AVG has been an absolute disappointment for us. The number of computers coming in with all sorts of malware and AVG installed has been horrid. I stand by my belief that AVG is an acronym for "All Viruses Good". Avast, in my opinion, is in the same boat as AVG.
McAfee has done terrible this year, and so many computers have come in with McAfee torn apart by infections to the point it has to be removed and reinstalled (because the customer wants it for whatever reason still). Norton has faired alright, but not by much; still heavy when it comes to loading the interface or booting the computer. The firewall control these two programs is atrocious. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they purposefully designed these two programs to break the customers internets.
ESET, Kaspersky and BitDefender have been pretty low on severity of infections coming in. Most of the time it's just junkware installed by the customer though those bulk-installers. Usually an ESET, Kaspersky and BitDefender protected system isn't even in the shop for malware, it's something else, but we still run a couple of scans before the real work begins to make sure. BitDefender (spoiler alert...) deserves the honor they have gotten. We use it through N-able, and it is by far superior in so many respects to most of the products out there. The active protection it seems is catching everything, with very few scan results catching anything. For our N-able customers, not a single one has come in or called because of a virus infection. I hope it makes its way to GFI for our residential clients, I for one would love to see none of them call because of an infection. I'd rather it be for outlook or chrome acting up again.
Trend Micro, Avira and Vipre I would place in the middle. Not bad and not good either. Vipre through GFI, assuming you use the MAV policies, can be pretty robust. We have a great record of active protection, and only a couple of computers needed to come in (residential side of the house). Trend Micro and Avira have been slipping it seems, not necessarily in protection, but overall system/application stability that results in the programs from working properly and preventing infections. Avira has been worse than Trend Micro in this respect. While I believe Avira does a good job protecting a system, it only does it when the program is working properly. Too many times have we gotten calls about someone complaining about pop-ups from Avira, and then the computer freezing or slowing down to the pace of a dead snail. Trend Micro has been pretty good about catching the nasties, but we'll get calls of Trend Micro freezing the computer up mid-scan. When they reboot the computer, and the scan gets going again, it does the same thing over. We get in there, do a complete virus removal (just in case), find absolutely no infection...reinstall Trend Micro and the scan is working again.
