version for AVG was used for one test.
However, keeping that in mind, for the purposes of a simple comparison these test results work just fine because they give general indications, which is what we are looking for.
That being said, the results are a clear indication of Avira’s detection superiority. Not only does Avira have the highest on-demand detection rates, but it also tops the chart for retrospective tests; all with fast scanning and few false positives. avast! comes in a close second with healthy on-demand and retrospective rates, fast scanning, and few false positives. MSE is fourth in on-demand detection but does very well in retrospective tests and comes out on top when it comes to false positives. (It should be noted MSE’s lower on-demand rates help it do better in terms of false positives: It detects less so there is less chance of it to have false positives.) AVG, in my opinion, is the most disappointing of the lot. It doesn’t do too badly in on-demand but does terrible for retrospective and has many false positives.
Based off just these test results, Avira and avast! are definitely my two top picks, with MSE a close third. However, the tests were conducted in a lab setting for benchmark purposes. In other words, they don’t exactly reflect “real life”. In real-life usage the protection between all four program will be similar because most user activity will fall within areas covered by all four. I may be a bit bold when I say this but the differences between all four software will typically only be felt when conducting benchmarks or tests.
(Click on the chart to view it in full size.)
Being able to detect malware has value in of itself; simply knowing you are infected is worthwhile. However, an anti-virus/anti-malware program that cannot remove malware is probably one you don’t want to have. Hence in the 3rd edition of dotTech’s guide on Best Free Windows Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware we look at the results of a malware removal effectiveness test.
Before we discuss the results it must be noted this malware removal effectiveness test had limited scope — it only used ten samples. It is hard, and frankly not fair or logical, to draw authoritative conclusions based on a test that only used ten samples. However, for the purposes of a non-authoritative indicator, this test will do just fine… as long as you keep in mind the limited scope.
That said, Avira once again tops the charts. MSE comes in a close second with AVG and avast! lagging as distant third and fourth, respectively. As I said, this test used only ten samples so we can’t say avast! or AVG are incompetent at removing malware while Avira or MSE are the best. The results very well could have been different if different ten malware samples were picked. (That is why having a large, randomized sample size is important in any test.) However, I believe it is fair to say with its combined stellar performance on-demand and retrospective detection rates and malware removal effectiveness, Avira more than makes up in performance what it lacks in features.
(Click on the chart to view it in full size.)
(Click on the chart to view it in full size.)
(Click on the chart to view it in full size.)
NOTE: Avira Free 2012, avast! Free v6, AVG AntiVirus 2012, and Microsoft Security Essentials v2.1 were used for the above tests.
Generally speaking, the computer impact of all four software is about the same. True, avast! does come out on top but only by a small margin; and this small margin will only be noticed when benchmarking — not in real-life usage. Really the only test worth noting is opening Word and opening PDF. In this test avast! out shines the other three on the first run (subsequent run they all perform the same). All other aspects of the Computer Impact test end up with results that are too close to draw lines between.
(For those that don’t know, PC Mark is a professional, industry-recognized benchmarking tool. The higher PC Mark score, the better. However, when it comes to PC Mark, few points here and there have no significant meaning. If PC Mark scores were drastically different, such as 50 or more, then it would be worth looking at.)
Note: All tests referenced in all Performance Comparison sub-sections of this article were not conducted by dotTech. They (the tests) were conducted by AV-Comparatives.org, an authority on security software testing. I attained permission to re-publish AV-Comparatives’ results on dotTech when I originally wrote this article.
While there are some noteworthy aspects – such as Microsoft Security Essential’s low false positive count or avast!’s lowest computer impact or Avira’s best detection and removal performance – there is no one “winner” between Microsoft Security Essentials, Avira Free, avast! Free, and AVG Free. To try to determine which one is the “best” is like trying to split hairs; it is hard to do and it hurts. In real-life situations, all four programs will provide users with excellent protection.
However, with that being said, if I were to rank these four I would rank Avira and avast! as my top two picks; Avira for its detection and malware removal and avast! for its features and lowest computer impact. Microsoft Security Essentials and AVG come after Avira and avast!, with each providing one or two unique features that have potential to win over users.
Now, what program you should use comes down to your specific needs and desires. Want the most features? avast! Free is the way to go. Are you looking for the best detection rates and don’t care about anything else? Avira Free is for you. Want a simple anti-malware program that provides great protection without nagging ads? Microsoft Security Essentials beckons you. Worried about network security? Microsoft Security Essentials’ “Network Inspection System” may serve you well. Are you a social network addict? Go with AVG Free for it has “Social Network Protection”. Hate false positives? Avoid AVG and consider Microsoft Security Essentials. Dislike slow scan times? Don’t get Microsoft Security Essentials. Surf the web a lot, besides your frequent websites? avast! Free’s “Web Shield” provides better specialized protection in that area than the other three programs. Download lots of software? avast! Free’s “Auto Sandbox” may be your next best friend.
I have provided you with the facts; now the choice of Microsoft Security Essentials, Avira Free, avast! Free, or AVG free is in your hands. Whichever one you pick, rest assured all four will serve you well.
Avira Free AntiVirus
Supported OS: Windows 2000+
Avira AntiVir Personal homepage [download link]
avast! Free Antivirus
Supported OS: Windows XP+
avast! Free Antivirus homepage [download link]
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Supported OS: Windows 2000+
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition homepage [download link]
Microsoft Security Essentials
Supported OS: Windows XP and higher
Microsoft Security Essentials homepage
Originally written on February 14, 2010. 2nd edition posted on December 3, 2010. 3rd edition posted on December 18, 2011.
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@janet:
Oh, I see. Well, perhaps you are correct.
However, that being said, please don’t get me wrong. There is
no doubt Avira is a top-notch program. As I said previously, Avira
did a great job on a virus I had on my computer when AVG did
nothing at all to combat it. So frankly, there may come
a day when I revert back to Avira. I read where Consumer
Reports rated it higher than many paid AV software out there.
So its credentials certainly can be considered impeccable.
However, I still maintain, like most of us, that it is a product that
could be improved upon in some respects. In quite simple ways,
actually. At least, that’s just my opnion.
Be that as it may, I don’t feel anyone can go wrong having
Avira protecting their computer against malware. As I indicated
prior, it is all a matter of personal choice.
Your points are very well taken.
Thank you.
@eric: Uhm. Not to be rude but if you want your internet to be safe from viruses then use Avast instead of using some gay plugin that will most likely lag your internet more, use Avast it comes with internet security. And it does not even slow down and mogg my computer because avast is already open in the tray.
The last version (I believe it was 9) of AVG free came with the link scanner enable, which really cripples web browsing. I couldn’t find a way to disable it, how to disable it it V.8 was readily found in the programs control panel. When I remove AVG free, web browsing returned to normal. Having Aria on my portable, I knew I didn’t like the user interface, so I tried Avast! in mt desktop computer, from a casual review I have to say I like Avast! free better than AVG free.
At one time, I was using Avira free and also Avast free, having disabled the realtime engine and enabled only the webmail, P2P etc.
Was that good-secure aproach?
It seemed that I did not have interferance problems.
Now I use only Avira.
I have a personal story to tell. We got a NASTY virus on our work shipping computer. Having just started up a side business cleaning up computers, I decided to do it for free in return for experience gained.
I scanned that computer (in safe mode) with half a dozen scanners. (including Avast and AVG) I have always picked Avast due to the boot scan option and will continue to use that in my cleaning process of people’s computers. However, I ran Avira after Avast boot scan and Avira came up with THREE more trojan horses and a two KillApp critters.
Just before scanning I called out a bounty to whoever could find the bug causing the problem. (yes I kinda talk to computers, lol). The program to find and solve the issue, would become the program I install on my clients (and my own) computer. After Avast missed 5 viruses… I went with Avast.
Props to Avast for going above the call of duty with extras, but slower scans, and most important! missing viruses gave him the close second to Avira.
Thank you SOO much for this article. Those charts and tests REALLY gave me a visual confirmation to pick Avira.
I plan to use my home desktop (Win 7, i5) only for playing games (not connected to internet), but CD/DVD/PDs will be used often. Occasional movies, MS office works will be done. Which one then you recommend for me?
When I read about the professional/paid version one of the reasons Avast has to upgrade is a Firewall. You do not mention anything about a firewall in any of the three. Do the free versions not have a firewall?
As a regular user, I have try three of these antiviruses. Agree that avast still serve a maximum protection. It block a suspicious file before I open it. AVG and Avira won’t do that. But I agree Avira has a fastest scanner engine. Unfortunately doesn’t have automatic healing of quarantine action. AVG does, but the virus scanner is slow.
Along with Avast . . . Try the Free Panda Cloud Anti-virus which is not locally based in your computer but zaps malware from a server in the internet!
(It catches the bad guys BEFORE it downloads into your computer.)
Neat idea. Try it as it will NOT conflict with Avast – - and it’s FREE!!!
What about Avira frequently nagging with its pop-ups “recommending” upgrading to the paid version, which is almost spam in a sense? Yes, it is free, but I rather don’t want that.
Between MS Security Essentials, Avast, AVG and Avira I have found that Avast causes the least payload to the system, with a good detection rate. Complement with MalwareBytes (paid or not), a good Firewall (there are good free ones), Virus Total, Sandboxie (paid or not) and and you are good to go.
Should update this and use Avira Personal ver10 and check it out with Avast free ver5.0.677 vs AVGfree 2011. AVG and Avast has Webguard/shield. Avira has none but detection is Avira hands-down.
Would like to see a new test showing latest versions used.
I have been in the bizz for a long time.
as of todays date 11/26/2100 here are the top pics in order
1 M.S.E
2 Avira
3 Avast
4 Btdefender
5 AVG
Note: M.S.E is the lightest weight out of all of them and does out rank Avira in detection, Avira and avast are so close but Avira has such a slightly better detection rate.
@Damien: An update is planned to be published very soon.
I am running both Avira and AVG on one computer, and it seems that despite Avira running a daily scan, AVG is picking up viruses left and right during a scan currently underway. I will say that Avira is (or seems to be) the first to detect the virus as soon as it’s picked up; however, everything I go into “My Computer” it beeps and says that it blocks auto-run because I always keep a game disc in my CD drive because I play the game constantly. I also have been having issues updating Avira since (What Avira is telling me) 11/11 of this year. After looking at all of these graphs, though, I kind of want to try avast! now.
I have Avira, Avast, Comodo, Sandboxie, MalwareBytes. Never had a problem updating Avira its very quick though dont like the nag screen. Avast tries to update while my machine is booting and frequently causes it to hang. Not alone in this. Cant even start ProcXP or task manager to kill the update. Avast is also the only app to be full screen in your face at boot time. If I use comodo firewall to prevent it updating it doesnt go quietly. Avast scans on demand very quickly though so dont understand speed complaints and will flag infected web pages but finds little else for me. Comodo seems to find things in Avast’s temp folders. Not sure if Avast is missing them or if Comodo just takes over. Comodos heuristics are trigger happy though sometimes something else will confirm a problem. In any case I have it for the Firewall and Defence plus rather than antivirus. Its sandbox can grab anything that starts unasked though it treats the same program in an archive as unknown each time its extracted and run from a different winrar temp folder. And if I want a list of my trusted programs or software providers Il handpick and add them thankyou. If you run two or several programs be aware that a slow scan in one might be slow because the real time part of other programs are interupting every open and close. Make sure they don’t mistake each others incoming virus signatures as problems. Constant references to Second Thought were very irritating till I sussed it. Sandboxie is terrific for trying out things you dont know if you want to keep or dont know if you can trust. Have also used A2, Norton + McAfee. AVG finds only cookies and was useless in the end. Running various programs at the same time is the ultimate test of what finds what and when. Best detector of substantive threats is Avira without doubt. The nag screen is a small price to pay.
FWIW, the latest (10/2010) VB-100 tests disagree with these results; not only placing all 3 of these at about the same level of protection but among the best available in both proactive and reactive protection. In fact AVG 2011 marginally outperformed both Avast & Avira. IMHO, any of these 3 are acceptable and while I’ve never liked AVG in the past, the new AVG 2011 is my current choice. It’s light on resources, has minimal false positives, very good detection and (most of all) has a terrific interface. Combined with the (free) threatfire HIPS, it has been completely trouble-free.
My advice: Don’t let the (very) outdated article on this site dissuade you.
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index.xml
@blue: Yeah this article is almost a year old, so that is not a surprise. I plan on updating it soon.
Now after a few moments of the starting windows loading screen , theres a BSOD with the line
STOP: C0000135 The program can’t start because %hs is missing. Try resintalling the program
Please check the link below to fix the issue, this is all because of AVG on my machine.. http://forum.notebookreview.com/security-anti-virus-software/537579-help-c0000135-hs-missing.html
I was happily using Avira free editon version 9 and then I upgraded to version 10 and then the problems began. The most noticeable problem was a significant slowdown of the machine. Using process hacker I could see that Avira would take 100% CPU time when I opened files. I also noticed that its memory footprint was significantly larger. On a less critical side of things, the new user interface is IMO a step backwards, the version 9 one was far better.
Performance got so bad that I uninstalled Avira and downloaded Avast 5 Free edition. So far I am happy with it although I find that it takes too long to find out if an update is required and sometimes these updates are large.
BUT the biggest problem with Avast is that since downloading it, I have since started to receive a lot of SPAM to the unique email address I used to register Avast – that’s why I use unique email address for each piece of software. I am not impressed at all, so everyone should keep this fact in mind when registering Avast. I have never received any SPAM to the Avira email address.
For my other machines I am currently using AVG 9 Paid edition which I have no complaints about so far (its been 3 months since I installed it).
Thank You for putting in so much time on this I find it very informative and excellent article
Great Job!!
As to someone complaining about the popups in free Avira – I haven’t had a popup in weeks, and my vdf are up to date…
Surprise: Microsoft installs Silverlight and Genuine Advantage along with SE. So I go with Panda on Windoze machines.
The less Microsoft I use, the happier I am, which is why I’m running Ubuntu right here.
http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/ (Although I think their mice are pretty good.)
@Pepe:
I agree Pepe, I tried it until the popups started annoying me. At least AVG won’t pester you every week.
Tanner, whether you intended it or not, your use of gay is rude and insulting. Please knock it off.
The catregory of no advertising is misleading and unfair. The only advertising I’ve seen with Avast is an unintrusive ad on the opening menu screen. Big deal. It’s a far cry from intrusive popups yet the chart does not reflect that.
Comodo and ZoneAlarm both make good free firewalls. I’ve had good luck with Zone Alarm.
@TheRube:
I agree. I’ve been using Panda for months now and love it.