Usually the "new model year" security suite products start to arrive in the fall. This year, several major vendors, Kaspersky among them, pushed those releases forward to sync up with the release of Windows 10. Kaspersky Internet Security (2016) ($79.95 per year for three licenses) is as effective as ever, and adds some interesting new features.

In the last edition, the main window's four quadrants were dominated by big button-panels labeled Scan, Update, Safe Money, and Parental Control. The new edition has a different appearance, with four borderless buttons aligned horizontally, but the labels are the same. If there's any problem with security, the status banner across the top changes from green to yellow or red. If that happens, you can click a link for solutions to the security status problem.

Shared Antivirus
Antivirus protection in this suite is identical to what you get in Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2016)£19.99 at Kaspersky UK, an Editors' Choice in its own field. For full details, read my review of the standalone antivirus.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2016) Lab Tests Chart
Kaspersky Internet Security (2016) Malware Blocking Chart
Kaspersky Internet Security (2016) Antiphishing Chart

As far as test results from the independent labs go, Kaspersky is utterly golden. It consistently receives top ratings from the major labs. The only other suite to come close is Bitdefender Internet Security 2015£24.99 at Bitdefender UK.

In my own hands-on testing, Kaspersky did quite well. It detected 89 percent of my malware samples and earned 8.8 of 10 possible points. The best scores among products tested with this same malware collection go to Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security 2016£24.95 at Trend Micro UK, which managed 93 percent detection and a score of 9.1 points. Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus (2015) took the best score among products tested with my previous collection—a perfect 10 points.

Confronted with 100 extremely new malware-hosting URLs, Kaspersky earned a 58 percent detection rating, blocking most of those at the URL level and picking off a few others by eliminating the downloaded malware file. The average in this test is 37 percent detection, so Kaspersky did well. However, Trend Micro holds the top score in this test, with 88 percent detection.

Phishing websites come and go sometimes in just a day or two, so a blacklist-only approach will always be behind the times. Like antiphishing champ Symantec Norton Security£198.7 at Amazon UK, Kaspersky employs a heuristic approach, analyzing unknown pages for signs of fraud. Its phishing detection rate came in just one percentage point behind Norton's, which is excellent. Among recent programs, only Bitdefender has done better than Norton.

See How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests

See How We Test Malware Blocking

See How We Test Antiphishing

Enhanced Firewall
For some years now, Kaspersky's firewall has not bothered to put the system's ports into stealth mode. The product's designers feel there's no special merit in stealth mode, as long as the ports are closed and the product fends off any attempted attacks. New in this edition, firewall protections launch very early in the boot process, even before the suite itself starts up.