360 Internet Security 2013

Pros Quick installation, even on malware-infested systems. Attractive interface. Good scores in antivirus tests, both from PCMag and independent labs. Built-in feedback form for reporting any problems.

Cons Identified two legitimate PCMag utilities as Trojans. Proactive Defense behavior monitor displays many popup queries requiring a user decision, for both good and bad programs. Bottom Line With an uncluttered user interface decorated in cheery pastels, 360 Internet Security 2013 is one of the better-looking free antivirus products. It performs its essential antivirus functions well, but an over-enthusiastic behavior-based detection system flags good and bad programs alike.

By Neil J. Rubenking

Qihoo 360 Software is big in China, with nearly a half-billion users, but it's not nearly as well-known in the U.S. That's a bit of a shame, because the company's 360 Internet Security 2013 is an attractive, easy-to-use, free antivirus. Yes, despite the suite-sounding name, it's a standalone antivirus product.

The installer cuts out unnecessary clicks and screens. A single click accepts the license agreement and starts the product installing. It's a quick process. However, the necessary initial antivirus signature update can take quite a while—over 15 minutes on some of my test systems.

360 Internet Security's main window has a modern, flat look and uses cheery pastel colors. The main focus is on three buttons that perform a quick, full, or custom scan. Although the interface is spacious and uncluttered, it actually conveys a lot of information. Small banners in one corner offer statistics on performance and quarantined files. Three icons animate to let you know when each of the three antivirus engines is updating. And you can pull down a high-level set of controls that turn security components on and off.

Minor Installation Bumps
On eight of my twelve malware-infested virtual machines, the antivirus installed with no more than a minor hitch. However, malware on three of the test systems actively terminated the installer every time I tried to launch it. I successfully installed the product in Safe Mode (kudos to Qihoo for allowing Safe Mode installation!). The installation succeeded, but in each case it would not fully update. The final solution involved running a full scan, performing a full uninstall/reinstall, updating malware definitions, and running another full scan.

The remaining system causes problems for every antivirus I test, because ransomware totally covers up the desktop, even in Safe Mode. Qihoo has a bootable rescue CD, but it's strictly Chinese. Given that this rescue CD could have solved the problem, I helped out a bit, working around the ransomware to get the product installed.

A product that breezes through the install process with next to no problems earns five stars for ease of installation. 360 Internet Security did pretty well, enough to earn four stars.

Quite Good Cleanup
This antivirus divides a full scan into five stages: correcting system security settings, checking applications for malware, looking for active threats in memory, evaluating files that launch at startup, and finally scanning all files for malware. It clearly displays which steps have finished, and offers a choice between highest speed and least impact on performance.

On completing a scan it displays a simple list of all malware traces. It doesn't rank them by threat level the way Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ 10.5and avast! Free Antivirus 8 do, nor does it aggregate the traces belonging to the same malware the way Comodo Cleaning Essentials 6 and Spybot - Search & Destroy 2.0 do. However, you can get a view of related traces by sorting on the malware type column.

The scanner components in AVG Anti-Virus FREE 2013 and Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition (2014)  remove malware traces upon finding them, as much as possible. 360 Internet Security waits for your permission to clean up the found traces. On almost all of the test systems, the antivirus requested a quick scan after cleanup finished, to catch any "hidden dangers," and then requested a reboot to remove a "stubborn virus."

360 Internet Security detected 75 percent of the malware samples, the same as avast!, Norman Malware Cleaner 2.08, and several others. Its 5.8 point score also matched avast!'s. Bitdefender Free detected 81 percent and scored 6.2 points. The top score among products tested using my current malware collection, 6.6 points, went to Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (2014).

Tested using my previous malware collection, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.70 earned 7.1 points, the top score among all current products. For details about how I run the malware removal test, please see How We Test Malware Removal.

360 Internet Security 2013 malware removal chart

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360 Internet Security 2013

Pros Quick installation, even on malware-infested systems. Attractive interface. Good scores in antivirus tests, both from PCMag and independent labs. Built-in feedback form for reporting any problems.

Cons Identified two legitimate PCMag utilities as Trojans. Proactive Defense behavior monitor displays many popup queries requiring a user decision, for both good and bad programs. Bottom Line With an uncluttered user interface decorated in cheery pastels, 360 Internet Security 2013 is one of the better-looking free antivirus products. It performs its essential antivirus functions well, but an over-enthusiastic behavior-based detection system flags good and bad programs alike.

By Neil J. Rubenking

Qihoo 360 Software is big in China, with nearly a half-billion users, but it's not nearly as well-known in the U.S. That's a bit of a shame, because the company's 360 Internet Security 2013 is an attractive, easy-to-use, free antivirus. Yes, despite the suite-sounding name, it's a standalone antivirus product.

The installer cuts out unnecessary clicks and screens. A single click accepts the license agreement and starts the product installing. It's a quick process. However, the necessary initial antivirus signature update can take quite a while—over 15 minutes on some of my test systems.

360 Internet Security's main window has a modern, flat look and uses cheery pastel colors. The main focus is on three buttons that perform a quick, full, or custom scan. Although the interface is spacious and uncluttered, it actually conveys a lot of information. Small banners in one corner offer statistics on performance and quarantined files. Three icons animate to let you know when each of the three antivirus engines is updating. And you can pull down a high-level set of controls that turn security components on and off.

Minor Installation Bumps
On eight of my twelve malware-infested virtual machines, the antivirus installed with no more than a minor hitch. However, malware on three of the test systems actively terminated the installer every time I tried to launch it. I successfully installed the product in Safe Mode (kudos to Qihoo for allowing Safe Mode installation!). The installation succeeded, but in each case it would not fully update. The final solution involved running a full scan, performing a full uninstall/reinstall, updating malware definitions, and running another full scan.

The remaining system causes problems for every antivirus I test, because ransomware totally covers up the desktop, even in Safe Mode. Qihoo has a bootable rescue CD, but it's strictly Chinese. Given that this rescue CD could have solved the problem, I helped out a bit, working around the ransomware to get the product installed.

A product that breezes through the install process with next to no problems earns five stars for ease of installation. 360 Internet Security did pretty well, enough to earn four stars.

Quite Good Cleanup
This antivirus divides a full scan into five stages: correcting system security settings, checking applications for malware, looking for active threats in memory, evaluating files that launch at startup, and finally scanning all files for malware. It clearly displays which steps have finished, and offers a choice between highest speed and least impact on performance.

On completing a scan it displays a simple list of all malware traces. It doesn't rank them by threat level the way Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ 10.5and avast! Free Antivirus 8 do, nor does it aggregate the traces belonging to the same malware the way Comodo Cleaning Essentials 6 and Spybot - Search & Destroy 2.0 do. However, you can get a view of related traces by sorting on the malware type column.

The scanner components in AVG Anti-Virus FREE 2013 and Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition (2014)  remove malware traces upon finding them, as much as possible. 360 Internet Security waits for your permission to clean up the found traces. On almost all of the test systems, the antivirus requested a quick scan after cleanup finished, to catch any "hidden dangers," and then requested a reboot to remove a "stubborn virus."

360 Internet Security detected 75 percent of the malware samples, the same as avast!, Norman Malware Cleaner 2.08, and several others. Its 5.8 point score also matched avast!'s. Bitdefender Free detected 81 percent and scored 6.2 points. The top score among products tested using my current malware collection, 6.6 points, went to Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (2014).

Tested using my previous malware collection, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.70 earned 7.1 points, the top score among all current products. For details about how I run the malware removal test, please see How We Test Malware Removal.

360 Internet Security 2013 malware removal chart

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Bitdefender Total Security (2014)

Pros Good results in PCMag antivirus tests; great results in independent tests. Accurate spam and phishing protection. Tough, no-hassle firewall. Full-scale parental control. Facebook monitoring. Private data protection. Password management. Secure browser. Vulnerability scan. File backup and sync. File encryption. Secure deletion. System tune-up. Anti-theft.

Cons Some difficulty installing on malware-infested systems. Default firewall configuration omits some protections. Password management limited. Some impact on performance. No drag/drop to encrypt or shred files. Bottom Line With Bitdefender Total Security (2014) you get all the standard security suite features plus file backup and sync, file and folder encryption, system tune-up, and even anti-theft protection. All of the components work well; it's a winner.

By Neil J. Rubenking

The phrase "security suite" covers a lot of ground. Antivirus and firewall are essential components, and some suites don't go much beyond those basics. Others add just about every security feature you might want, and then some. Bitdefender Total Security (2014) ($79.95 per year for three licenses) falls into the latter category, the kind of product I call a "mega-suite," and its many components all do their jobs well.

At first glance, this product hardly looks different from the less feature-rich Bitdefender Internet Security, or even from the standalone Bitdefender Antivirus Plus. All three reflect current security status with a green, yellow, or red banner, and all three display four panels at a time, representing four security components; a slider lets you bring the other components into view. The antivirus has a total of six component panels, the basic suite brings that number up to nine, and Total Security maxes out with a dozen panels. You can rearrange the order of the panels so that your four favorites are the ones that appear at startup.

Like Norton, Kaspersky, and others, Bitdefender has stopped using a version number or year in the product title. To help distinguish this review from later no-number reviews, I've appended "(2014)" to the name.

Shared Antivirus Protection
Bitdefender Total Security's antivirus protection is exactly the same as what you get from Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (2014). For full details on the shared features, please read that review. Here, I'll just summarize.

Getting Bitdefender installed on twelve systems crawling with malware required some help from tech support, especially for one system that was temporarily disabled by the install-time scan. A product that installs hassle-free gets five stars for ease of installation; Bitdefender earned three stars.

In my malware removal test, Bitdefender scored 6.6 points, the best of any product tested using my current collection of malware samples. Tested using my previous collection, Norton 360 (2013) and Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete 2013 also scored 6.6, as did Comodo Internet Security Complete 2013.

For a full explanation of my malware blocking test, see How We Test Malware Removal.

Bitdefender Total Security (2014) malware removal chart

Bitdefender's Web-based scanner detected 91 percent of the malicious URLs I tried to visit, which is very good. In my full malware-blocking test it earned 9.0 points. Of products tested with the same malware samples, only Ad-Aware Pro Security 10.5 did better, with 9.4 of 10 possible points. Webroot beat all products tested with the previous malware collection, scoring an impressive 9.9 points. The article How We Test Malware Blocking explains my testing methodology.

Bitdefender Total Security (2014) malware blocking chart

In tests by the independent antivirus labs, Bitdefender outscores all other vendors. The chart below summarizes recent lab test results. For more information about the labs and their tests, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Bitdefender Total Security (2014) lab tests chart

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