What does this mean? As A-V Comparative notes, most PC users don't consider antivirus protection until their computer has already been infected, so its intent was not to review detection rates but rather how well these software packages clean malware they've already identified.
AV-Comparative.orgA-V Comparative's rankings (Nov. 2013) for malware removal. (Higher is better.)
"Good malware detection is very important to find existing malware that is already on a system," the report states. "However, a high protection or detection rate of a product does not necessariy mean that a product has good removal abilities. On the other hand, a product with a low detction rate may not even find the infection and be able to remove it."With that said, several popular packages earned the top, three-star rating: Kaspersky Lab, Bitdefender, Avira, FortiNet, ESET, Avast, and Panda—listed in order of their performance. Kaspersky was ranked the highest of all of the packages tested.
Note that simply removing malware isn't a binary process; as the report notes, "removing" the malware may leave the system with anything from a compromised HOSTS file to a disabled task manager. The report also provides a handy list of "recovery disk" links in case your system gets seriously trashed. Some malware will block access to vendor websites, requiring the need for offline access. A-V Comparative made several recommendations to vendors to solve these security problems—which, to their credit, those vendors had implemented, A-V Comparative said.
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