Cyber Crime Defense: Selecting Anti-Virus Utilities for 2016 - A First Look

Malware these days is about making money, and there's no easy way to cash in on spreading a virus. Ransomware and data-stealing Trojans are much more common, as are bots that let the bot-herder rent out your computer for nefarious purposes. Modern antivirus utilities handle Trojans, rootkits, spyware, adware, ransomware, and more. PCMag has reviewed three dozen different commercial antivirus utilities, and that's not even counting the many free AV tools.

  Out of that extensive field we've named four Editors' Choice products. Nine more commercial antivirus utilities proved effective enough to earn an excellent four-star rating, and another seven earned three and a half stars. Of course,  more were reviewed, but those antivirus utilities that received scores of less than three stars don't qualify for inclusion in this "best of" listing. Almost all of these products are traditional, full-scale, antivirus tools, with the ability to scan files for malware on access, on demand, or on schedule. A couple are outliers, tools meant to enhance the protection of traditional antivirus. As for just relying on the antivirus built into Windows 8.x or Windows 10, that may not be the best idea. In the past, Windows Defender has performed poorly both in our tests and independent lab tests, though it did win in September and October of 2015.  So which AV solutions do you believed are best suited to ward off cyber threats in 2016? Send your comments to the Cloud and Cyber Security Center.