Business Choice Awards 2019: Security Software

Go ahead, just try and use a work computer without some security software on it to prevent viruses, malware, ransomware, or phishing attacks. No IT department would let that happen—and if you are acting as your own IT department, don't make that mistake.

The question is, which brand of security software—and we're talking about a mix of plain-jane antivirus software as well as full-blown security suites—offers your office the best protection? We put this question to the readers of PCMag in our most recent survey, and got several highly recommended options.

In fact, two vendors of security software—Malwarebytes and Bitdefender—scored so high across so many of our measurements, we are giving them a shared Business Choice Award.

The above quick look at the important scores for overall satisfaction (a tie at 9.0 out of 10.) and the likelihood to be recommended (Malwarebytes is ahead, also at a 9.0) tell the tale. The two award winners are crushing it, and not only on those measurements. They tied for reliability (9.1), and when asked if people actually trust their security software, Bitdefender outscored Malwarebytes at 9.2 to 9.0, respectively. They both topped the scales in ease of use, as well as PC performance (that is, they don't slow down computers like some other security solutions seem to).

That's not to say that only Bitdefender and Malwarebytes deserve recognition. Webroot and ESET—which took our Readers' Choice awards this year for antivirus and security suites in the home—also had respectable overall satisfaction, reliability, ease of use, and trust scores.

Under the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures just how many people are saying nice things about a brand, Webroot even scored 62 out of 100, just a little higher than Bitdefender at 57. Malwarebytes is still the most ballyhooed of the vendors, with a 68 NPS.

The numbers fall a bit more when we get to the big names, such as Avast and Symantec/Norton, both of which got 8.4 overall. Trend Micro was at 8.1 overall, but it should be noted that 0 percent of Trend Micro users felt the need to call tech support. The only other company with a tech support score close to that good was Microsoft at 4 percent, well below the 12 percent average across all the vendors.

If there are vendors to stay away from on the work PC, based on the reader feedback, it appears to be Kaspersky Lab (7.5 overall) and McAfee (7.2). The latter also sports a negative NPS (-18), as does Sophos (-8 NPS), which indicates that a lot more people are talking smack about those brands than spreading joy.

WINNERS: SECURITY SOFTWARE FOR BUSINESS

Business Choice seal

Malwarebytes
Whether it's the free version for cleanup or the premium version with its behavior-based analysis, the brand Malwarebytes carries cache with PCMag readers. They rated the company as making the most recommended security software of the year.

Business Choice seal

Bitdefender
Its software appears twice on our list of the Best Malware and Protection Software, so it's little wonder that PCMag readers feel Bitdefender is a perfect guardian of their work PCs.

The PCMag Business Choice survey for Security Software was in the field from November 26, 2018 through December 17, 2018. For more information on how the survey is conducted, read the survey methodology.

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About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

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