March 2011 OPSWAT Report on Worldwide Antivirus Application Market Share

On March 8, OPSWAT Inc. published their report on “Worldwide Antivirus Application Market Share”. The results may not mesh completely with the results published by the vendors themselves (surprise!). The data used by OPSWAT for their market share report was collected between November 16, 2010 and February 15, 2011.

Worldwide Market Share Leaders – Companies

The top 5 companies with respect to worldwide market share were

• Avast Software (16.2%) – was in first in June report
• Avira (13.2%) – was in second in June report
• AVG Technologies (11.5%) – was in fifth in June report
• ESET Software (10.3 – was in eight in June report
• Symantec (9.5%) – was in third in June report

The table in the document lists the top 15. Symantec leads in North America vendor market share with 16.2%.

Worldwide Market Share Leaders - Product

The top 5 products with respect to antivirus product market share were

• Avast Free Antivirus (11.6%) – was in first in June report
• Avira AntiVir Personal Free Antivirus (11.0%) – was in second in June report
• Microsoft Security Essentials (7.0%) – was in fourth in June report
• AVG Antivirus Free (6.8%) – was in third in June report
• ESET NOD32 Antivirus (6.4%) – was in eight in June report

The table in the report contains the top 15. Microsoft leads in North American Antivirus product market share with 10.2%

Other tables in the report include the above but focusing on North America percentages rather than global.

The order of the top 3 may be surprising to some people since on CNET’s download.com site. The typical weekly download order for the top three products is AVG, followed by Avira and Avast. Download.com isn’t the only download site for these vendors.


The press release for the above can be viewed at
http://www.opswat.com/media/news/opswats-q1-market-share-report-names-symantec-as-the-north-american-market-leader

The report can be downloaded at

http://www.opswat.com/media/reports/MarketShareReportMarch2011.pdf

So who is kicking butt in security?

http://www.itworldcanada.com/blogs/cdn/2011/03/18/so-who-is-kicking-butt-in-security/62889/

Some interesting bullet points from IT World Canada and a recent NPD Group report (www.npd.com)

• Symantec and McAfee grew collectively at just under eight per cent in North American retail (sales unit volume) last year
• Kaspersky grew by a whopping 165 per cent, Webroot did well at 85 per cent and Trend Micro had a great year at 71.1 per cent. growth
• Some other players such as Panda Security and AVG Technologies regressed

About OPSWAT – www.opswat.com

Founded in 2002, OPSWAT is the industry leader in software management SDKs, interoperability certification and multiple engine scanning solutions. With both manageability and multi-scanning products, OPSWAT offers simplified and comprehensive SDKs that reduce time and costs for your engineering and testing teams

Comodo Internet Security Suite Tops CNET Poll of Consumer Free Antivirus, Internet Security Suites

May update - While Comodo Internet Security Suite may have topped this poll, the product failed to receive certified in www.av-test.org Q1 2011 certification test running on Windows 7. This was one of five products to fail certification. Others were CA Internet Security Suite, McAfee Total Protection 2011, Norman Security Suite, and PC Tools Security Suite 2011. http://www.av-test.org/certifications.php

In a poll of nine consumer free antivirus and internet security suites by CNET, Comodo Internet Security Suite topped the competition, followed by, Avast Free Antivirus 6, and Ad Aware Free Internet Security. . The poll ran for several days in late February and Early March. http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20036621-12.html

The percentages are from CNET’s poll. The next number is PC Magazine’s Neil Rubenking’s rating (out of 5.0)

1. 42%, 2.5 - Comodo Internet Security 5.0*
2. 18%, 3.5 - Avast Free Antivirus 6
3. 12%, 4.5 - Ad Aware Free Internet Security 9
4. 11%, 4.0 - Panda Cloud Antivirus Free 1.3*
5. 08%, 3.5 - AVG Free Antivirus 2011

The above has no correlation with the number of weekly downloads on CNET’s site. The usual weekly order has been (primarily North America) is AVG Free Antivirus, Avast Free Antivirus, and Avira Antivir in the top three spots.

About the Poll

About 137k votes were cast. It appears as if people could vote only once. The poll was a combination of antivirus products and internet security suites. Some companies were actively soliciting votes from users and their fan pages.

Product Reviews and Rankings

*Below are links to PC Magazine reviews of the products. Note that the version numbers do not always mesh with the versions in the survey (*). Also below is a link to a blog listing PC World’s top 5 free antivirus products of 2011.

• Ad-Aware Pro Internet Security 9.0 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373984,00.asp
• AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2011 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370108,00.asp
• Avast Free Antivirus 6 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2381362,00.asp
• *Comodo Internet Security 4 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363256,00.asp
• Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.3 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364844,00.asp and http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371589,00.asp


Free vs. Fee: Free and Paid Antivirus Programs Compared – PC World Antivirus Review (note that these are antivirus products, not internet security suites)

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/12/free-vs-fee-free-and-paid-antivirus.html