Kaspersky Reviewer's Comments

Kaspersky Labs has been one of the best antivirus software developers in the world for over a decade and now Kaspersky 7 only strengthens that reputation. Founded by Natalia and Eugene Kaspersky in 1997, this Russian company is often the first to find and identify new viruses. Long used in Russia and Europe, Kaspersky is now making inroads in the North American market. Kaspersky 7 is one of the most effective antivirus packages in the world today and boasts a great interface with easy to use and intuitive controls.

Like so many of the other antivirus packages including BitDefender, Kaspersky 7 comes with an antispyware component and therein lies the weakness in this otherwise excellent software. Kaspersky's software is among the best products in the world, but at $39.95 for a one-user for one-year license, it’s on the high-end of the software we reviewed. While BitDefender offers one-license with one year of updates, Kaspersky offers the same coverage with a price tag 60% higher. There are no complaints about Kaspersky's effectiveness or ease­-of-use, but unfortunately, high price is a major reason people fail to buy antivirus software. This fact alone is enough to take Kaspersky down a notch from what otherwise would be a near draw with BitDefender. As a result, Kaspersky 7 is the “TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award” winner.
Deal Makers

* Highly Effective antivirus/antispyware protection
* Light on computer resources
* Nearly all features are configurable
* Great interface, easy-to-use and intuitive

Deal Breakers

* Doesn't automatically remove a previously installed antivirus software
* Relatively High price
* Heuristic/proactive detection weaknesses
* Spyware detection could be better (92%)
* Relatively slow scan speed

Ease of Use:

Kaspersky has always been among the best samples of antivirus software on the market, but has been less than simple to use. With the release of version 6, Kaspersky dramatically improved their interface and has now refined it even further with version 7 giving this software an interface that matches the quality of the overall package. From a geek’s perspective, Kaspersky's interface is probably the best of all the software reviewed. That being said, it may not be ideal for someone who's not interested in fine-tuning and tweaking their antivirus software. Every feature is configurable and controllable with intuitive and easy to use controls in Kaspersky 7.

Effectiveness:

Kaspersky Labs has always been known for its ability to effectively detect and remove viruses as well as or better than any software program on the market. Like BitDefender, Kaspersky was able to remove over 98% of all viruses it encountered in the most recent (1Q 2008) objective tests of AV-test.org. Kaspersky is also certified by all of the major virus/malware testing laboratories. Tests confirm Kaspersky's effectiveness. It found every virus on the test computer.

Although Kaspersky is excellent at detecting viruses and malware, it could use some work in the detection of spyware. Independent tests by AV-test.org showed that Kaspersky allowed 8% of adware/spyware to go undetected. Furthermore, Kaspersky’s proactive/heuristic engine failed to meet the high standards set by BitDefender, NOD32, F-Secure, Panda and some others.

Like other software with proactive/heuristic engines to detect malware before their signatures are available, Kaspersky's scan is relatively slow. The time and resources demanded by these proactive/heuristic engines slows these scans, and relatively slow scans may be the price we pay for this level of protection. Of the antivirus software packages reviewed, only NOD32 (see “TopTenREVIEWS Bronze Award” winner) scored high on both proactive detection and scan speed.

Updates:

The best antivirus software packages provide virus signature updates on a routine basis. Both Kaspersky and BitDefender update their signatures every hour. That may seem like overkill until a new virus rapidly begins to spread around the globe and your antivirus software only updates every week. That may be too late for you! Since it does its updates automatically, you get the best protection with no effort on your part.

Feature Set:

Kaspersky's feature set is one of its strongest assets. While BitDefender’s interface is primarily an enable/disable feature set, Kaspersky is the software-tweakers dream with controls for nearly all of its features. Like most of the antivirus packages in our review, Kaspersky protects your computer from spyware as well as viruses. Scanning for both viruses and spyware simultaneously is far more efficient in terms of time and resources than stopping to do both separately. Like Bit Defender, “TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award” winner, Kaspersky scans email and port 80 traffic (port 80 is the port that receives web traffic and must be open while browsing the web) so that this excellent software can detect and block online viruses, Trojans, and various other malware before they can cause you trouble.

Kaspersky also has a proactive defense for your computer. Kaspersky watches for unwanted adware, dialers, rootkits, remote access utilities and locks specific registry keys that malicious code may target to damage your computer. Furthermore, Kaspersky now includes protection from viruses while using IM and ICQ.

Kaspersky, in its ever-vigilance against viruses and other malware, now helps you create a rescue disc in the case that your computer is hit by some malicious code that makes your system unbootable. Although this effort to prepare users for the computer equivalent of Armageddon is commendable, the process is tedious and difficult. If you downloaded your operating system or the system disc is lost or unavailable, this feature will be unavailable to you.

Kaspersky also has a Parental Control option where parents can block and control which sites their children are able to access on the web. Interestingly, Kaspersky has three user categories: parent, child and teenager respectively, with separate filters and blocking controls for each.

Ease of Installation:

Kaspersky is among the easiest pieces of antivirus software to install. Its rather compact 50mb file downloaded quickly and installation and activation were a snap. After rebooting, Kaspersky was on the job protecting our test computer. One complaint is that Kaspersky did not automatically remove the antivirus software already on the test computer. This is bound to lead to problems with the average user. Invariably, some will unknowingly end up running two antivirus programs and problems will ensue. With two antivirus packages running, computers run more slowly and error messages become an issue. On a positive note, Kaspersky does come with its own uninstall utility and after running it, no traces of it were found still in the registry. Some of the other antivirus manufacturers should take note: How much confidence can customers have in you, if you don't even know how to completely remove your own software?

Help/Support:

Software should be intuitive and easy to use, and if you still have a question, the software manufacturer should have excellent help/support to resolve your issues quickly and easily. Software should not be a source of stress, but instead, should make your life easier and simpler. When a question does arise, Kaspersky has devoted adequate resources to address them. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7 provides context-sensitive in-program help files. This is a great idea, and some of the other software developers should do likewise. In addition, there are active user forums and FAQs available online. Finally, you can email or call a toll free number for live technical support.