How Does Yours Compare?

Compare Antivirus Software

ESET products remain the best virus protection available in 2009, whether it’s ESET NOD32 Antivirus
or ESET Smart Security (built with the same ThreatSense® engine as ESET NOD32 Antivirus).
AV-Comparatives named ESET NOD32 Antivirus the “Best Antivirus Product” in 2006 and 2007 as
they know that proactive, precise technology – not brand names – stop malware. ESET NOD32
Antivirus was then awarded “The Best Proactive On-demand Detection” and “The Best Overall Speed
Performance” for 2008.
Direct comparisons with other antivirus solutions tell the story better than we ever could.
Using the in-depth chart below, you can compare antivirus software and find out which type will
provide the kind of protection you need.
The study stands ESET NOD32 Antivirus up to some of the biggest brand names - Symantec, McAfee,
Trend Micro and Kaspersky - comparing protection as well as performance.

Comprehensive Protection ESET Symantec McAfee Trend Kaspersky

VB100 Awards for Detection of All In-the-Wild

Viruses in the VB Test Sets Without Any False-Alarms 54 48 37 16 44
(virusbelletin.com, May 1998 - February 2009)
Advanced+ Awards Tests of Proactive and On-
Demand Detection (AV-Comparatives.org, May 2005 13/2/0 6/4/5 2/10/3 0/0/3 9/3/3
- November 2008) Advanced+/Advanced/Standard
Missed In-the-Wild Viruses in Virus Bulletin Tests
between May 1998 and February 2009 (virusbulletin.com)
- On-Access 0 29 64 70 34
- On-Demand 0 2 71 68 16

Performance Advantages ESET Symantec McAfee Trend Kaspersky

Boot Time Overhead Percentage by AV- 12% 26% 70% No Data 108%
Comparatives (November 2008)
File Access Lag Time 0.02 0.04 0.08 No Data 0.04
(virusbulletin.com; August 2008) MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s
Commit Charge 100.63 186.3 157.93 No Data 156.12
(Clean Systems, West Coast Labs; September 2008) MB MB MB MB
Application Startup Time 1.94 3.1 3.74 No Data 2.17
(Internet Explorer, West Coast Labs; September 2008) seconds seconds seconds seconds

we protect your digital worlds

® For example Sophos and McAfee take almost 4
seconds to start IE which is 2 times slower than ESET.
The chart on the left shows an overview of the
memory consumption (commit charge) characteristic
Kaspersky

Kaspersky

Kaspersky

Kaspersky

Kaspersky

Kaspersky
Symantec

Symantec

Symantec

Symantec

Symantec

Symantec
Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft
McAfee

McAfee

McAfee

McAfee

McAfee

McAfee
Sophos

Sophos

Sophos

Sophos

Sophos

Sophos
ESET

ESET

ESET

ESET

ESET

ESET
Base

Base

Base

Base

Infected Files Clean systems Copying Data

Documents Executables Images
of main competitors’ antivirus engines. The chart
clearly demonstrates that the low impact on system
resources is one of the key strengths of ESET.
The chart on the right represents an overview of
the office application start times characteristic of
various av engines. Again, ESET scores highest with
the lowest startup time on all programs, which is
beneficial to businesses running MS Office, adding
Kaspersky

Kaspersky

Kaspersky

Kaspersky
Symantec

Symantec

Symantec

Symantec
Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft

to increased productivity of their employees.

McAfee

McAfee

McAfee

McAfee
Sophos

Sophos

Sophos

Sophos
ESET

ESET

ESET

ESET
Base

Base

Base

Base

Internet Explorer is traditionally one of the slowest S

Word Excel Power Point Internet Explorer

starting applications.
 The below chart represents an overview for the system
startup time characteristic of various antivirus engines.
Again, ESET scores highest with its shortest start-up
time, during both boot and reboot processes.

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The above shows an overview of the impact of

competitors’ antivirus engines on the overall system
performance. Averaging the results of a basket of four
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parameters – file overhead of file copying, archiving,

Cold Boot Reboot
encoding and boot time – the chart shows that ESET
consumes the lowest overhead on system resources.

Detection Advantages
Independent tests show ESET’s superior protection
When new viruses, worms and other malicious attacks strike, traditional signatures are insufficient.
Every minute you wait for an update is another minute that your computer and network are vulnerable to
damage, infection, or identity theft. Threatsense® Heuristics closes the window of vulnerability by safely
identifying and stopping malware as it attempts to run on your computer.
ESET NOD32 Antivirus and ESET Smart Security (built with the same ThreatSense engine as ESET NOD32
Antivirus) have consistently been rated as the best protection against zero-day threat and attacks by the
world’s leading proactive antivirus testing organisations.

AV-Comparatives.org
The independent testing institution, AV-Comparatives.org, is an antivirus research project
coordinated by Andreas Clementi with the support of the Innsbrucker Kompetenzzentrum /
Computernotdienst. The AV-Comparatives.org May 2008 “Retrospective/Proactive Antivirus
Test” compared 16 different antivirus products’ abilities to proactively identify the increasing
complexity and nature of the zero-day threat. The stringent testing used recent “In-the-Wild”
samples and a variety of other malware, Trojans, viruses and worms affecting Windows
and other operating systems. To effectively test the products for proactive detection, the
organisation used new malware samples, and tested them against the products without updating the
antivirus signatures.

The below chart shows the number of awards received

in the AV-Comparatives Retrospective and On-Demand
testing.

we protect your digital worlds

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Detection rate [%] Number of False Positives

Advanced + Advanced Standard

The above chart displays the proactive detection

results of new samples of various antivirus
engines in relation to their false positive
rates. These values have been averaged from
several antivirus tests during (2007 –2008). ESET UK
Although ESET did not rank first in proactive
detection rate, it offers far fewer false alarms 242 Charminster Road, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH8 9RP
than its competitors. Achieving a far better Tel: 0845 838 0832 Fax: 0845 838 0834
ratio between proactive detection and false
Email: [email protected]
alarms, ESET comes out as a true winner of the
retrospective test. www.eset.co.uk