Comprehensive Protection	ESET	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 2009)	59	52	42	16	49
Advanced+ Awards Tests of Proactive and On-Demand Detection (AV-Comparatives.org, May 2005 - November 2009) Advanced+/Advanced/Standard	17/2/0	8/6/5	3/12/4	0/0/3	12/4/3
Missed In-the-Wild Viruses in Virus Bulletin Tests between May 1998 and December 2009 (virusbulletin.com)
- On-Access   - On-Demand	0 0	31 4	71 72	73 69	35 15
Proactive Detection
Proactive Protection by AV-Comparatives (May 2009)	56%	35%*	25%	No Data	50%
Proactive Test by AV-Test.org on 1-Month Old Signatures (January 2008)	68%	26%*	30%	27%	24%
Performance Advantages
Boot Time Overhead Percentage by AV-Comparatives (November 2008)	12%	26%	70%	No Data	108%
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
** Symantec Norton AV

 ** Symantec is shown in second place in this table, but it failed the 3 Virus Bulletin tests prior to NOD32 making its debut, which means its actual overall success ratio is substantially lower than shown in the above chart. NOD32's scanning times are considerably faster than Symantec's, despite the fact that NOD32 has a much smaller system footprint and uses far less system resources.

Best Antivirus Software for Detecting and Eliminating Known and Evolving Threats

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.

"In-the-Wild" viruses are real viruses that have been reported to the Wildlist Organization by at least two independent reporters.
When it comes to In-the-Wild virus detection, no one even comes close to ESET as the following chart illustrates.

Due to its highly proactive, on-demand detection rate and low false positives, ESET NOD32 Antivirus consistently receives the highest possible rating - ADVANCED - from AV-Comparatives.org, an independent research group.

You might think something so powerful would tax your resources. But quite the opposite is true. Because of its highly optimized code and light system footprint, ESET NOD32 Antivirus includes one of the fastest scanners in the industry, as the following charts clearly illustrate.

West Coast Labs is one of the world's leading independent test facilities, specializing in product testing and certification for security technology vendors. West Coast Labs performs Checkmark certification, a highly regarded certification program, that provides end users with confirmation of a security product's effective functionality and performance. ESET products currently hold 18 Checkmark certifications.

In September '08, West Coast Labs tested business anti-malware products from six leading vendors and compared product performance and impact on system performance. ESET Smart Security (Business Edition) had the lowest system memory usage and the least impact on system and application performance. The following charts compare ESET Smart Security with five other leading anti-malware vendors.

Add it all up, and it's no surprise that ESET NOD32 was named "Best Antivirus Product" for 2006 and 2007 (read more here).

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.

Compare antivirus software and the answer is clear. Big brand names don't stop malware. Advanced design and technology does. ESET NOD32 Antivirus, with ThreatSense offers superior detection and performance, as well as the smallest footprint.