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Kaspersky AntiVirus has long been a favourite antivirus solution amongst "techies". But Kaspersky's performance has started to fall over the last few years. Will Kaspersky 2010 reverse these trends and retake the throne as the best antivirus program? Read on.
1) Installation: 
Kaspersky AntiVirus 2010 is one of the slowest installing programs that we've tested - requiring 2 minutes and 47 seconds to install - which really isn't all that slow! It does install slightly faster than last years version, and it also doesn't require any reboots this year unlike the 2009 version. Overall, it's a fairly straight-forward installation process that shouldn't cause any problems.
2) Features & Ease of Use:  Kaspersky AntiVirus 2010 has one of the cleaner, better laid-out user-interfaces in the market. Everything is intuitively accessible from the main program screen, as well as very prominent warnings if anything needs to be addressed. Features like Kaspersky Security Network gives users the benefit of the millions of Kaspersky users around the globe - allowing Kaspersky to quickly identify emerging threats. While Kaspersky Whitelisting determines the threat posed by each application and sets their security privileges accordingly. Like last year, our main concern is with Kaspersky's lack of system messages. For example, when a computer scan is finished there isn't any confirmation screen showing the scan report. Yes, this may be less obtrusive to not show these reports, however, if a user initiates a scan then they probably want to see the results of that scan, not to mention knowing when it is completed. Despite this, Kaspersky offers one of the more comprehensive feature sets in the industry and has an easy to use interface. New Features: •  Kaspersky URL Advisor - warns of dangerous websites.• Game Mode - suspends scans, updates and alerts while you play.Features Checklist:
3) PERFORMANCE 3a) Virus Scanner: Kaspersky has 4 scanning options: Quick Scan, Full Scan, Vulnerability Scan (scans your computer and software for system vulnerabilities), and Objects Scan (ie. Custom Scan). On our test computer with 70GB of used space on its hard-drive it took Kaspersky 2010 just 48 seconds to perform its Quick Scan, while the Full Scan took 44 minutes making it one of the fastest virus scanners - just behind Norton 2010 and Avast. Updates: Kaspersky claims to deliver "hourly" updates, however, our testing shows that it only updates 10 times per day (or once every 2.4 hours). Last year Kaspersky did provide hourly updates (see our 2009 Updates Testing), so perhaps this is a temporary issue. 3b) Performance Testing:  View the results below of the Antivirus tests we performed this year to see how well the 2010 version of Kaspersky fared against its competition...
3c) Effectiveness:
4) Help & Support:  Kaspersky offers one of the top support networks in the industry. They have an extensive online Knowledgebase, a Support Forum with over 1 million posts and nearly 200,000 members, useful in-program Help Files, Live Chat, Email Support, and Phone Support (not 1-800 toll free though). Whatever your preferred support method may be, Kaspersky will not disappoint. CONCLUSION:  Kaspersky 2010 is very similar to last year's version, with only a slightly updated user-interface distinguishing the two versions apart. Kaspersky continues to be one of the top antivirus programs on the market, but if it's going to once again take top place it'll have to work on its Performance - for 2 consecutive years now Kaspersky has only been in the middle of the pack in our Antivirus Performance Testing. Nevertheless, users can be assured they are getting top-tier protection with Kaspersky 2010.
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Anti-Spyware
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