Methodology
How We Score Every Product
Every antivirus product on this site receives a single overall score out of 10, built from three weighted criteria applied identically across every review. We publish the exact weighting because a security score you can't audit isn't one worth trusting.
Protection — 50% of the Score
This carries half the total weight because catching real threats is the entire point of the product. We weigh lab-verified real-world detection rates against current malware, phishing, and ransomware samples — from recognized independent testing labs, not a vendor's own internal claims — along with how well a product handles zero-day threats that haven't been seen before. A product with a polished interface but mediocre lab detection scores worse here than a plainer product with consistently strong, independently verified catch rates.
Performance — 30% of the Score
Security software that grinds a machine to a halt gets uninstalled, which defeats the point regardless of how good its detection is. We measure real, before-and-after impact on boot time, file-copy speed, and application launch time, rather than trusting a vendor's own "lightweight" marketing claim. Consistency matters here too — a product that's fast during a quick scan but drags heavily during a full scan scores lower than one with steady performance across scan types.
Price & UX — 20% of the Score
We score these together because they're linked in the real buying decision. Is pricing transparent across renewal terms, or does it jump sharply after a discounted first year? Does the interface make it easy to understand your actual protection status at a glance, or does it bury critical settings behind confusing menus? A product charging a premium for a confusing interface scores lower here than a cheaper one that's genuinely pleasant to use day to day.
Why Protection Outweighs Everything Else
We weight protection at half the total score deliberately. A fast, cheap antivirus that misses real-world threats isn't a good antivirus by our standard — it's a fast, cheap placebo. We'd rather rank a slightly heavier, pricier product with consistently strong lab results above a leaner, cheaper one with a spottier detection record.
What We Weigh Qualitatively, Beyond the Number
Some things resist a clean score but still shape the written verdict: how aggressively a product pushes upsells during and after installation, whether a free tier is genuinely usable or crippled to force an upgrade, and how a support team responds to an actual technical question. None of this moves the numeric score directly, but it's always addressed in the review text.
Review Update Policy
We don't test a product once and freeze the score. We re-test continuously and refresh scores whenever a vendor ships a major release or independent lab results change materially — a significant drop in a lab's detection results gets a product re-tested promptly, not on our normal cycle. Every review page shows when it was last updated.
Why Independent Lab Data Matters This Much Here
Detection claims are uniquely hard to verify without access to real malware samples and controlled testing infrastructure most readers don't have. We think a review site that doesn't lean on recognized independent labs before trusting a vendor's own catch-rate claim isn't doing its job properly. Every protection score here traces back to real testing and real lab cross-referencing, not a repackaging of marketing copy.
The Honest Limits of This Methodology
No lab test perfectly predicts how a product will handle the exact threat that eventually targets your specific machine — malware evolves constantly, and even a top-scoring product can occasionally miss something brand new. Treat our scores as the strongest publicly verifiable signal available, and read the full review for any product you're seriously considering, since that's where the specific lab results and performance nuance get explained in full.