When testing antivirus programs, we focused on five areas, four of which were scored. These were then averaged to create a comprehensive score. Below, we'll briefly discuss each of these five categories and our evaluation criteria.

We check how quickly and easily an antivirus program can be downloaded and installed. Those that don't require users to supply a payment method to start a free trial get extra points.

Many users are rightfully afraid of being tricked into "subscription traps". For companies that resort to this tactic to drive up earnings, it's often the most criticized aspect in reviews, since it almost always leads to billing irregularities.

We evaluate the range of tools provided beyond basic scanning—including VPNs, firewalls, and optimization utilities. Performance is measured using a baseline of system resource impact during idle and full-scan states.