TOP 5 ANTI-VIRUS

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (Russian: Антивирус Касперского; formerly known as AntiViral Toolkit Pro, often referred to as KAV) is an anti-virus program that was developed by Kaspersky Lab, a Russian company founded in 1997. The program is designed to protect users from malware (harmful software) and is primarily intended for computers that run under Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, though a Linux version is available for business consumers.

AVG is an umbrella term for a variety of anti-virus and internet security software for the Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD computing platforms. They are developed by AVG Technologies, a privately held Czech company formerly known as Grisoft and founded in 1991. The brand name AVG comes from Grisoft's first product, Anti-Virus Guard, launched in 1992 in what was then Czechoslovakia. In 1997, the first AVG licenses were sold in Germany and the United Kingdom. AVG was launched in the USA in 1998. According to AVG Technologies, over 110 million users have AVG Anti-Virus protection, counting users of the Free Edition.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus, commonly known as NOD32, is an anti-virus software package that was developed by the Slovak company ESET, founded in 1992. NOD32 was created because computer viruses were becoming increasingly common. Because ESET was based in Slovakia the program first gained popularity among IT workers in Eastern European countries. The company marked its 5,000th update to virus definitions on 5 April 2010.

The acronym NOD stands for Nemocnica na Okraji Disku (“hospital at the end of the disk”), a pun referring to the Czechoslovakian medical drama TV series Nemocnice na okraji města (“Hospital at the End of the City”). The name was originally spelled out as individual letters, but the recent spread worldwide of the program has led to the more common single-word pronunciation, to sound like the English word “nod.”

Norton AntiVirus, developed and distributed by Symantec Corp, provides malware prevention and elimination during a subscription period. The product uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features include spam e-mail filtering and anti-phishing protection. Norton AntiVirus held a 61 % share of the US retail market for security suites in the first half of 2007 together with Norton Internet Security, a related product. Competitors in terms of market share include anti-virus products from CA, Trend Micro, and Kaspersky Lab.

BitDefender is an anti-virus software suite developed by Romania-based software company SOFTWIN. The product was released in November 2001 and is currently in its thirteenth version. BitDefender products provide anti-virus protection and anti-spyware, personal firewall, privacy control, user control, and backup support for corporate and home users. The 2011 version was launched in August 2010 with added protection and performance enhancements, such as Search Advisor and Performance Optimizer.