How many main antivirus softwares are there?

Computer virus is mainly a program with code for replicate itself. Also today there are thousands of different virus and malware types like computer worms and spyware. A virus follows the security vulnerabilities of a software or operating system to go into and spread itself. In the first era of personal computers, main target of viruses were harming and they were mostly making the attacked tool unusable. Today there are also spywares; they are not giving harm directly but they hide in softwares and send privacy information of user to virus writer. Today, there are hundreds of antivirus softwares which are working for avoiding virus entrance and clearing it if entered early but only a few of them are working professionally with laboratories. How many main antivirus softwares are there?


Today there are 5 main antivirus companies and their antivirus software in the world. Most popular one is definitely Norton. Norton Antivirus is offering a full security with virus, malware and other dangerous softwares support. Today product has 61% of USA computer security market in USA. First version of Norton Antivirus is released in 2006. Software mainly use heuristics and signatures to check and identify virus. Norton also updates very frequently. It has Windows 7 support since Norton Antivirus 2009 version and Mac Os Lion X version on version 12. Symantec will release Norton 360 v6 for Windows 8 support. Users mostly complain about Norton Antivirus’ high processor usage rate and high price.
Kaspersky Antivirus is developing by Kaspersky Lab and it’s one of the most popular antivirus softwares in the world. Software is also known as KAV. It’s possible to use Kaspersky Antivirus software in Microsoft Windows and Mac Os. Also a Linux version is available. First version is released in 2006. Professional viruses tests show that Kaspersky caught a %96 success on identify new viruses. Kaspersky is expensive like Norton for home users and it also uses high system resources. Kaspersky still doesn’t have any Windows 8 official support.

ESET NOD32 is one of the oldest and stable antivirus programs in computer world. Company started to develop ESET Company started to develop first versions in 1987. There are two versions of software as Home Edition and Business edition. There’s a wide support way of ESET NOD32 from Microsoft Windows and mobile. ESET NOD32 is popular between standard home users because of its easy interface. Virus Bulletin tests claim that ESET NOD32 catches more viruses than Norton and similar software.
Anti-Virus Guard or AVG with its popular name is the antivirus product of AVG Technologies. Software has a wide support from FreeBSD to Microsoft Windows. First version of software is released in 1992. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is one of the most downloaded antivirus softwares ever. It has some limitations like limited updates and lack of security. AVG faced some update programs after 2007 version. Especially AVG 2011 Windows 7 update crashed lots of operating systems. It’s also a problem that some web pages offer fake AVG free edition download software which is a malware.

BitDefender is firstly released in 2001. BitDefender has an average virus protection. Most important feature of software is its resource usage but there’s also a problem with BitDefender versions because free version doesn’t include any real time scan and most of users don’t have any info about it. Also BitDefender is problematic with some popular softwares like AutoCad and Comodo Firewall. Especially users are complaining about mouse cursor lag. Disabling all BitDefender functions are not enough for fixing the problem and only way is uninstalling it completely from operating system.