Kaspersky Internet Security (2014)

Pros Excellent antivirus lab test scores. Good score in hands-on malware removal test. Accurate phishing detection. Excellent spam filtering. Intelligent firewall blocks leak tests and exploits. Parental control system more complete than many suites. Safe Money feature adds layers of protection for sensitive online transactions.

Cons Just average score in hands-on malware blocking test. Some difficulty installing on malware-infested test systems. No remote management or monitoring with parental control. Bottom Line The 2014 edition of Kaspersky Internet Security includes everything you'd expect from a security suite, and all of the components work as they should. It doesn't score as well in my hands-on antivirus tests as in independent lab tests, but it's a good choice for protection.

By Neil J. Rubenking

The point of getting a security suite rather than a collection of individual security components is to have all elements of your security protection working together. Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) smoothly combines antivirus, firewall, phishing protection, antispam, parental control, and more. The components all do a good job; no slackers in this bunch! Do note that "(2014)" isn't actually part of the name, as Kaspersky has gone number-free. I include it simply to distinguish this version from others.

The product's main window looks very, very similar to Kaspersky's standalone antivirus. It reports basic security status and offers quick access to four important components. The real visible difference comes when you click the up-arrow at bottom right to see the full component list; now you can see that the suite does more, a lot more.

Shared Antivirus
Kaspersky's protection against viruses, spyware, Trojans, and all other types of malware is the same as what you get in the standalone Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2014), so you'll want to read my review of that product for full details. I'll briefly summarize my findings here.

Getting the product installed on my twelve malware-infested test system took quite a bit of back-and-forth with tech support. It stretched into several days due to time-zone differences. In the end all of the problems were solved by use of Kaspersky's own ancillary security tools, which is good.

Kaspersky detected 81 percent of the malware samples and scored 6.1 points for removal. The best product among those tested with the same collection of samples was Bitdefender Internet Security (2014), which detected 83 percent and scored 6.6 points. For a full explanation of my hands-on malware removal test, see How We Test Malware Removal.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) malware removal chart

In my malware blocking test, Kaspersky scored lower than many, with 86 percent detection and 8.2 points. That's decent, but Ad-Aware Pro Security 10.5 beat all others tested using this same sample set with 94 percent detection and an impressive 9.4 points. For details on how I perform the hands-on malware blocking test, see How We Test Malware Blocking.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) malware blocking chart

Kaspersky always seems to score better with the independent labs than in my hands-on test; I give it credit for those good ratings. It earned top ratings in all the tests that I track from AV-Comparatives and averaged 15.8 of 18 possible points in AV-Test's three-fold evaluation. Only Bitdefender has earned consistenly higher scores. To learn more about the independent antivirus labs and their tests, please see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) lab tests chart  

Other Shared Features
The same Web Anti-Virus technology that prevents accidental access to malware-hosting websites also serves to keep users away from fraudulent (phishing) websites. Like all truly effective antiphishing solutions, Kaspersky uses a combination of cloud-based lookup for known phishing sites and heuristic analysis of unknowns. When I tested it using extremely fresh phishing URLs, Kaspersky's detection rate was just one percentage point behind that of consistent phishing champ Norton Internet Security (2013). For an explanation of how I locate the newest phishing URLs and perform this test, see How We Test Antiphishing.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) antiphishing chart

As with the standalone antivirus, Kaspersky's suite builds tech support right into the product. Both also offer a useful collection of security-related bonus tools, including a bootable Rescue Disk, a vulnerability scanner, and tools to wipe traces of computer and Internet use.

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Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2014)

Pros Advanced disinfection at install handles active malware. Excellent ratings from independent labs. Very good score in hands-on malware removal test. Accurate phishing protection. Useful bonus tools.

Cons Some difficulty installing on malware-infested systems. Good-not-great results in hands-on malware blocking test. Bottom Line The independent testing labs give top marks to Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2014). It didn't fare quite as well in my own hands-on tests, but it's definitely a good choice.

By Neil J. Rubenking

It's not even September yet, and I've already encountered one antivirus with "2014" in its name and another with an implied 2014. Kaspersky doesn't use year or version numbers anymore; I'll call their latest product Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2014) to distinguish it from last year's version. In addition to effective antivirus protection, it offers a number of useful bonus features.

G Data AntiVirus 2014 is the product that's declared itself ready for the new year. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (2014) doesn't actually use a year number, but it's the latest version. Symantec has also eliminated version and year numbers; their new product line will show up in early September.

Installation Challenges
Kaspersky installed without incident on eight of my twelve malware-infested test systems. On seven of those systems, it reported active malware immediately after installation and asked permission to perform an advanced disinfection, followed by a reboot. In a couple of cases it requested another advanced disinfection afterward. This made for a lengthy installation process, but on several systems a later full scan found nothing, meaning that the initial disinfection did the entire cleanup job.

The WindowsUnlocker component of Kaspersky's Rescue Disc foiled a ransomware threat that initially prevented installing the antivirus. On another system, the installer totally failed. On advice from tech support I employed a number of specialized tools and ran the Rescue Disc. Advice from tech support fixed collateral damage caused by the Rescue Disc; eventually I managed a full scan.

Kaspersky installed fine on one system but every time it launched, the process was immediately terminated by malware. Solving this required a number of tools, including a custom script supplied by tech support, but eventually I got the product installed and working.

I did run into some issues getting Kaspersky installed, granted, but all of the problems were solved by the Rescue Disc and other ancillary Kaspersky tools. On that basis, Kaspersky gets four stars for installation experience.

Good Malware Cleanup
Once I completed all of the installations I ran a full scan on each system and tallied up the results. I was a little apprehensive, because I had tested Kaspersky PURE 3.0 Total Security using the same malware collection a few months ago. I wondered if information gathered during that earlier test would give the antivirus an unfair advantage.

I needn't have worried. The antivirus handled almost 90 percent of the malware samples exactly the same way the suite had, right down to the percentage of non-executable traces remaining. For those where the two products produced different results, sometimes one was better, sometimes the other. Why any difference? Most likely it's because I applied different ancillary cleanup tools in the process of getting the two products installed.

Kaspersky detected 81 percent of the samples, the same as Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition (2014) and better than the 78 percent detected by Kaspersky PURE. It scored 6.1 points for malware removal, a fraction above Kaspersky PURE and a fraction below Bitdefender Free.

Best among products tested with this same malware collection was Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, with 83 percent detection and 6.6 points. The unusual cleanup-only Jumpshot tool detected more, 86 percent of the samples, but scored just 6.5 points.

For a full explanation of how I run this test see How We Test Malware Removal.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2014) malware removal chart

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