AV-Comparatives named ESET NOD32® Antivirus the "Best Antivirus Product" in 2006 and 2007 as they know that proactive, precise technology—not brand names— stop malware. And ESET products remain the best virus protection available in 2008, whether it's ESET NOD32 Antivirus or ESET® Smart Security built with the same ThreatSense® engine.
Direct comparisons with other antivirus solutions tell the story better than we ever could.
Using the in-depth chart below, you can compare antivirus software and find out which type will provide the kind of protection you need. The study stands ESET NOD32 Antivirus up to some of the biggest brand names - Symantec, McAfee, and Trend Micro - comparing protection as well as performance.
| Comprehensive Protection | ESET NOD32 Antivirus | Symantec | McAfee | Trend | Kaspersky |
| VB100 Awards for Detection of All In-the-Wild Viruses in the VB Test Sets Without Any False-Alarms (virusbulletin.com, May 1998 - December 2008) |
53 | 47 | 37 | 16 | 43 |
| Advanced+ Awards Tests of Proactive and On-Demand Detection (AV-Comparitives.org, May 2005 - November 2008) Advanced+/Advanced/Standard |
13/2/0 | 6/4/5 | 2/10/3 | 0/0/3 | 9/3/3 |
| Missed In-the-Wild Viruses in Virus Bulletin Tests between May 1998 and December 2008 (virusbulletin.com) |
|||||
| - On-Access - On-Demand |
0 0 |
29 2 |
64 71 |
70 68 |
34 16 |
| Proactive Detection Click to learn more | |||||
| Real-Time Protection Against 16 Zero-Day Viruses (virustotal.com) |
57% | 14%* | 32% | No Data | 21% |
| Proactive Test by AV-Test.org on 1-Month Old Signatures (January 2008) |
68% | 26%* | 30% | 27% | 24% |
| Performance Advantages Click to learn more | |||||
| Scanning Throughput of Media Files and Documents on Windows Server 2003 (virusbulletin.com, February 2008) |
46.7 MB/s | 20.5 MB/s | 27 MB/s | No Data | 16.4 MB/s |
| File Access Lag Time (virusbulletin.com; August 2008) |
0.02 MB/s | 0.04 MB/s | 0.08 MB/s | No Data | 0.04 MB/s |
| Commit Charge (Clean Systems, West Coast Labs; September 2008) |
100.63 MB | 186.3 MB | 157.93 MB | No Data | 156.12 MB |
| Application Startup Time (Internet Explorer, West Coast Labs; September 2008) |
1.94 seconds | 3.1 seconds | 3.74 seconds | No Data | 2.17 seconds |
| Boot Times (West Coast Labs; September 2008) |
157 seconds | 229 seconds | 187 seconds | No Data | 168 seconds |
| * Norton AV | |||||
- Approximately 80% of threats discovered by ESET are proactively detected using ThreatSense heuristics . For example, all variants of MyDoom, Netsky, Bagle and Mytob were detected heuristically—well before other vendors had issued a signature.
- When it comes to "In-the-Wild," virus detection, no one even comes close, as the following chart illustrates.
