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I judge ‘em as they’re tested by us and by the indepent testers.

I have *no* faith in independent testers, who consistently rate Norton highly... It is quite common for me to find Norton boxes completely overrun with viruses, and Norton doesn't even know the difference. The same with McAfee.

I test my own in a real world environment by running AVTrials through client boxes, switching them up, and seeing which ones leave things for others to detect. Invariably KAV can clean a box better than any. Always has. NOD32, FPROT, and SOPHOS are second tier, very good, seldom leave anything KAV would find, and if it does, usually caught on the next update. Next, Bitdefender, Dr. Web, and AntiVir- reliably catch what the others would within a day... AVG is an also ran, takes a bit longer to detect, but eventually will, can be compromised, but normally knows it when it is.

All the rest, while some may surprise me from time to time, generally fail to be reliably on their game like the ones mentioned above. **Note that I tend to care more about "on demand" detection than I do about realtime. Realtime *is* important, but always is less powerful than "on demand", and is not the final defense.

There will be a new kid on the block here shortly.

That sounds very interesting- Would appreciate a ping or pvt e when you know more. I have always liked NOD32, but my users (SOHO and Residential) find it hard to understand. F-protect is a much cleaner GUI and that is another reason why I have stayed with them so long.

Funny how things don't change much- Been reliably using KAV (AVP), FPROT, SOPHOS, and NOD32 since the DOS days to clean stuff up...