The Antivirus Help Center Testing Procedure

Before the products we test enter our lab, they have already been exposed to considerable research. We constantly obtain information about antivirus products and services, and consumer demand for each product. Our editorial, technical, and research departments then scrutinize the information, along with suggestions from our subscribers, to continue to refine and further develop our testing criteria. Our main focus is on the products that we feel provide the best value and protection to our visitors.

There were many challenges to develop Our Testing, especially because most of the original software manufacturers have published their own performance data, which may or may not accurately reflect the effectiveness of their product. As such, it was necessary that we test each product based on the same performance metrics and criteria. The goal of our testing is to give our users an unbiased and honest opinion of the product we truly feel will best remove infections and keep them safe for many years to come.

Testing Process

We focused on the important stuff.

Price- This was easy.

We pulled out our fancy calculators to determined which products were the most affordable.

Protection Quality- This one was not so easy.

Our most intensive area of research and testing takes place in determining the Protection Quality of each product, where the job never ends. As soon as we think we are done testing a particular product, the manufacturer usually upgrades the software and we start the whole process all over again. We begin by turning on our Testing Computers* and downloading one product into each computer. We then take each computer through a gauntlet of known malicious websites, download infected software into the computers, and grade how each software responds to the same virus, spyware, and/or malware. The software on each computer receives a grade based on how they respond to these threats, from there we determine which product to recommend per infection. Afterward, we scan each computer for remaining threats, and we compare the results and overall performance of each antivirus software product to generate a comprehensive protection quality score.

Ease of Use- Our focus groups helped us with this one.

We placed each of the antivirus products we tested in the hands of individuals in our focus groups. Then we gave the individuals specific instructions to run various commands found on all of the software products we tested. We then surveyed the individuals for complaints, problems, technical difficulties, and general feedback on all of the tested products, asking each individual to answer the exact same questions for each product tested. We used all of the criteria mentioned above and factored it into our decision.

Customer Service- This one took a lot of phone calls.

We made multiple phone calls to the customer service numbers listed with all the products we tested. We called each of the products with questions in regards to installation, operating the software, technical problems, and many other product features. Each product’s customer service grade was calculated based on average wait time, product knowledge, and resolution time.

Our Conclusions

After crunching the numbers.

The product or products we recommend on this site are the ones that we believe to be the best in the marketplace. Because our testing for every product was performed under consistent conditions we were able to draw sound conclusions. Of all the products tested, not one product provided protection against every single malicious item that it had been exposed to. However, we did find that most of the products we tested came up short in removing Malware or Trojan viruses from infected computers. This played a big rule in our decision making as most of the traffic that enters this site is from people looking for a “one click” virus removal solution. It is for this reason that we recommend PC Tools Internet Security 2011. We unable to find any other product to compare with all the features that come standard with it and not to forget it was clearly the BEST software for removing infections from computers. We hope our testing results will play a huge role in helping the average PC user to remove viruses from their computers.

*Our testing computers are made up of name brand desktop and laptop PCs running 32bit or 64bit intel or amd chips using XP SP2, Vista, and Windows 7 as operating systems. All PC hardware used was considered the standard as of March 2010.

* After the completion of some recent tests, we decided to suspend the recommendation of Norton Antivirus 2010. We acknowledge that our test are not 100% perfect. However, we have found them to be the best in the industry and very helpful in identifying the best antivirus software products. We are continuing to do further tests on Norton Antivirus 2010 and many other products over the next several months.