Last updated 17 August 2026. Every test figure on this page comes from an independent testing laboratory, is dated, and links to the published report. Express IT Solutions does not run malware tests and does not claim to. The rankings below are the laboratories’ measurements, not ours.
Most antivirus comparisons rank products by adjectives. This one ranks them by the two numbers that can actually be checked: how many live internet threats a product blocked in a controlled test, and how much it slowed the machine down. Both come from AV-Comparatives, an independent Austrian testing laboratory whose consumer reports are published free and without registration.
The short version: at the top of the market the protection differences are now very small, and the things that actually separate these products are false alarms, system impact, what is bundled, and whether you can legally buy them. If you are choosing security software for a business rather than a home PC, the same caution applies to the AI tools you adopt, which is why we set out what a secure AI agent setup looks like.
What changed since the 2025 version of this page
This page previously carried 2025 information. Three of its claims did not survive being rechecked against current sources, and they have been corrected rather than re-dated:
- Bitdefender is no longer the lightweight pick. The earlier version told readers to choose Bitdefender if system performance mattered. In the April 2026 performance test it placed ninth on system impact, behind McAfee, ESET, Norton, Avast and AVG. That advice was correct once and is not correct now.
- Windows 10 losing support does not mean you are losing Defender. The earlier version said users “will need additional antivirus protection” because Windows 10 support was ending. Microsoft has since confirmed Defender antivirus definitions keep flowing to Windows 10 until October 2028. The real risk is the unpatched operating system underneath, which is a different problem and is not solved by buying antivirus.
- The unsourced scores are gone. Claims such as “perfect 6.0 scores” appeared without naming a test round or linking a report. They have been replaced with figures you can open and read.
Protection: how many real threats each product stopped
AV-Comparatives ran 400 live threat cases against 20 consumer products between February and May 2026 and published the results on 15 June 2026. “Compromised” means the threat altered the test system. False alarms matter because a product that blocks everything by blocking too much is not usable.
| Product | Protection rate | Cases compromised (of 400) | False alarms | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kaspersky | 99.8% | 1 | 3 | ADVANCED+ |
| Bitdefender | 99.5% | 2 | 5 | ADVANCED+ |
| Avast | 99.3% | 3 | 5 | ADVANCED+ |
| AVG | 99.3% | 3 | 5 | ADVANCED+ |
| Norton | 99.3% | 3 | 5 | ADVANCED+ |
| Microsoft (Defender) | 99.0% | 4 | 0 | ADVANCED+ |
| TotalAV | 99.0% | 4 | 5 | ADVANCED+ |
| ESET | 98.5% | 6 | 2 | ADVANCED |
| McAfee | 98.5% | 6 | 4 | ADVANCED |
Read the spread before you read the ranking. First place and ninth place in that table are separated by five compromised cases out of 400. Every product listed blocked at least 98.5% of live threats. Anyone telling you that one mainstream suite is dramatically safer than another is selling something.
The one figure with a real gap is false alarms. Microsoft Defender recorded zero. Across the full 20 product table the worst performer recorded 83, and the test average was 8.
System impact: how much each product slowed the machine
AV-Comparatives publishes a separate performance test. The April 2026 round, released on 22 April 2026, scores products on file copying, archiving, installing and launching applications, downloading and browsing. A lower impact score means less slowdown.
| Product | Impact score (lower is better) | Rank of 19 |
|---|---|---|
| McAfee | 3.3 | 1 |
| Kaspersky | 3.5 | 2 |
| ESET | 4.2 | 3 |
| Norton | 5.3 | 5 |
| Avast, AVG | 5.5 | 6 |
| Bitdefender | 9.6 | 9 |
| Microsoft (Defender) | 12.9 | 11 |
| TotalAV | 18.2 | 14 |
This is where the products genuinely differ. McAfee and ESET are noticeably lighter than Bitdefender and TotalAV on the same benchmark. On an older or lower specification machine that difference is something a user will feel, whereas the protection difference is something only a test lab can measure.
Kaspersky scored highest and US buyers cannot install it
Kaspersky leads both tables. It is also prohibited in the United States. The Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security barred Kaspersky from selling software or providing antivirus signature and codebase updates to US customers, with the update prohibition effective 30 September 2024. Details are on the Bureau of Industry and Security Kaspersky prohibition page.
It appears in the tables above because removing the top scorer would misrepresent the test. It is not a recommendation for a US reader. If you are still running it on a machine in New York, it has not received signature updates through official channels since September 2024, and replacing it should be treated as urgent.
What each suite actually includes
Feature lists change without notice and vendors run different bundles in different regions. The two below were read directly from the vendor’s own US product page on 17 August 2026. Where a claim could not be confirmed on the vendor’s current page, it is not listed.
Norton 360 Deluxe
Norton’s Norton 360 Deluxe page states the plan covers 5 devices and includes 50 GB of cloud backup, a password manager, dark web monitoring, parental control and a VPN. The refund terms on the same page give 60 days on annual subscriptions and 14 days on monthly subscriptions.
A note on a claim this page used to make: the previous version described Norton’s VPN as unlimited with no data caps. Norton’s current product page does not state a data allowance for the VPN either way, so that claim has been removed rather than repeated. Check the plan terms at purchase if VPN data matters to you.
Bitdefender Total Security
Bitdefender’s Total Security page states the plan covers 5 devices and includes a password manager, the Safepay hardened browser for banking, parental control, data breach detection, and a standard VPN limited to 200 MB per day per device. Unlimited VPN traffic sits in a higher tier, so treat the bundled VPN as an occasional tool rather than an always on one.
Microsoft Defender
Defender is built into Windows, costs nothing, and in the February to May 2026 test it blocked 99.0% of live threats with zero false alarms, the cleanest false alarm result of the 20 products tested. Its weakness in that round was system impact, where it ranked eleventh. For a home user with a reasonably current Windows machine and sensible habits, the honest answer is that Defender is a legitimate choice rather than a fallback, and the case for paying is the bundle, the central management and the support, not a large gap in detection.
McAfee, ESET, Avast, AVG and TotalAV
All five appear in the tables above with current scores. Their feature bundles are not described here because their US product pages were not readable at the time of writing, and describing a bundle from memory is how stale comparisons get written in the first place. The test results stand on their own; check the vendor’s page for what ships in the box.
If you are still running Windows 10
Microsoft ended support for Windows 10 on 14 October 2025. Antivirus is not the fix for that, and it is worth being precise about why.
- Microsoft Defender keeps working. Microsoft’s Defender team confirmed security intelligence updates continue for Windows 10 through October 2028. You are not losing malware definitions in 2026.
- The operating system underneath stops being patched. Microsoft’s own end of support page says antivirus, whether Defender or a third party product, is not enough on its own, because without operating system security updates the machine stays exposed.
- Buying a security suite does not change either fact. The decision in front of a Windows 10 owner is upgrade, replace the machine, or enrol in Extended Security Updates. Antivirus is a separate and smaller question.
How to choose
- Start by asking whether you need to buy anything. Defender scored 99.0% with zero false alarms in the most recent round. If the honest answer is that you want fewer moving parts, it is a defensible choice.
- If the machine is old or slow, weight system impact. That is the metric with a real spread, and the April 2026 table is the place to look.
- Buy the bundle, not the detection score. Cloud backup, a password manager, parental controls and device count are what actually differ between paid suites. The detection numbers are within a few cases of each other.
- Count devices honestly, including phones and tablets. Both plans described above cover five.
- Check the current price and terms on the vendor’s page. Antivirus pricing runs on heavy first year discounts that renew much higher. Any price printed in an article is out of date within weeks, which is why none are printed here.
- For a business, endpoint protection is a managed service question. Consumer antivirus has no central console, no alerting and no one watching it at two in the morning.
What this comparison does not claim
Express IT Solutions did not test any of this software. Everything numeric above is an independent laboratory’s published result, cited with its test period and release date.
Two things a reader should know about the limits of this page. First, only one laboratory is cited. AV-TEST publishes a comparable Windows home user series and would be a useful cross check, but its site was not reachable at the time of writing, so no AV-TEST figure is quoted here rather than quoting one from memory. Second, laboratory conditions are not your desk. These tests measure a clean machine against curated threats, and they do not measure the thing that compromises most small businesses, which is a person being persuaded to hand over a password.
Sources
- AV-Comparatives, Real World Protection Test February to May 2026. 400 test cases, 20 consumer products, released 15 June 2026.
- AV-Comparatives, Performance Test April 2026. Released 22 April 2026.
- US Bureau of Industry and Security, Kaspersky Lab, Inc. prohibition.
- Microsoft, end of support for Windows 10.
- Microsoft Defender team, end of Windows 10 support, what Defender customers need to know.
- Norton 360 Deluxe product page, read 17 August 2026.
- Bitdefender Total Security product page, read 17 August 2026.
Choosing endpoint protection for a company is a different exercise from picking a home antivirus, because the questions become who is watching the alerts and how fast an infected machine gets isolated. Express IT Solutions deploys and monitors endpoint protection for businesses across Upstate New York, on site from our Fayetteville office. Read more about our cybersecurity services and our managed IT services, or call (315) 682-6372.
