Consumer Reports Ratings AV

In its latest edition, Consumer Reports has a nice article on Online Protection, with ratings for different categories.

I'm not going to quote their article since it's subscriber-based, but here's a summary on some ratings:

Antispam software:
Greater emphasis was placed on delivering valid e-mail than blocking spam.

Add-ons

1. MailFrontier Desktop (Matador) - $30 - $9 yearly fee - Blocked 96% of test spam, but also mistook 4% of valid e-mails for spam
2. Aladdin/Mailshell SpamCatcher Universal - $30 - $10 yearly fee - Blocked 67% of test spam, while only 2% of valid e-mails.
3. Symantec Norton AntiSpam - $40 - $15 yearly fee

E-mail programs

1. Apple Mac OS X Mail 1.3.8 (v618)
2. Microsoft Outlook 2003 - $100
3. Microsoft Entourage (Office v. X, Mac) - $400

Antivirus Software:
Rated on: versatility, ease of use, scan speed, scheduled scan, price

1. Trend Micro PC-cillin 2004 - $50 - $25 yearly fee - Fastest, includes firewall, and privacy features
2. Norton AntiVirus 2004 9.0 - $50 - $20 yearly fee
3. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal 5.0 - $50 - $35 yearly fee
4. Panda Titanium 2004 3.01
5. McAfee ViruScan 2004 8.0
6. Softwin BitDefender Std 7.2
7. Computer Associates eTrust EZ 2005 6.2

Antispyware:
Rated on: detection, ease of use, real-time protection, ignore cookies, helps browser block spyware, scheduled scan, price.

1. Lavasoft Ad-aware 6 Standard - free
2. PestPatrol - $40
3. Spybot Search & Destroy - free
4. Webroot Spy Sweeper - $30
5. InterMute SpySubtract Pro - $30
6. FBM Software ZeroSpyware 2004 - $30

Consumer Reports and the Consumers Union have a long standing trust among consumers, like myself. Nice article, to bad the gritty details are not available . Off to the library were every single issue for 20 years is on file. :)

Yeah, their writeup on how to protect yourself online (from spyware, viruses, spam) was actually pretty decent. I think it will be great for the "average Internet user".

I'm glad they are helping get the word out to that class of user and help work toward reducing all these infected home machines - sigh!

Good Article....Trend Micro also has a great free scanner, I always recommend it to my users for home if they are running Norton or Mcafee and think they might still be infected. 1 out of 7 times Tend finds something that Mcafee "home" or Norton dosen't pick up.

Yeah, pretty good article. I gotta agree with the AntiSpyware and AntiVirus Software list's. Ad-aware's an amazing program and PC-Cillin is extremely easy to use and is very efficient.