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2012 Consumer Security Products Performance Benchmarks (Edition 2)
Antivirus and Internet Security Windows 7
November 2011
Document: 2012 Consumer Security Products Performance Benchmarks (Edition 2) Authors: M. Baquiran, D. Wren Company: PassMark Software Date: 14 November 2011 Edition: 2 File: antivirus_12-performance-testing-ed2.docx
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 2 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................................... 2
REVISION HISTORY ............................................................................................................................................ 4
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................................... 5
OVERALL SCORE ................................................................................................................................................ 6
PRODUCTS AND VERSIONS ............................................................................................................................... 8
INTERNET SECURITY SOFTWARE .................................................................................................................................. 8
ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE .............................................................................................................................................. 8
PERFORMANCE METRICS SUMMARY ................................................................................................................ 9
INTERNET SECURITY SOFTWARE – TEST RESULTS ............................................................................................ 12
BENCHMARK 1 – BOOT TIME ................................................................................................................................... 12
BENCHMARK 2 – SCAN TIME ................................................................................................................................... 13
BENCHMARK 3 – USER INTERFACE LAUNCH TIME ........................................................................................................ 14
BENCHMARK 4 – MEMORY USAGE DURING SYSTEM IDLE .............................................................................................. 15
BENCHMARK 5 – BROWSE TIME ............................................................................................................................... 16
BENCHMARK 6 – INTERNET EXPLORER LAUNCH TIME ................................................................................................... 17
BENCHMARK 7 – INSTALLATION TIME ........................................................................................................................ 18
BENCHMARK 8 – INSTALLATION SIZE ......................................................................................................................... 19
BENCHMARK 9 – REGISTRY KEYS ADDED .................................................................................................................... 20
BENCHMARK 10 – FILE COPY, MOVE AND DELETE ....................................................................................................... 21
BENCHMARK 11 – INSTALLATION OF THIRD PARTY APPLICATIONS ................................................................................... 22
BENCHMARK 12 – NETWORK THROUGHPUT ............................................................................................................... 23
BENCHMARK 13 – FILE FORMAT CONVERSION ............................................................................................................ 24
BENCHMARK 14 – FILE COMPRESSION AND DECOMPRESSION ........................................................................................ 25
BENCHMARK 15 – FILE WRITE, OPEN AND CLOSE ........................................................................................................ 26
BENCHMARK 16 – PE SCAN TIME ............................................................................................................................. 27
BENCHMARK 17 – FILE COPY DISK TO DISK ................................................................................................................ 28
ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE – TEST RESULTS .......................................................................................................... 29
BENCHMARK 1 – BOOT TIME ................................................................................................................................... 29
BENCHMARK 2 – SCAN TIME ................................................................................................................................... 30
BENCHMARK 3 – USER INTERFACE LAUNCH TIME ........................................................................................................ 31
BENCHMARK 4 – MEMORY USAGE DURING SYSTEM IDLE .............................................................................................. 32
BENCHMARK 5 – BROWSE TIME ............................................................................................................................... 33
BENCHMARK 6 – INTERNET EXPLORER LAUNCH TIME ................................................................................................... 34
BENCHMARK 7 – INSTALLATION TIME ........................................................................................................................ 35
BENCHMARK 8 – INSTALLATION SIZE ......................................................................................................................... 36
BENCHMARK 9 – REGISTRY KEYS ADDED .................................................................................................................... 37
BENCHMARK 10 – FILE COPY, MOVE AND DELETE ....................................................................................................... 38
BENCHMARK 11 – INSTALLATION OF THIRD PARTY APPLICATIONS ................................................................................... 39
BENCHMARK 12 – NETWORK THROUGHPUT ............................................................................................................... 40
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 3 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
BENCHMARK 13 – FILE FORMAT CONVERSION ............................................................................................................ 41
BENCHMARK 14 – FILE COMPRESSION AND DECOMPRESSION ........................................................................................ 42
BENCHMARK 15 – FILE WRITE, OPEN AND CLOSE ........................................................................................................ 43
BENCHMARK 16 – PE SCAN TIME ............................................................................................................................. 44
BENCHMARK 17 – FILE COPY DISK TO DISK ................................................................................................................ 45
DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURE ....................................................................................................................... 46
CONTACT DETAILS .......................................................................................................................................... 46
APPENDIX 1 – TEST ENVIRONMENT ................................................................................................................ 47
APPENDIX 2 – METHODOLOGY DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................. 48
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 4 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Revision History Rev Revision History Date
Edition 1
Initial version of this report, includes new results for Norton Internet Security 2012, G Data Internet Security 2012, Kaspersky Internet Security 2011, Panda Internet Security 2012, Avast! Internet Security 6, Norton AntiVirus 2012, G Data AntiVirus 2012, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012, Panda Antivirus 2012 and Avast! Pro Antivirus 6.
11 August 2011
Edition 2 Added results for 7 additional Internet Security products and 7 additional Antivirus products. For more details on these products, see Products and Versions.
14 November 2011
References
Ref # Document Author Date
1 What Really Slows Windows Down (URL) O. Warner,
The PC Spy 2001-2009
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 5 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Executive Summary PassMark Software® conducted objective performance testing on twelve (12) Internet Security software
products and twelve (12) AntiVirus software products on Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (64-bit) SP1 between April
2011 and November 2011. This report presents our results and findings as a result of performance benchmark
testing conducted for these consumer security products.
Subsequent editions of this report will include new products released for 2012 as they are made available. For
more details on which versions were tested, please see the section “Products and Versions”.
Testing was performed on all products using seventeen (17) performance metrics. These performance metrics
are as follows:
Boot Time;
Scan Time;
User Interface Launch Time;
Memory Usage during System Idle;
Browse Time;
Internet Explorer Launch Time;
Installation Time;
Installation Size;
Registry Keys Added;
File Copy, Move and Delete;
Installation of Third Party Applications;
Network Throughput (previously named “Binary Download Test”)
File Format Conversion;
File Compression and Decompression;
File Write, Open and Close;
PE Scan Time and;
File Copy Disk to Disk.
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 6 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Overall Score
PassMark Software assigned every product a score depending on its ranking in each metric compared to other
products in the same category.
Internet Security Software
In the following table the highest possible score attainable is 204; in a hypothetical situation where a product has
attained first place all 17 metrics. Internet Security products have been ranked by their overall scores:
Product Name Overall Score
Norton Internet Security 2012 152
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012 131
Avira Internet Security 2012 129
Avast! Internet Security 6 126
AVG Internet Security 2012 123
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 115
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012 113
G Data Internet Security 2012 99
Panda Internet Security 2012 95
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO 89
McAfee Internet Security 2012 84
BitDefender Internet Security 2012 67
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 7 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Antivirus Software
In the following table the highest possible score attainable is 204; in a hypothetical situation where a product has
attained first place in all 17 metrics. Antivirus products have been ranked by their overall scores:
Product Name Overall Score
Norton Antivirus 2012 154
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 129
Trend Micro Titanium 2012 129
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6 128
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9 124
Microsoft Security Essentials 112
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012 106
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012 105
AVG Anti-Virus 1012 98
G Data Antivirus 2012 87
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 85
McAfee Antivirus 2012 69
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 8 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Products and Versions
In all cases, we have tested the full, retail release of the newest generation (2012 versions) of security products.
The names and versions of products which were tested can be found below from each category table:
Internet Security Software
Manufacturer Product Name Release Year Product Version Date Tested
Symantec Corporation Norton Internet Security 2012 2011 19.1.0.21 Aug 2011
G Data Software AG G Data Internet Security 2012 2011 22.0.2.25 Jun 2011
Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 2011 12.0.0.374 Jun 2011
Panda Security SL Panda Internet Security 2012 2011 17.00.00 Jul 2011
AVAST Software a.s. Avast! Internet Security 6 2011 6.0.1203 Aug 2011
AVG Technologies AVG Internet Security 2012 2011 2012.0.1809 Sep 2011
Trend Micro Inc. Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
2011 5.0.1280 Oct 2011
Sourcenext Corporation SourceNEXTstyle ZERO 2011 11.0.0047 Oct 2011
Trend Micro Inc. Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012 2011 5.0.1280 Oct 2011
Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG
Avira Internet Security 2012 2011 12.0.0.871 Oct 2011
BitDefender BitDefender Internet Security 2012 2011 15.0.31.1282 Oct 2011
McAfee, Inc. McAfee Internet Security 2012 2011 11.0.393 Nov 2011
Antivirus Software
Manufacturer Product Name Release Year Product Version Date Tested
Symantec Corporation Norton Antivirus 2012 2011 19.1.0.21 Aug 2011
G Data Software AG G Data Antivirus 2012 2011 22.0.2.25 Jun 2011
Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Antivirus 2012 2011 12.0.0.374 Jun 2011
Panda Security Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 2011 11.00.00 Jul 2011
AVAST Software a.s. Avast! Pro Antivirus 6 2011 6.0.1203 Aug 2011
AVG Technologies AVG Anti-Virus 2012 2011 2012.0.1809 Sep 2011
Trend Micro Inc. Trend Micro Titanium 2012 2011 5.0.1280 Oct 2011
Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012 2011 12.0.0.871 Oct 2011
Quick Heal Technologies (P) Ltd.
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012 2011 13.00(6.0.0.1) Oct 2011
McAfee, Inc. McAfee AntiVirus 2012 2011 11.0.623 Nov 2011
PC Tools PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
2011 9.0.0.888 Nov 2011
Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Security Essentials 2011 2.1.1116.0 Nov 2011
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 9 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Performance Metrics Summary
We have selected a set of objective metrics which provide a comprehensive and realistic indication of the areas
in which an antivirus may impact system performance for end users. Our metrics test the impact of the antivirus
software on common tasks that end-users would perform on a daily basis.
All of PassMark Software’s test methods can be replicated by third parties using the same environment to obtain
similar benchmark results. Detailed descriptions of the methodologies used in our tests are available as
“Appendix 2 – Methodology Description” of this report.
Benchmark 1 – Boot Time
This metric measures the amount of time taken for the machine to boot into the operating system. Security
software is generally launched at Windows startup, adding an additional amount of time and delaying the
startup of the operating system. Shorter boot times indicate that the application has had less impact on the
normal operation of the machine.
Benchmark 2 – Scan Time
All antivirus solutions have functionality designed to detect viruses and various other forms of malware by
scanning files on the system. This metric measured the amount of time required to scan a set of clean files. Our
sample file set comprised a total file size of 982 MB and was made up of files that would typically be found on
end-user machines, such as media files, system files and Microsoft Office documents.
Benchmark 3 – User Interface Launch Time
This metric provides an objective indication as to how responsive a security product appears to the user, by
measuring the amount of time it takes for the user interface of the antivirus software to launch from Windows.
To allow for caching effects by the operating system, both the initial launch time and the subsequent launch
times were measured. Our final result is an average of these two measurements.
Benchmark 4 – Memory Usage during System Idle
This metric measures the amount of memory (RAM) used by the product while the machine and antivirus
software are in an idle state. The total memory usage was calculated by identifying all antivirus software
processes and the amount of memory used by each process.
The amount of memory used while the machine is idle provides a good indication of the amount of system
resources being consumed by the antivirus software on a permanent basis. Better performing products occupy
less memory while the machine is idle.
Benchmark 5 – Browse Time
It is common behavior for security products to scan data for malware as it is downloaded from the internet or
intranet. This behavior may negatively impact browsing speed as products scan web content for malware. This
metric measures the time taken to browse a set of popular internet sites to consecutively load from a local
server in a user’s browser window.
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 10 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 6 – Internet Explorer Launch Time
This metric is one of many methods to objectively measure how much a security product impacts on the
responsiveness of the system. This metric measures the amount of time it takes to launch the user interface of
Internet Explorer 8. To allow for caching effects by the operating system, both the initial launch time and the
subsequent launch times were measured. Our final result is an average of these two measurements.
Benchmark 7 – Installation Time
The speed and ease of the installation process will strongly influence the user’s first impression of the antivirus
software. This test measures the minimum installation time required by the antivirus software to be fully
functional and ready for use by the end user. Lower installation times represent antivirus products which are
quicker for a user to install.
Benchmark 8 – Installation Size
In offering new features and functionality to users, antivirus software products tend to increase in size with each
new release. Although new technologies push the size limits of hard drives each year, the growing disk space
requirements of common applications and the increasing popularity of large media files (such as movies, photos
and music) ensure that a product's installation size will remain of interest to home users.
This metric aims to measure a product’s total installation size. This metric is defined as the total disk space
consumed by all new files added during a product's installation.
Benchmark 9 – Registry Keys Added
A large registry increases a machine’s use of resources. This may negatively impact system performance,
especially on much older machines. This test measures the amount of keys and values added to registry, after
rebooting the test machines, following a successful product installation. Lower numbers mean that a product has
added fewer keys during installation and had less impact on the registry.
Benchmark 10 – File Copy, Move and Delete
This metric measures the amount of time taken to move, copy and delete a sample set of files. The sample file
set contains several types of file formats that a Windows user would encounter in daily use. These formats
include documents (e.g. Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDF, Zip files, etc), media formats (e.g. images,
movies and music) and system files (e.g. executables, libraries, etc).
Benchmark 11 – Installing Third Party Applications
This metric measures the amount of time taken to install and uninstall third party programs. The installation
speed of third party applications may be impacted by antivirus behavior such as heuristics or real time malware
scanning.
Benchmark 12 – Network Throughput
The metric measures the amount of time taken to download a variety of files from a local server using the
HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is the main protocol used on the web for browsing, linking and data
transfer. Files used in this test include file formats that users would typically download from the web, such as
images, archives, music files and movie files.
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 11 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 13 – File Format Conversion
This test measures the amount of time taken to convert an MP3 file to a WAV and subsequently, convert the
same MP3 file to a WMA format.
Benchmark 14 – File Compression and Decompression
This metric measures the amount of time taken to compress and decompress different types of files. Files
formats used in this test included documents, movies and images.
Benchmark 15 – File Write, Open and Close
This benchmark was derived from Oli Warner’s File I/O test at http://www.thepcspy.com (please see Reference
#1: What Really Slows Windows Down). This metric measures the amount of time taken to write a file, then
open and close that file.
Benchmark 16 – PE Scan Time
All antivirus solutions have functionality designed to detect viruses and various other forms of malware by
scanning files on the system. This metric measured the amount of time required to scan a set of PE (Portable
Executable) files. Our sample file set comprised a total file size of 2.03GB and consisted of .exe (329MB), .dll
(920MB) and .sys files (827MB).
Benchmark 17 – File Copy Disk To Disk
This test measures the amount of time taken to copy files between two local drives. The data set comprised a
total file size of 5.44GB, and the formats used included documents, movies, images and executables.
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 12 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Internet Security Software – Test Results
In the following charts, we have highlighted the results we obtained for Norton Internet Security 2012 in yellow.
The average has also been highlighted in blue for ease of comparison.
Benchmark 1 – Boot Time
The following chart compares the average time taken for the system to boot (from a sample of five boots) for
each Internet Security product tested. Products with lower boot times are considered better performing
products in this category.
82.12
38.51
38.21
37.09
36.99
34.10
32.91
32.61
31.73
30.80
30.78
28.95
27.32
0 s 10 s 20 s 30 s 40 s 50 s 60 s 70 s 80 s 90 s
McAfee Internet Security 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
Average
Panda Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Avira Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 13 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 2 – Scan Time
The following chart compares the average time taken to scan a set of 6159 files (totaling 982 MB) for each
Internet Security product tested. This time is calculated by averaging the initial (Run 1) and subsequent (Runs 2-
5) scan times. Products with lower scan times are considered better performing products in this category.
88.00
75.79
45.58
44.25
43.50
42.75
42.62
36.75
36.21
27.50
25.38
23.25
22.50
0 s 10 s 20 s 30 s 40 s 50 s 60 s 70 s 80 s 90 s 100 s
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Panda Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Average
Avast! Internet Security 6
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 14 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 3 – User Interface Launch Time
The following chart compares the average time taken to launch a product’s user interface. Products with lower
launch times are considered better performing products in this category.
1,636.60
1,082.47
991.78
790.14
789.20
542.78
395.00
305.06
241.30
127.77
90.35
32.63
31.04
0 ms 200 ms 400 ms 600 ms 800 ms 1,000 ms 1,200 ms 1,400 ms 1,600 ms 1,800 ms
Panda Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Average
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
G Data Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 15 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 4 – Memory Usage during System Idle
The following chart compares the average amount of RAM in use by an Internet Security product during a period
of system idle. This average is taken from a sample of ten memory snapshots taken at roughly 60 seconds apart
after reboot. Products with lower idle RAM usage are considered better performing products in this category.
86.60
85.10
80.26
71.17
62.49
56.50
56.28
55.03
52.54
44.37
40.30
24.04
16.93
0 MB 10 MB 20 MB 30 MB 40 MB 50 MB 60 MB 70 MB 80 MB 90 MB 100 MB
G Data Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Average
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 16 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 5 – Browse Time
The following chart compares the average time taken for Internet Explorer to successively load a set of popular
websites through the local area network from a local server machine. Products with lower browse times are
considered better performing products in this category.
147.03
92.51
89.54
84.65
67.23
60.04
53.05
49.57
47.76
47.65
47.37
44.47
43.09
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s 140 s 160 s
G Data Internet Security 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Average
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 17 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 6 – Internet Explorer Launch Time
The following chart compares the average launch times of Internet Explorer after rebooting the machine for
each Internet Security product we tested. Products with lower launch times are considered better performing
products in this category.
1,542.66
1,467.79
1,431.90
1,414.76
1,126.66
1,082.24
1,061.29
1,051.27
1,037.22
889.90
860.34
853.93
826.63
0 ms 200 ms 400 ms 600 ms 800 ms 1,000 ms 1,200 ms 1,400 ms 1,600 ms 1,800 ms
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
Average
Avast! Internet Security 6
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 18 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 7 – Installation Time
The following chart compares the minimum installation time it takes for Internet Security products to be fully
functional and ready for use by the end user. Products with lower installation times are considered better
performing products in this category.
631.90
309.00
264.80
248.80
242.30
230.50
202.18
193.70
82.70
64.90
52.50
52.50
52.50
0 s 100 s 200 s 300 s 400 s 500 s 600 s 700 s
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
G Data Internet Security 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Average
Panda Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Norton Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 19 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 8 – Installation Size
The following chart compares the total size of files added during the installation of Internet Security products.
Products with lower installation sizes are considered better performing products in this category.
1,209.82
800.32
632.78
529.98
520.30
493.88
485.70
450.58
339.90
302.28
249.54
233.24
172.18
0 MB 200 MB 400 MB 600 MB 800 MB 1,000 MB 1,200 MB 1,400 MB
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Average
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Panda Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Avira Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 20 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 9 – Registry Keys Added
The following chart compares the amount of Registry Keys created during product installation for each Internet
Security product tested. Products with lower key counts are considered better performing products in this
category.
18,623.00
7,690.00
7,270.00
7,226.00
6,180.50
5,478.00
5,471.00
4,738.00
4,701.00
4,693.00
3,529.00
3,295.00
1,452.00
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 18000 20000
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
G Data Internet Security 2012
Average
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 21 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 10 – File Copy, Move and Delete
The following chart compares the average time taken to copy, move and delete several sets of sample files for
each Internet Security product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in
this category.
40.33
34.71
33.33
32.66
30.65
30.01
29.51
26.74
26.22
25.93
24.66
24.57
24.27
0 s 5 s 10 s 15 s 20 s 25 s 30 s 35 s 40 s 45 s
Avira Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
AVG Internet Security 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
Average
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Norton Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 22 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 11 – Installation of Third Party Applications
The following chart compares the average time taken to install 3 different third party application for each
Internet Security product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this
category.
111.69
110.02
107.53
107.09
107.03
106.03
104.55
103.46
100.05
98.04
97.98
97.21
94.35
85 s 90 s 95 s 100 s 105 s 110 s 115 s
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Average
G Data Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Panda Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 23 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 12 – Network Throughput
The following chart compares the average time to download a sample set of common file types for each Internet
Security product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this category.
*Results for Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 could not be obtained as the test was blocked by the software.
33.73
32.17
26.56
26.26
18.57
14.75
13.34
13.23
12.20
10.89
10.70
10.47
0 s 5 s 10 s 15 s 20 s 25 s 30 s 35 s 40 s
Avira Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Average
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 24 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 13 – File Format Conversion
The following chart compares the average time it takes for five sample files to be converted from one file format
to another (MP3 WMA, MP3 WAV) for each Internet Security product tested. Products with lower times are
considered better performing products in this category.
77.74
77.13
77.10
76.91
76.74
76.41
76.20
76.07
75.99
75.84
75.74
75.73
75.69
75 s 75 s 76 s 76 s 77 s 77 s 78 s 78 s
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Average
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 25 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 14 – File Compression and Decompression
The following chart compares the average time it takes for sample files to be compressed and decompressed for
each Internet Security product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in
this category.
99.59
95.49
92.68
92.57
89.29
87.20
85.32
84.44
82.40
82.37
81.97
81.66
78.59
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s
Panda Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Average
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 26 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 15 – File Write, Open and Close
The following chart compares the average time it takes for a file to be written to the hard drive then opened and
closed 180,000 times, for each Internet Security product tested. Products with lower times are considered better
performing products in this category.
1,450.85
1,054.84
697.21
295.64
66.36
64.80
59.29
29.97
27.33
26.83
26.64
26.46
17.13
0 s 200 s 400 s 600 s 800 s 1,000 s 1,200 s 1,400 s 1,600 s
G Data Internet Security 2012
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Average
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Avira Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 27 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 16 – PE Scan Time
The following chart compares the average time taken to scan a set of 6351 portable executable files (totaling
2076 MB) for each Internet Security product tested. This time is calculated by averaging the initial (Run 1) and
subsequent (Runs 2-5) scan times. Products with lower scan times are considered better performing products in
this category
169.61
168.74
153.88
106.63
95.38
95.24
95.13
85.25
69.88
65.24
58.00
44.25
30.95
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s 140 s 160 s 180 s
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
Panda Internet Security 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Avira Internet Security 2012
Average
AVG Internet Security 2012
McAfee Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 28 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 17 – File Copy Disk to Disk
The following chart compares the average time taken to copy a total of 8,501 files, with a total file size of 5.44GB
files, from one local drive to another local drive for each Internet Security product tested. The test was
performed 5 times, and the average of all 5 runs was taken as the result. Products with lower times are
considered better performing products in this category.
175.11
153.42
138.07
134.47
129.87
128.78
125.13
123.42
121.42
120.10
116.27
116.24
106.02
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s 140 s 160 s 180 s 200 s
SourceNEXTstyle ZERO
McAfee Internet Security 2012
G Data Internet Security 2012
BitDefender Internet Security 2012
Average
Avira Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012
Panda Internet Security 2012
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
AVG Internet Security 2012
Norton Internet Security 2012
Trend Micro Virus Buster 2012
Avast! Internet Security 6
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 29 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Antivirus Software – Test Results
In the following charts, we have highlighted the results we obtained for Norton AntiVirus 2012 in yellow. The
average has also been highlighted in blue for ease of comparison.
Benchmark 1 – Boot Time
The following chart compares the average time taken for the system to boot (from a sample of five boots) for
each Antivirus product tested. Products with lower boot times are considered better performing products in this
category.
40.67
39.91
35.31
35.00
34.95
34.73
33.63
33.18
32.15
30.56
29.84
29.21
28.07
0 s 5 s 10 s 15 s 20 s 25 s 30 s 35 s 40 s 45 s
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Average
G Data Antivirus 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Norton Antivirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 30 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 2 – Scan Time
The following chart compares the average time taken to scan a set of 6159 files (totaling 982 MB) for each
Antivirus product tested. This time is calculated by averaging the initial (Run 1) and subsequent (Runs 2-5) scan
times. Products with lower scan times are considered better performing products in this category
116.96
71.50
49.75
47.50
46.37
45.38
43.88
37.00
36.38
31.00
30.33
24.88
21.88
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s 140 s
Microsoft Security Essentials
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Average
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
G Data Antivirus 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 31 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 3 – User Interface Launch Time
The following chart compares the average time taken to launch a product’s user interface. Products with lower
launch times are considered better performing products in this category.
2,334.58
1,346.08
907.21
801.67
655.34
557.51
521.84
440.57
345.00
240.39
236.95
95.04
37.27
0 ms 500 ms 1,000 ms 1,500 ms 2,000 ms 2,500 ms
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Average
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
G Data Antivirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 32 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 4 – Memory Usage during System Idle
The following chart compares the average amount of RAM in use by an Antivirus product during a period of
system idle. This average is taken from a sample of ten memory snapshots taken at roughly 60 seconds apart
after reboot. Products with lower idle RAM usage are considered better performing products in this category.
96.50
83.88
68.57
56.80
55.77
55.03
55.03
51.97
42.75
41.61
31.36
27.62
8.75
0 MB 20 MB 40 MB 60 MB 80 MB 100 MB 120 MB
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
G Data Antivirus 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Average
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 33 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 5 – Browse Time
The following chart compares the average time taken for Internet Explorer to successively load a set of popular
websites through the local area network from a local server machine. Products with lower browse times are
considered better performing products in this category.
237.38
144.07
87.70
85.52
78.71
60.13
57.87
54.53
48.64
44.80
44.07
40.27
39.57
0 s 50 s 100 s 150 s 200 s 250 s
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
G Data Antivirus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Average
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Norton Antivirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 34 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 6 – Internet Explorer Launch Time
The following chart compares the average launch times of Internet Explorer after rebooting the machine for
each Antivirus product we tested. Products with lower launch times are considered better performing products
in this category.
1,573.84
1,337.53
1,300.87
1,233.80
1,108.40
1,092.61
1,074.64
1,025.66
1,020.85
1,004.46
934.80
889.12
812.60
0 ms 200 ms 400 ms 600 ms 800 ms 1,000 ms 1,200 ms 1,400 ms 1,600 ms 1,800 ms
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Average
G Data Antivirus 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 35 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 7 – Installation Time
The following chart compares the minimum installation time it takes for Antivirus products to be fully functional
and ready for use by the end user. Products with lower installation times are considered better performing
products in this category.
507.60
313.80
232.20
201.70
189.50
172.62
120.60
115.20
113.00
76.00
74.90
74.40
52.50
0 s 100 s 200 s 300 s 400 s 500 s 600 s
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Microsoft Security Essentials
G Data Antivirus 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Average
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 36 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 8 – Installation Size
The following chart compares the total size of files added during the installation of Antivirus products. Products
with lower installation sizes are considered better performing products in this category.
1,029.40
924.41
795.82
572.35
475.87
474.75
435.28
384.90
308.67
280.40
231.27
168.67
104.53
0 MB 200 MB 400 MB 600 MB 800 MB 1,000 MB 1,200 MB
G Data Antivirus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Average
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 37 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 9 – Registry Keys Added
The following chart compares the amount of Registry Keys created during product installation for each Antivirus
product tested. Products with lower key counts are considered better performing products in this category.
33,089.00
16,310.00
7,511.42
6,600.00
6,288.00
4,727.00
4,471.00
4,297.00
4,222.00
3,273.00
2,886.00
2,614.00
1,360.00
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Average
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
G Data Antivirus 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 38 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 10 – File Copy, Move and Delete
The following chart compares the average time taken to copy, move and delete several sets of sample files for
each Antivirus product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this
category.
39.72
33.94
31.52
30.54
30.52
29.41
29.25
27.53
26.86
26.57
25.88
24.35
24.13
0 s 5 s 10 s 15 s 20 s 25 s 30 s 35 s 40 s 45 s
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Average
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
G Data Antivirus 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Norton Antivirus 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 39 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 11 – Installation of Third Party Applications
The following chart compares the average time taken to install a third party application for each Antivirus
product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this category.
127.84
127.75
113.59
113.23
107.50
106.91
104.61
103.83
100.01
98.43
98.40
98.24
97.21
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s 140 s
Microsoft Security Essentials
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Average
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
G Data Antivirus 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 40 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 12 – Network Throughput
The following chart compares the average time to download a sample set of common file types for each
Antivirus product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this category.
*Results for Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 could not be obtained as the test was blocked by the software.
27.35
26.06
16.42
16.37
15.30
13.72
12.94
11.48
11.18
10.76
10.59
9.48
0 s 5 s 10 s 15 s 20 s 25 s 30 s
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
G Data Antivirus 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Average
Norton Antivirus 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Microsoft Security Essentials
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 41 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 13 – File Format Conversion
The following chart compares the average time it takes for five sample files to be converted from one file format
to another (MP3 WMA, MP3 WAV) for each Antivirus product tested. Products with lower times are
considered better performing products in this category.
77.63
77.02
76.96
76.92
76.89
76.38
76.24
76.19
76.16
76.07
75.93
75.65
74.92
74 s 74 s 75 s 75 s 76 s 76 s 77 s 77 s 78 s 78 s
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
G Data Antivirus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Average
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Microsoft Security Essentials
Norton Antivirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 42 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 14 – File Compression and Decompression
The following chart compares the average time it takes for sample files to be compressed and decompressed for
each Antivirus product tested. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this
category.
98.94
95.17
89.56
88.10
86.14
84.88
84.79
84.20
84.12
82.44
81.25
81.12
79.14
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Average
G Data Antivirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 43 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 15 – File Write, Open and Close
The following chart compares the average time it takes for a file to be written to the hard drive then opened and
closed 180,000 times, for each Antivirus product tested. Products with lower times are considered better
performing products in this category.
1,431.52
238.23
161.02
33.67
31.09
29.19
27.13
26.78
26.31
24.05
23.60
22.65
18.07
0 s 200 s 400 s 600 s 800 s 1,000 s 1,200 s 1,400 s 1,600 s
G Data Antivirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Average
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 44 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 16 – PE Scan Time
The following chart compares the average time taken to scan a set of 6351 portable executable files (totaling
2076 MB) for each Antivirus product tested. This time is calculated by averaging the initial (Run 1) and
subsequent (Runs 2-5) scan times. Products with lower scan times are considered better performing products in
this category
162.73
155.13
152.50
95.13
84.05
82.85
81.63
70.13
65.89
54.63
33.63
22.88
15.88
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s 140 s 160 s 180 s
Microsoft Security Essentials
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
Average
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
G Data Antivirus 2012
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 45 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 17 – File Copy Disk to Disk
The following chart compares the average time taken to copy a set of files from one local drive to another local
drive for each Antivirus product tested. The test was performed 5 times, and the average of all 5 runs was taken
as the result. Products with lower times are considered better performing products in this category.
155.25
136.22
134.52
131.61
130.42
129.01
126.80
126.77
121.35
120.42
116.90
111.97
106.79
0 s 20 s 40 s 60 s 80 s 100 s 120 s 140 s 160 s 180 s
McAfee AntiVirus 2012
G Data Antivirus 2012
Quick Heal AntiVirus 2012
AVG Anti-Virus 2012
Avira Antivirus Premium 2012
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 9
Panda Antivirus Pro 2012
Average
Avast! Pro Antivirus 6
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Norton Antivirus 2012
Microsoft Security Essentials
Trend Micro Titanium 2012
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 46 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Disclaimer and Disclosure
This report only covers versions of products that were available at the time of testing. The tested versions are as
noted in the “Products and Versions” section of this report. The products we have tested are not an exhaustive
list of all products available in these very competitive product categories.
Disclaimer of Liability
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information presented in this report is accurate, PassMark
Software Pty Ltd assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or out-of-date information and shall not be
liable in any manner whatsoever for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages resulting
from the availability of, use of, access of, or inability to use this information.
Disclosure
Symantec Corporation funded the production of this report, selected the test metrics and list of products to
include in this report, and supplied some of the test scripts used for the tests.
Trademarks
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Contact Details
PassMark Software Pty Ltd
Suite 202, Level 2
35 Buckingham St.
Surry Hills, 2010
Sydney, Australia
Phone + 61 (2) 9690 0444
Fax + 61 (2) 9690 0445
Web www.passmark.com
Download Location
An electronic copy of this report can be found at the following location:
http://www.passmark.com/tpsreport11
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 47 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Appendix 1 – Test Environment
For our testing, PassMark Software used a test environment running Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) SP1 with the
following hardware specifications:
Windows 7 (64-bit) System
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 Quad Core @ 2.67GHz
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8800 GT
Motherboard: Intel x58 Motherboard
RAM: 6GB DDR3 RAM
HDD: Western Digital 500GB 7200RPM
Network: Gigabit (1GB/s) switch
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 48 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Appendix 2 – Methodology Description
Windows 7 Image Creation
As with testing on Windows Vista, Norton Ghost was used to create a “clean” baseline image prior to testing.
Our aim is to create a baseline image with the smallest possible footprint and reduce the possibility of variation
caused by external operating system factors.
The baseline image was restored prior to testing of each different product. This process ensures that we install
and test all products on the same, “clean” machine.
The steps taken to create the base Windows 7 image are as follows:
1. Installation and activation of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.
2. Disabled Automatic Updates.
3. Changed User Account Control settings to “Never Notify”.
4. Disable Windows Defender automatic scans to avoid unexpected background activity.
5. Disable the Windows firewall to avoid interference with security software.
6. Installed Norton Ghost for imaging purposes.
7. Disabled Superfetch to ensure consistent results.
8. Installed HTTP Watch for Browse Time testing.
9. Installed Windows Performance Toolkit x64 for Boot Time testing.
10. Installed Active Perl for interpretation of some test scripts.
11. Install OSForensics for testing (Installation Size and Registry Key Count tests) purposes.
12. Disabled updates, accelerators and compatibility view updates in Internet Explorer 8.
13. Update to Windows Service Pack 1
14. Created a baseline image using Norton Ghost.
Benchmark 1 – Boot Time
PassMark Software uses tools available from the Windows Performance Toolkit version 4.6 (as part of the
Microsoft Windows 7 SDK obtainable from the Microsoft Website) with a view to obtaining more precise and
consistent boot time results on the Windows 7 platform.
The boot process is first optimized with xbootmgr.exe using the command “xbootmgr.exe -trace boot –
prepSystem” which prepares the system for the test over six optimization boots. The boot traces obtained from
the optimization process are discarded.
After boot optimization, the benchmark is conducted using the command "xbootmgr.exe -trace boot -numruns
5”. This command boots the system five times in succession, taking detailed boot traces for each boot cycle.
Finally, a post-processing tool was used to parse the boot traces and obtain the BootTimeViaPostBoot value. This
value reflects the amount of time it takes the system to complete all (and only) boot time processes. Our final
result is an average of five boot traces.
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 49 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmark 2 – Scan Time
Scan Time is the time it took for each product to scan a set of sample files. The sample used was identical in all
cases and contained a mixture of system files and Office files. In total there were 6159 files whose combined size
was 982 MB. Most of these files come from the Windows system folders. As the file types can influence scanning
speed, the breakdown of the main file types, file numbers and total sizes of the files in the sample set is given
here:
File Extension Number of Files File Size
.dll 2589 490MB .exe 695 102MB .sys 332 23MB .gif 302 1MB
.doc 281 64MB .wmf 185 2MB .png 149 2MB .html 126 1MB .nls 80 6MB .jpg 70 1MB .ini 59 2MB .ico 58 <1MB
.mof 43 6MB .ax 39 4MB .xls 38 3MB
.ime 35 5MB .drv 31 1MB .txt 31 1MB
.chm 30 6MB .cpl 29 4MB .mfl 29 3MB .inf 26 2MB .hlp 22 3MB .imd 20 18MB .py 20 <1MB
.msc 18 1MB .vbs 18 1MB .xml 18 1MB .rtf 16 62MB .ocx 16 4MB .tsp 14 1MB
.com 14 <1MB .xsl 14 <1MB .h 13 <1MB
.vsd 12 2MB .scr 12 2MB .aw 12 2MB .js 12 1MB
.zip 11 25MB
.lex 9 10MB .ppt 9 4MB .acm 9 1MB .wav 7 5MB Total 6159 982
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 50 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
This scan was run without launching the product’s user interface, by right-clicking the test folder and choosing
the “Scan Now” option. To record the scan time, we have used product’s built-in scan timer or reporting system.
Where this was not possible, scan times were taken manually with a stopwatch.
For each product, five samples were taken with the machine rebooted before each sample to clear any caching
effects by the operating systems.
In 2009, we noticed many more products showing a substantial difference between the initial scan time (first
scan) and subsequent scan times (scans 2 to 5). We believe this behavior is due to products themselves caching
recently scanned files.
As a result of this mechanism, we have averaged the four subsequent scan times to obtain an average
subsequent scan time. Our final result for this test is an average of the subsequent scan average and the initial
scan time.
Benchmark 3 – User Interface Launch Time
The launch time of a product’s user interface was taken using AppTimer (v1.0.1006). For each product tested, we
obtained a total of fifteen samples from five sets of three UI launches, with a reboot before each set to clear
caching effects by the operating system. When compiling the results the first of each set was separated out so
that there was a set of values for the initial launch after reboot and a set for subsequent launches.
We have averaged the subsequent launch times to obtain an average subsequent launch time. Our final result
for this test is an average of the subsequent launch average and the initial launch time.
In some cases, AppTimer did not correctly record the time taken for UI launch. For instance, some applications
would open their window and look like they were ready, but then continued to be unresponsive. Where the
measurement from AppTimer appeared inaccurate, we have taken the time manually with a stop watch.
AppTimer is publically available from the PassMark Website.
Benchmark 4 – Memory Usage during System Idle
The Perflog++ utility was used to record process memory usage on the system at boot, and then every minute
for another fifteen minutes after. This was done only once per product and resulted in a total of 15 samples. The
first sample taken at boot is discarded.
The PerfLog++ utility records memory usage of all processes, not just those of the anti-malware product. As a
result of this, an anti-malware product’s processes needed to be isolated from all other running system
processes. To isolate relevant process, we used a program called Process Explorer which was run immediately
upon the completion of memory usage logging by PerfLog++. Process Explorer is a Microsoft Windows
Sysinternals software tool which shows a list of all DLL processes currently loaded on the system.
Benchmark 5 – Browse Time
We used a script in conjunction with HTTPWatch (Basic Edition, version 6.1) to record the amount of time it
takes for a set of 106 ‘popular’ websites to load consecutively from a local server. This script feeds a list of URLs
into HTTPWatch, which instructs the browser to load pages in sequence and monitors the amount of time it
takes for the browser to load all items on one page.
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 51 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
For this test, we have used Internet Explorer 8 (Version 8.0.6001.18783) as our browser.
The set of websites used in this test include front pages of high traffic pages. This includes shopping, social,
news, finance and reference websites.
The Browse Time test is executed five times and our final result is an average of these five samples. The local
server is restarted between different products and one initial ‘test’ run is conducted prior to testing to install
Adobe Flash Player, an add-on which is used by many popular websites.
Benchmark 6 – Internet Explorer Launch Time
The average launch time of Internet Explorer interface was taken using AppTimer. This test was practically
identical to the User Interface launch time test. For each product tested, we obtained a total of fifteen samples
from five sets of three Internet Explorer launches, with a reboot before each set to clear caching effects by the
operating system. When compiling the results the first of each set was separated out so that there was a set of
values for the initial launch after reboot and a set for subsequent launches.
For this test, we have used Internet Explorer 8 (Version 8.0.6001.18783) as our test browser.
We have averaged the subsequent launch times to obtain an average subsequent launch time. Our final result
for this test is an average of the subsequent launch average and the initial launch time.
Benchmark 7 – Installation Time
This test measures the minimum Installation Time a product requires to be fully functional and ready for use by
the end user. Installation time can usually be divided in three major phases:
The Extraction and Setup phase consists of file extraction, the EULA prompt, product activation and user
configurable options for installation.
The File Copy phase occurs when the product is being installed; usually this phase is indicated by a progress
bar.
The Post-Installation phase is any part of the installation that occurs after the File Copy phase. This phase
varies widely between products; the time recorded in this phase may include a required reboot to finalize the
installation or include the time the program takes to become idle in the system tray.
To reduce the impact of disk drive variables, each product was copied to the Desktop before initializing
installation. Each step of the installation process was manually timed with a stopwatch and recorded in as much
detail as possible. Where input was required by the end user, the stopwatch was paused and the input noted in
the raw results in parenthesis after the phase description.
Where possible, all requests by products to pre-scan or post-install scan were declined or skipped. Where it was
not possible to skip a scan, the time to scan was included as part of the installation time. Where an optional
component of the installation formed a reasonable part of the functionality of the software, it was also installed
(e.g. website link checking software as part of an Internet Security Product).
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Performance Benchmark Page 52 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Installation time includes the time taken by the product installer to download components required in the
installation. This may include mandatory updates or the delivery of the application itself from a download
manager. We have noted in our results where a product has downloaded components for product installation.
We have excluded product activation times due to network variability in contacting vendor servers or time taken
in account creation.
Benchmark 8 – Installation Size
A product's Installation Size was previously defined as the difference between the initial snapshot of the Disk
Space (C: drive) before installation and the subsequent snapshot taken after the product is installed on the
system. Although this is a widely used methodology, we noticed that the results it yielded were not always
reproducible in Vista due to random OS operations that may take place between the two snapshots. We
improved the Installation Size methodology by removing as many Operating System and disk space variables as
possible.
Using PassMark’s OSForensics we created initial and post-installation disk signatures for each product. These
disk signatures recorded the amount of files and directories, and complete details of all files on that drive
(including file name, file size, checksum, etc) at the time the signature was taken.
The initial disk signature was taken immediately prior to installation of the product. A subsequent disk signature
was taken immediately following a system reboot after product installation. Using OSForensics, we compared
the two signatures and calculated the total disk space consumed by files that were new, modified, and deleted
during product installation. Our result for this metric reflects the total size of all newly added files during
installation.
The scope of this metric includes only an ‘out of the box’ installation size for each product. Our result does not
cover the size of files downloaded by the product after its installation (such as engine or signature updates), or
any files created by system restore points, pre-fetch files and other temporary files.
Benchmark 9 – Registry Key Count
This test measures the amount of keys and values added to registry, after rebooting the test machine following a
successful product installation. The test was conducted using RegistryCounter.exe, an application which
conducts a count of all keys, errors and values under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS.
Two Registry Key counts are taken, one prior to installation and a second immediately following a reboot after
installation. To obtain our result, we calculated the difference between these two registry key totals.
Occasionally, an unusually large number of registry keys were removed by the system. This seemed to occur
when a product was installed, but was not necessarily caused directly by the product. This resulted in a largely
negative difference in registry keys between the before and after registry key counts obtained using
RegistryCounter.exe. To overcome this problem, we used PassMark’s OSForensics to calculate and obtain a
breakdown of the new, modified and deleted keys separately. The total of the new keys obtained from
OSForensics was used as the result for this test in the case that the former method using RegistryCounter.exe
yielded a negative value.
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 53 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Benchmarks 10-15 – Real-Time Performance
We used a single script in testing Benchmarks 10-15. The script consecutively executes tests for Benchmarks 10-
15. The script times each phase in these benchmarks using CommandTimer.exe and appends results to a log file.
Benchmarks 10 – File Copy, Move and Delete
This test measures the amount of time required for the system to copy, move and delete samples of files in
various file formats. This sample was made up of 812 files over 760,867,636 bytes and can be categorized as
documents [26% of total], media files [54% of total] and PE files (i.e. System Files) [20% of total].
The breakdown of the main file types, file numbers and total sizes of the files in the sample set is shown in the
following table:
File format Number Size (bytes)
DOC 8 30,450,176
DOCX 4 13,522,409
PPT 3 5,769,216
PPTX 3 4,146,421
XLS 4 2,660,352
XLSX 4 1,426,054
PDF 73 136,298,049
ZIP 4 6,295,987
7Z 1 92,238
JPG 351 31,375,259
GIF 6 148,182
MOV 7 57,360,371
RM 1 5,658,646
AVI 8 78,703,408
WMV 5 46,126,167
MP3 28 191,580,387
EXE 19 2,952,914
DLL 104 29,261,568
AX 1 18,432
CPL 2 2,109,440
CPX 2 4,384
DRV 10 154,864
ICO 1 107,620
MSC 1 41,587
NT 1 1,688
ROM 2 36,611
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
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SCR 2 2,250,240
SYS 1 37,528,093
TLB 3 135,580
TSK 1 1,152
UCE 1 22,984
EXE 19 2,952,914
DLL 104 29,261,568
AX 1 18,432
CPL 2 2,109,440
CPX 2 4,384
DRV 10 154,864
ICO 1 107,620
MSC 1 41,587
NT 1 1,688
ROM 2 36,611
SCR 2 2,250,240
SYS 1 37,528,093
TLB 3 135,580
TSK 1 1,152
UCE 1 22,984
Total 812 760,867,636
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average time to copy, move and delete the sample files, with
the test machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.
Benchmark 11 – Third Party Program Installation
This test measured how much time was required to install and uninstall a third party application. For this test, CommandTimer.exe timed how long it took to install and uninstall the following applications on the test machine:
Firefox 3.6.3 (11,909 KB) (MSI File)
Microsoft .NET 3.5 (34,121 KB) (MSI File)
Steam (1,551 KB) (MSI File)
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average time to install/uninstall the above third party programs, with the test machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.
Benchmark 12 – Network Throughput
This benchmark measured how much time was required to download a sample set of binary files of various sizes
and types over a 100MB/s network connection. The files were hosted on a server machine running Windows
Server 2008 and IIS 7. CommandTimer.exe was used in conjunction with GNU Wget (version 1.10.1) to time and
conduct the download test.
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Performance Benchmark Page 55 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
The complete sample set of files was made up of 553,638,694 bytes over 484 files and two file type categories:
media files [74% of total] and documents [26% of total]. The breakdown of the file types, file numbers and total
sizes of the files in the sample set is shown in the following table:
File format Number Size (bytes)
JPEG 343 30,668,312
GIF 9 360,349
PNG 5 494,780
MOV 7 57,360,371
RM 1 5,658,646
AVI 8 78,703,408
WMV 5 46,126,167
MP3 28 191,580,387
PDF 73 136,298,049
ZIP 4 6,295,987
7Z 1 92,238
Total 484 553,638,694
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average time to download this sample of files, with the test
machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.
Benchmark 13 – File Format Conversion (MP3 WAV, MP3 WMA)
This test measured how much time was required to convert five (5) different MP3 files into WAV files and
subsequently, convert the same MP3 samples into a WMA files. The total size of the five (5) MP3s used was
25,870,899 bytes.
To encode the MP3 into another format, we used an application called ffmpeg.exe. The format conversion
process was timed using CommandTimer.exe.
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average conversion speed between these formats, with the test
machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.
Benchmark 14 – File Compression and Decompression
This test measured the amount of time required to compress and decompress a sample set of files. For this test,
we used a subset of the media and documents files used in the File Copy, Move and Delete benchmark.
CommandTimer.exe recorded the amount of time required for 7zip.exe to compress the files into a *.zip and
subsequently decompress the created *.zip file.
This subset comprised 1,218 files over 783 MB. The breakdown of the file types, file numbers and total sizes of
the files in the sample set is shown in the following table:
File Type File Number Total Size
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 56 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
.xls 13 9.23 MB
.xlsx 9 3.51 MB
.ppt 9 7.37 MB
.pptx 11 17.4 MB
.doc 17 35.9 MB
.docx 19 24.5 MB
.gif 177 1.10 MB
.jpg 737 66.2 MB
.png 159 48.9 MB
.mov 7 54.7 MB
.rm 1 5.39 MB
.avi 46 459 MB
.wma 11 48.6 MB
.avi 46 459 MB
.wma 11 48.6 MB
Total 1218 783 MB
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average file compression and decompression speed, with the
test machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.
Benchmark 15 – File Write, Open and Close
This benchmark was derived from Oli Warner’s File I/O test at http://www.thepcspy.com (please see Reference
#1: What Really Slows Windows Down).
For this test, we developed OpenClose.exe, an application that looped writing a small file to disk, then opening
and closing that file. CommandTimer.exe was used to time how long the process took to complete 180,000
cycles.
This test was conducted five times to obtain the average file writing, opening and closing speed, with the test
machine rebooted between each sample to remove potential caching effects.
Benchmark 16 – PE Scan Time
This test measures the on demand scan times of a file set comprised only of executable files (.exe, .dll and .sys
files). We performed five scans of the sample file set, with a machine restart between each scan to remove
possible caching effects. The time taken to scan the files is taken from an antivirus product’s scan logs, or where
logs are not available, manually with a stopwatch. Scans were launched by right clicking on the folder to be
scanned.
A breakdown of the sample file set is as follows:
File Type Number
of Files
File Size
Consumer Internet Security and Antivirus Solutions PassMark Software
Performance Benchmark Page 57 of 57 Edition 2 15 November 2011
Sys Files 2174 329MB
Dll Files 2037 920MB
Exe Files 2140 827MB
Total 6351 2076MB
The final result is calculated as an average of the five samples.
Benchmark 17 – File Copy Disk to Disk
This test measures the amount of time taken to copy files between two local drives. The data set comprised of
8,501 files with a total file size of 5.44GB, and the formats used included documents, movies, images and
executables. A breakdown of the sample file set is given below:
File
Extension
Number
of Files
File Size
.jpg 2903 588MB
.dll 773 25MB
.exe 730 197MB
.gif 681 63MB
.wav 430 260MB
.sys 501 79MB
.png 451 27MB
.mp3 333 2157MB
.wma 585 925MB
.docx 267 81MB
.avi 247 1079MB
.doc 160 57MB
.xls 329 132MB
.ppt 97 148MB
.zip 14 177MB
Total 8501 5995MB
A total of five runs of this test were performed, with a machine restart between each run. The time taken to
copy files was measured and recorded by CommandTimer.exe. All the files were copied between a folder on the
local drive and a 2nd
folder on a different drive. Files were deleted from the 2nd
drive once the copy was
complete. The final result is calculated as an average of the five samples
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