Avira Internet Security 2013

Anyone using the free or premium antivirus utilities from Avira knows exactly what the company's full security suite can do, because the suite's features are visible in all three products, just grayed when not available. Avira Internet Security 2013 ($89.99/year for three licenses) does everything you'd expect a suite to do, and also offers local backup of important files. It just doesn't do the job as well as the best of the competition.

The product's busy main window lists all features down the left side; clicking any of them fills the rest of the window with that feature's details. To keep users from drowning in a sea of details, the configuration window hides most of its options by default, revealing them only if you select "Expert mode."

Uneven Antivirus Protection
This suite offers the same antivirus protection found in Avira Antivirus Premium 2013, so please read that review for full details. I'll summarize here.

Getting protection installed on twelve malware-infested systems wasn't easy, because some of the malware samples fought back, but with help from Avira's bootable Rescue Environment and tech support I did it. The cleanup process wiped out essential Windows files on a couple of test systems, rendering them non-functional. Tech support identified the problem files and recommended replacing them from a Windows CD or from a system with the identical Windows version. I managed the task; the average user might have had difficulty.

In my hands-on malware removal test, Avira detected 79 percent of the threats and scored 6.2 points. That's a good bit better than the 5.7 points scored by Avira Antivirus Free 2013. Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete 2013 and Norton Internet Security (2013) outscored the rest in this test, with 6.6 points. The article How We Test Malware Removal explains how I test malware removal and come up with the scores in the chart below.

Like many antivirus products, Avira proved more effective at protecting a clean system than at cleaning up when the malware has already made itself at home. In my malware blocking test it detected 95 percent of the threats and scored 9.3 points. Webroot detected 100 percent and scored a near-perfect 9.9 points. For full details about this test, please see How We Test Malware Blocking.

Avira's scored in independent lab tests are generally good. It earned the top rating of ADVANCED+ in two tests by AV-Comparatives and took ADVANCED in a third. AV-Test certifies antivirus products that achieve 11 of a possible 18 points; Avira scored 15 and 12.5 in the latest tests. The chart below summarizes lab test results for recent products. To learn more about the labs, please read How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Other Shared Features
Like the standalone antivirus, Avira's suite installs a browser toolbar that includes an active "Do Not Track" feature. It lists the number of ad, commerce, and social media tracking links on the current page and gives you the option to prevent them from tracking you, much like the similar feature in the toolbar installed with AVG Internet Security 2013 .

The toolbar also rates the safety of the current site and marks up dangerous links in the Avira search tool's results. It also attempts to identify and block phishing sites, but like the majority of current products it's not very good at detecting the very latest frauds. Its detection rate was a full 50 percentage points lower than Norton's and 25 percent lower than Internet Explorer alone. The article How We Test Antiphishing explains exactly how I derive these scores.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/Qh6XNqgHwtU/0,2817,2411838,00.asp

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