Even though a couple of competitors gained ground on VIPRE for 2012 by improving their resource usage, VIPRE still managed to earn first place overall again this year.
VIPRE Antivirus may not be the most well known antivirus software brand, but in our tests it's consistently proving itself to be one of the best. That's not to say that it's not without its flaws, but all things considered, VIPRE Antivirus stood out again this year.
We were impressed when this newcomer came out just a few years back, and we're impressed again this year. Then, and now, they passed our rigorous tests and came out as the best antivirus software overall.
And while no antivirus software is perfect, VIPRE does the most things right of any software in our antivirus comparison.
As for things that aren't ideal: for one thing, there's no pre-installation scan. For users who know their machines are infected, a pre-install scan can sometimes be a good step to help ensure the antivirus software is properly installed.
Rather than a pre-install scan, VIPRE Antivirus instead launches a full-system scan immediately after the install, which is exactly what we like to see and is a close second-best option.
TOP FEATURES
Excellent Antivirus Protection
Low Resource Usage
Free Malware Removal
Unlike the competitors who've each gone their own way, making user interfaces that are "modern" and unique, VIPRE has taken the opposite approach. We like it.
The end result is software that looks like it's supposed to look. Once you open it, everything is where you'd expect it to be, and you're not forced to learn a new system just to manage your antivirus. Sure, some people might, especially at first glance, say the VIPRE interface looks "dated," but the fact is, it's easier to use than anything else--especially given how highly flexible the software can be.
As for core antivirus protection, our tests showed VIPRE Antivirus to come out at or near the top in every category we tested. Real-time protection was excellent. Manual scanning was thorough, detailed, and accurate.
And, USB scanning was accurate, too, with VIPRE one of the few antivirus programs to automatically detect USB devices and offer to scan them. This is a big deal that nearly every other antivirus company is completely overlooking.
And, then there's GFI's praiseworthy customer support. It's 100% free. Free customer support. Free tech support. Free phone support. No strings. No fees. Nice.
VIPRE was up against some stiff competition this year, and we're glad to see they're not resting on their laurels and are still taking things seriously.
Antivirus & Antispyware Protection
Real-time Antivirus Protection:
99%
VIPRE Antivirus's real-time antivirus protection is one of the best in the industry. Even though not every single threat was detected (no antivirus software can ever be 100% effective), VIPRE still performed really well during this part of our tests.
The few threats that happened to escape VIPRE's real-time antivirus protection were usually malicious files that were initially dormant. When these files became "active" (dangerous), VIPRE kicked in and blocked or cleaned these items.
VIPRE's defenses react to threats with either a warning, a download block, or an entire site block. These were all extremely effective leaving no room for miscommunication that a threat had been detected and thwarted.
Overall, VIPRE Antivirus still has one of the best real-time antivirus protection features we've seen this year.
Manual Virus Scanning:
97%
While there's still room for improvement, VIPRE Antivirus did quite well in our manual scan tests. The majority of malicious files on our testing computer were identified and cleaned with very few missed.
Interestingly, we found all of the most dangerous and active files were all correctly identified and either deleted or quarantined. As we saw with other top-performing software, it was most often some less dangerous and dormant malware files that VIPRE missed when it did.
This is why VIPRE earned a 99% in this category. In all, its manual scanning did better than every other software in this category but BitDefender, which only edged VIPRE out in this category by .02%.
Virus Removal:
95%
[Buy VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware 2012]
$29.95
Many people have existing infections on their computers before they ever buy antivirus software, so it's important to test how an antivirus software will perform on a pre-infected PC.
After infecting our testing PC with various threats including trojans, viruses, spyware, and more, we installed VIPRE Antivirus to see how well it would perform.
You'll need to run a full-system scan after installation since VIPRE doesn't do a pre-install scan. Once the scan was complete, VIPRE caught about 95% of the threats on our testing computer.
We'd like to see VIPRE Antivirus include a pre-installation scan in future versions, but we can still give it high marks because the majority of threats were successfully detected during the manual scan that happened immediately after installation.
USB Virus Scanning:
97%
USB-related threats are more and more common these days. All of us have multiple devices that we plug into our computer's USB ports every day: cameras, memory drives, mp3 players, etc.
Even though these may seem perfectly safe and free from malware, you'd be surprised at how often a sneaky virus or trojan can slip onto your USB device without you knowing. That's why USB device scanning is more important than ever before.
During our testing, we loaded up fresh USB keychain/thumb drives with all types of virus and malware files then plugged them in to see how VIPRE Antivirus would deal with it. VIPRE was one of the only antivirus software to automatically detect our USB drive and prompt us for a scan.
The results were excellent. VIPRE accurately and immediately detected and cleaned the vast majority of virus threats on the USB thumbdrives.
Spyware Detection:
94%
[Buy VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware 2012]
$29.95
Spyware is a more dangerous threat than ever; adware can be intrusive and annoying. Both can bring your PC to a halt. Spyware can range from simple PC monitoring to more devious activities such as identity theft. Therefore, good spyware/adware protection is vital.
VIPRE did better than most other antivirus suites we tested this year. The majority of attempts to install adware or spyware on our testing PC were blocked. None of the more dangerous types of spyware got past VIPRE. And of the spyware and adware that did slip through, most were harmless, questionable, or just annoying.
And, our manual scan promptly picked up any pieces that slip through VIPRE's initial detection net.
Antivirus Updates:
97%
Virus definition updates can be set as frequently as one hour or as infrequently as every 24 hours. You can also manually update VIPRE's definition database anytime you choose with one click.
Up-to-date virus definitions are the tools your antivirus software needs to fight global threats as they emerge. Without current definitions, your PC is vulnerable to viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, and all other nasty malware the bad guys come up with.
If you're a regular computer user, you should set VIPRE Antivirus to the most frequent one hour interval; if you only use your PC once and a while, any setting up to 24 hours should be fine. However, there's no reason why you shouldn't keep your definition updates set to download more frequently, even if you're on a dial-up Internet connection.
Additional Security Features
Email Protection:
93%
VIPRE Antivirus's email protection is simple with no special settings. There's no toolbar attachment - which can be a plus or a minus depending on how you look at it.
On one hand, an embedded toolbar in Outlook or Thunderbird can make things easier. But on the other hand, without one, you have fewer settings to deal with. Either way, VIPRE Antivirus is actively protecting your email by default with its real-time antivirus protection.
Email protection can be turned on or off in the UI and there are a few advanced settings for POP3 and SMTP port settings.
We'd like to see support for IMAP, which after POP3 is the most popular method of retrieving email from a server. Perhaps the next version will include support for IMAP.
VIPRE Antivirus supports Outlook 2000+, Outlook Express 5.0+, Windows Mail on Vista, and SMTP and POP3 on Thunderbird, IncrediMail, Eudora, and other similar email clients. SSL, unfortuately, is supported only in Outlook Express and Outlook. This, too, we're hopeful will be included in future versions.
As for real-time email protection, VIPRE Antivirus did quite well. VIPRE detected and blocked the majority of malware emails we sent through during our email testing phase. The emails included innocuous ones plus ones laden with malicious links and malware attachments.
Chat/IM Protection:
94%
VIPRE uses its real-time antivirus protection for all Instant Messaging (IM) clients.
Even though there are no special settings for IM protection in the VIPRE UI, we still give it high marks thanks to its overall real-time malware protection.
We tested the two most popular Instant Messaging clients: MSN Messenger (now known as Windows Live Messenger) and Yahoo Messenger.
Both Windows and Yahoo have their own IM safeguards built in to their software; each has various ways of dealing with malicious links and file transfers.
However, if a dangerous link is let through, VIPRE scans links when they hit the browser. VIPRE will then either warn you or block any threats that may be present. The same goes for any malicious files that attempt to transfer through your IM window.
With VIPRE Antivirus's active real-time protection running, IM threats were successfully identified and blocked.
