Kaspersky has had its fair share of trouble, butting heads with the U.S. government that has accused Kaspersky of using its antivirus software to spy on federal agencies and workers on behalf of the Russian government. As a result, several retailers no longer offer Kaspersky in their online or physical stores. However, we found that Kaspersky Anti-Virus is still a good, reliable option for detecting and blocking malware on home computers.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus performed well in our malware detection tests, blocking 98 percent of over 300 live malware samples we used. It requires you to enable the browser extensions before it can monitor threats online, but when set up Kaspersky catches malware lurking behind websites that are no longer up, are suspended or that time out because the browser can’t load them quickly enough. And Kaspersky does a decent job of warning you of malicious sites if you’re using Edge as your browser, even though there isn’t a browser extension for this program. And when a few virus downloads slipped past Edge’s security settings, this antivirus software stopped them quickly before the download was complete and the threat could infect our computers.
When we first installed Kaspersky on our test computers, we ran a deep virus scan. It was during this scan that we discovered another antivirus program we had tested didn’t completely delete the malware in its quarantine folder. Instead these files had been moved to our computer recycle bin. This is where Kaspersky found them and again quarantined them. And this time when we requested them to be deleted, Kaspersky made sure they were securely removed so nothing remained that could re-infect our machine. Our confidence in Kaspersky Anti-Virus’ ability to protect against malware was boosted with these findings.
This program comes with safe browsing. This means when you use a search engine to find a site, Kaspersky will display a small icon next to each search result to let you know which sites are safe to visit and which are dangerous.
One perk using Kaspersky Anti-Virus is it comes with three user licenses, so you can protect more computers and laptops with a single subscription. This makes Kaspersky a decent value if you’re looking for basic antivirus without having to endure the endless pop-up ads that come along with free antivirus programs. Plus, Kaspersky comes with antiphishing tools that help keep your identity and personal information secure, as well as a virtual keyboard that masks your usernames and passwords as you enter them into login fields to keep hackers, keyloggers and other such threats from snatching your information. Most other protection tools, like a personal firewall, parental controls and password managers, are included with Kaspersky’s pricier internet security programs such as Kaspersky Total Security. Although, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus also includes several of these advanced security tools and costs about the same as Kaspersky Anti-Virus.
During our performance tests, Kaspersky did cause some slowdown to our computers. We didn’t see it as much while browsing the web or playing games, but it took a little longer than usual to download videos and programs and upload attachments during Kaspersky’s virus scans. The difference varied between 10 seconds extra to download a video and 40 seconds more to upload and attach a file to an outgoing email message. Generally, it wasn’t enough to frustrate us or interrupt our tasks too much.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus is among the top antivirus programs for computers running any version of Windows. It does an exceptional job protecting against malware and phishing attacks. If your PC is already riddled with infections, the software can track them down, set things right and heal the damage. Its on-screen keyboard can help keep sensitive information safe when you access online accounts, and the safe browser feature marks search results so you know if a site is safe to visit. It does cause some slowdown during system scans, though we noticed it mainly while trying to download or upload files.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus is among the top antivirus programs for computers running any version of Windows. It does an exceptional job protecting against malware and phishing attacks. If your PC is already riddled with infections, the software can track them down, set things right and heal the damage. Its on-screen keyboard can help keep sensitive information safe when you access online accounts, and the safe browser feature marks search results so you know if a site is safe to visit. It does cause some slowdown during system scans, though we noticed it mainly while trying to download or upload files.
