Compare antivirus software

AV-Comparatives named ESET the "Best Antivirus Product" the last two years as they know it's proactive, precise technology—not brand names—that stops malware. And ESET NOD32® Antivirus is the best virus protection available.

Direct comparisons with other antivirus solutions tell the story better than we ever could.

ESET NOD32® Antivirus consistently proves itself to be the best antivirus software, clearly ranking higher in detection, size and speed when compared to its competitors.

Compare antivirus solutions and see what happens when ESET goes up against Symantec, McAfee Trend and more. Discover why ESET is the most proactive, precise, lightweight and fast solution—and the best choice for home and business use.

Best Antivirus Software for Detecting and Eliminating Known and Evolving Threats

Approximately 80% of threats discovered by ESET are proactively detected using ThreatSense® heuristics . For example, all variants of MyDoom, Netsky, Bagle and Mytob were detected heuristically—well before other vendors had issued a signature.
When it comes to "In-the-Wild," virus detection, no one even comes close, as the following chart illustrates.

Missed in-the-wild viruses in virus bulletin tests

Over the past nine years, ESET has collected 50 VB100 awards—more than any other vendor.

VB100 Tests Passed

Due to its highly proactive, on-demand detection rate and low false positives, ESET NOD32® Antivirus consistently receives the highest possible rating—ADVANCED+—from AV-Comparatives.org, an independent research group.

You might think something so powerful would tax your resources. But quite the opposite is true. Because of its highly optimized code and light system footprint, ESET NOD32® Antivirus includes one of the fastest scanners in the industry, as the following charts clearly illustrate.

Scanning throughput of executable files

Antivirus scanning performance

Add it all up, and it's no surprise that ESET NOD32® was named "Best Antivirus Product" for 2006 and 2007 (read more here).

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, and Trend Micro - comparing protection as well as performance.

Comprehensive Protection	ESET NOD32® Antivirus	Symantec	McAfee	Trend	Kaspersky
VB100 Awards for detection of all In-the-Wild viruses in the VB test sets without any false-alarms. (virusbulletin.com, May 1998 - June 2008)	50	44	34	16	41
Advanced+ Awards Tests of proactive and on-demand detection (AV-Comparitives.org, May 2005 - May 2008) Advanced+/Advanced/Standard	12/1/0	5/3/5	2/9/2	0/0/3	8/2/3
Missed In-the-Wild Viruses in Virus Bulletin tests between May 1998 and June 2008 (virusbulletin.com)	0	29	64	70	34
- On-Access - On-Demand	0	2	71	68	16
Real-time protection against 16 zero-day viruses (virustotal.com)	87%	7%*	33%	0%	13%
Retrospective/Proactive Test by 3-month old signatures (May 2007)	68%	24%*	24%	No Data	9%
Performance
Scanning throughput of Media files and documents on Windows Server 2003 (VirusBulletin.com, February 2008)	46.7 MB/s	20.5 MB/s	27 MB/s	No Data	16.4 MB/s
Scanning rate of executables (February 2007, Virus Bulletin) on Windows Vista Business Edition(32-bit)	43.17 MB/s	14.54 MB/s	11.61 MB/s	No Data	12.12 MB/s

* Norton AV

Compare antivirus software and the answer is clear. Big brand names don't stop malware. Advanced design and technology does. ESET NOD32® Antivirus, with ThreatSense® offers superior detection and performance, as well as the smallest footprint.