Customer Reviews

Kaspersky Anti Virus 2012 3 PC, 1 year license (PC)

First of all anti-virus software always slows your computer down. I don't know why people write reviews commenting out that. What is important is how much does this software slow you computer down in comparison to Norton or Symantec or whatever you are using.

I have found this program superior in all respects of performance; it does not slow you computer down as much as other anti-virus software and, in my opinion, the updates are faster and the protection better than Norton with out a bunch of stuff you don't necessarily need or want.

Pros:
- Lets my system run more smoothly (in comparison to Norton)
- Less intrusive. It just works without telling me everything it does!
- Easy to install and configure (on Windows 7)
- Good level of protection (always hard to gauge but I haven't had any problems, at all)

Now that Kasperky Anti-virus 2013 is out, often this old 2012 version is far cheaper - and it will update to the latest 2013 version on installation. Computer Shopper recently rated Kasperky Internet Security 2013 the best they had tested for malware protection. This Kapersky Anti-virus 2012 offers a 3-licence protection for 3 PCs (all three licences count down the 365 days after the first install activation). Unlike 'Kaperksy Internet Security 2012', this 'Kapersky Antivirus 2012' lacks a firewall and parental controls, and relies on Windows less effective inbuilt firewall. It installed on our Windows 7 64-bit PC and laptops OK, and quickly updated itself to the lastest version. It also installed a pretty Kapersky widget on the desktop.

The front end of Kaspersky has a classy feel and it doesn't seem to have much of a hit on PC speed when gaming, which my teenage son and I do a lot - although I haven't noticed it to be much different to Norton 360 in that respect (which my son still uses on his main gaming desktop PC). PCPro have 'A listed' Bitdefender Internet Security 2013 or the freebie Avast Free Anti-virus in preference to Kasperky, but Kaspersky's Antivirus also scored very highly for malware and virus protection. All three of our Kasperky Anti-virus 2012 installs are running smoothly 3 months on, so we rate it 4* for value. As usual it's far far cheaper buying this anti-virus via Amazon than direct from Kaperksy, so order an a new install licence well before the 365 days are up (you just have type the new install code into your account to renew the licence when it expires).

I purchased a copy of this software for my laptop and then realised that I have a Windows 8 laptop and this software only works on Window 7 and below. However, you can download an update to Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2014 and it will accept you license key.

I must admit that when using anti-virus software I have three basic requirements: 1) There are no annoying pop-ups. 2) The software does not slow the performance of the computer significantly. 3 most importantly) It protects my computer from viruses.

So I guess I shall briefly comment on how Kapersky performs on each of these counts:

1) There are no annoying pop-ups. I shall add a caveat of 'yet' to that sentence as I realise that the annoying pop-ups tend to occur towards the end of the expiry period of the license and I haven't reached the end of that year yet.

2) The computer's performance does not appear to have been noticeably slowed, although when the product is performing a scan there is a slight overall reduction in performance. In addition there was a brief period during which my computer did slow down, but it has now returned to normal and I cannot be sure as to the cause of this problem.

3) My computer has caught no viruses whilst using the product.

Therefore on all of these counts the software has performed well and met my expectations of an anti-virus software. I therefore cannot award the product any lower than five stars.

Great value and efficient for the increasing multi PC owning home. This is my second time of having a Kaspersky security package and as before we've found it to be highly effective and only slightly intrusive, meaning that unless you have a state of the art computer you are always going to notice your processor slowing down when the anti virus scan is operational. The real time protection is good too, so far it seems to have blocked every malware thrown at it

Keeping yourself and your computer safe is something that has become increasingly important with more and more of our lives taking place on line.

I work in the IT industry and for years have kept myself safe by ensuring that my PC and the applications I use are always as up to date with patches as possible, backed up by anti virus products available free (e.g. Microsoft Security Essentials) and by being very aware of the types of social engineering that is used to get you to open and unwittingly install scareware and malware on your PC. I have never wanted a full "internet security suite". Personally I prefer a lightweight Anti-Virus package backed up with a hardware firewall and by taking sensible precautions with my own behaviour when online. This set up also tends to have the lowest impact on system performance when gaming.

Onto this product:

This is an anti virus product only (despite what it says in the product description). It does not offer an integral firewall, or parental controls etc. This for me though was exactly what I was looking for, but obviously for some people the additional peace of mind of a full internet security suite may be more appropriate.

Installation was simple. The product detected that there was a newer version available online than was supplied on the CD and offered to install that (a 149 mb download) rather than you having to upgrade later. The whole process took less than five minutes.

Once installed the product placed a very large Widget in the Windows side-bar. Fortunately this can be closed and you can control the product from the small icon in the system tray.

I decided to run some start up and shut down performance tests comparing Kaspersky to Microsoft Security Essentials, to a clean system. For reference, my couple of year old PC runs the 64bit version of Windows 7, an E8500 dual core processor, an Nvidia GTX 460, 4 gig ram, and has a SSD Solid State boot disk. Basically it is reasonably powerful but no longer state of the art. The figures below are the average of three boots and three shut downs for each test. The start up is from pressing the power button to being able to open Google. The shut down is from pressing "shut down" to the power switching off.

No Anti Virus: Start up = 49 seconds. Shut down = 6 seconds
Microsoft Security Essentials: Start up = 50 seconds. Shut down = 7 seconds.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus: Start up = 55 seconds. Shut down = 10 seconds.

As you can see there is a small but significant impact in both the start up and shut down times. Not only that, but my PC feels very slightly less responsive all round.

Overall: I am going to give this product an initial rating of three stars and monitor performance during day to day use. If anything good or bad influences my rating over the next few months, I will add it in to this review.

It seems a trend nowadays for Antivirus makers to create two main versions of their antivirus one is: Antivirus and Internet Security. So far in all the antivirus programs I have used, the Antivirus version is a stripped down version of the Internet Security version.

So this is the case, here. Kaspersky Antivirus 2012 is a stripped-down version of Kaspersky Internet Security. It has the core functionality of Kaspersky Internet security such as:

CLOUD PROTECTION: Here the antivirus benefits from cloud protection. When your computer syncronises with the Kaspersky server in 'the cloud' it benefits from virus definitions created in response to any participating computer. In the same vein, any suspicious objects on your PC is sent to the Kaspersky server and any resultant virus definitions are sent to all participating computers. Cloud protection is in addition to the traditional protection offered by the antivirus so you get hybrid protection.

CORE VIRUS SCANNER: The usual virus scanner that allows you to scan for viruses using full or quick scan.

MAIL ANTIVIRUS: This protects your PC from infected emails, and it's really cool in that set your email client such as outlook to delete emails with particular file extensions such as .dll, .doc, .bat etc. You can enable heuristic analysis where the software uses known virus behaviour to flag an object as a virus without using virus definitions.
SYSTEM WATCHER: Allows you to reverse changes made to system files by malicious software.

MISSING:
No firewall! You have to get a third part firewall or rely on windows firewall. Kaspersky firewall is very powerful and nicely configurable. I wish they removed some other feature but retained the firewall as it is central to security.

Safe Run For Websites: You cannot browse safely as the feature is not included.

Anti-spam: It also lacks the powerful Anti-spam feature so to fight against spam look outside this antivirus.

No Parental Control: It has no monitoring/ control component like parental control found in Internet Security Versions so if you have little ones ypou may have to configure built-in parental control in Windows if you are using Vista or Windows 7.

RECOMMENDATION:
If you do online banking on your computer, I do not recommend this software unless you plug-in the holes with appropriate third party tools like a Firewall. The internet version is best if you want to be protected from online fraud.
If all you need is basic protection, then Internet security may be overkill, this one can do and is highly recommended.

I spent a lot of time trying to load this from the disc supplied without success despite using their helpline. I abandonned it in the end.

This is a great product easy to install and set up to do scans it alerts you when the scans are done and if there is anything at risk its a great product that we all need to keep us safe.

I have previously used Norton Internet Security and I thought the renewal price was a bit high so I bought Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 to save a bit of money.
Kaspersky is not as easy to use as Norton, I can't seem to get it to automatically update the virus libraries regularly and when it does find a problem, you have to deal with it yourself. The descriptions of how to deal with it are OK, but I'm fairly sure Norton would have done it for me.
It is not so bad that I am going to replace it before the license expires, but when it does I will go back to Norton.