AV Comparatives is a well-respected independent antivirus software testing company.
AV Comparatives tests software throughout the year. But once a year, they release something called the Anti-Virus Comparative which comprehensively ranks all major antivirus software on the market today.
The 2013 antivirus comparison has just been released. Ready to hear who won and who lost? Here are the most important things to get from this latest report:
-Kaspersky took home the top prize as product of the year for 2013
-Other top products include F-Secure Antivirus, ESET, Bitdefender, Avast, BullGuard, Avira, and Fortinet, all of which were ranked as “top rated products.”
You can view the full results and all the data in the chart below:

As you can see, Kaspersky scored three stars out of three in every category, giving it an Advanced+ rating. BitDefender came in a close second, with just one two star category for its Real-world Test in March-June 2013.
Antivirus software is rated on a number of other categories as well. Sophos, for example, was given a gold award for having the lowest system impact, followed closely by Avast, Kaspersky, and F-Secure.
For malware removal, Kaspersky also took home gold, followed by Bitdefender and Avira.
In the real-world protection tests, which measures the software’s effectiveness against viruses outside the testing environment, gold prize went to Kaspersky Lab with silver and Bronze going to Emsisoft and Avast/ESET.
You can view the full results of the antivirus test in this .pdf document here:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/avc_sum_201312_en.pdf