PassMark issues First Performance Report on Consumer Security Products

30/Nov/2007

Report Establishes Industry Scorecard for System Performance Impact

PassMark® Software, which provides testing services and software tools to evaluate all the major sub-systems of a computer for reliability and stability, today issued its Consumer Security Performance Report, the first industry report to evaluate the system performance of consumer security software.  The report assesses the impact of security software on PC performance, such as memory usage, as well as the direct performance of the software, such as scan time.  The new PassMark report provides the software industry and consumers with an objective source for performance-related information about popular anti-virus and Internet security products.

“For avid PC users and gamers, the impact of security software on system performance is of primary concern,” said David Wren, Managing Director, PassMark Software.  “To date, there has been no established testing body or report for security performance. This new data, along with comparative detection tests, will now help consumers and the industry better evaluate security products.”

As part of the report, PassMark developed a five-star scorecard, testing product performance on Windows XP and Windows Vista systems in a wide range of areas, including boot time, scan time, initial and subsequent user interface launch time, and initial and subsequent browser launch time. The products that earned five-star ratings clocked the fastest times in all areas.

Of the 13 antivirus/antispyware products tested by PassMark, top performers Avira AV, AVG Free, Norton AntiVirus 2008, and SourceNext AV each earned an overall five-star rating.  Webroot SpySweeper AV/AS and Kaspersky AV 7 both ranked four stars and Trend Micro AV/AS 2008 rated two stars.

In addition, PassMark tested 13 Internet security suites, which include products that include antivirus, antispyware, firewall, and other components. Of these, Norton Internet Security 2008 and Zone Alarm I.S. 7.1 were named top performers, each earning a five-star rating.

With this first Consumer Security Performance Report, PassMark hopes to introduce the value of system performance data to the industry and intends to secure participation and support from security software vendors in producing performance data reports on a regular basis.  This first report was sponsored by Symantec Corp.

For more information or to download the full report, visit www.passmark.com