Avira AntiVir Premium Security Suite

Avira AntiVir Premium Security Suite's status panel displays status icons for the suite's modules—here the update status is yellow because it's been a few days.

The AntiVir Guard module is problematic if malware is already present. It pops up innumerable always-on-top warnings about malware, but no matter which action you chose (delete, quarantine, ignore, etc), it can't actually do anything.

APS's rootkit scanner caught a number of rootkit-based samples in my testing. Be sure to enable this option; it's turned off by default.

. The virus/spyware scanner clearly reports its progress and offers a link for detailed information on the threat it found most recently.

APS is more effective at protecting a clean system than at cleaning up an infested system. Here it has detected and blocked a malware installer the instant it became visible in Windows Explorer.

From the Quarantine list you can get detailed information about quarantined threats, submit them to Avira for analysis, or permanently delete them.

APS scans the incoming POP3 e-mail stream and catches viruses before they ever reach your Inbox.

The MailGuard module filters the incoming POP3 e-mail stream and marks messages that seem to be spam. You can view a detailed analysis of the most recent messages within APS's MailGuard panel.

The firewall module has no list of predefined "good" programs, not even built-in Windows components, so you will have to respond to a large number of popup confirmations at first.

Be sure to change the security level from its default of Medium to High—otherwise you'll have less protection against attack from outside than what you'd get with Windows Firewall.

APS can't catch every technique used by malware to get around normal program control, but it does a good job with malware that tries to launch and manipulate approved programs like Internet Explorer.

If you set APS's configuration window to Expert mode, you can choose exactly how you want the scanner to react when it encounters a virus or other malware. Here we've told it to quarantine the threat, repair it if possible, and delete it if repair is impossible.

The configuration window offers few options if you don't invoke Expert mode.

You can check back on exactly what the suite has done for you lately by opening the Events window. Double-clicking an item in the list displays more detail.