Eugene Kaspersky is the head of the anti-virus research department of Kaspersky lab which was founded in 1997. Twenty years of fierce rivalry have benefited Kaspersky Anti Virus in the cybersecurity industry. It might be very user-friendly and very well-liked.
Is It Safe To Use Kaspersky Anti-Virus, the bells and whistles of an antiviral app are significant, but the company’s reputation and security ties are even more crucial. Let’s not beat around the bush here – Kaspersky is in bad company.
So, is it safe to use Kaspersky Antivirus software? Is it worthwhile to ignore the scandals, cruelty, and those bad Kaspersky antivirus review, particularly in light of the existence of far more reliable antivirus providers like Bitdefender and Windows Defender?
For the reasons outlined above, we as reviewers do not suggest using Kaspersky at all. But feel free to check out what this provider has to offer if you’re still curious. We thoroughly examined Kaspersky anti-virus software and Kaspersky Security Network and offered our unbiased judgment about the software.
Video: Is Kaspersky safe to use?
PROS AND CONS OF KASPERSKY ANTIVIRUS
Pros:
- Updated database with the newest dangers and viruses
- Little effect on the performance of the system and memory
- Accessible system optimization
- The rootkit and bootkit detection tool TDSKILLER
- User-friendly
- 24/7 telephone, chat, and email assistance
Cons:
- On the more expensive end of the price spectrum
- Unremarkable features in plans with higher prices
- The cheapest plan is only available for Windows
- Low brand trust because of the scandal in 2017
- Connections with Russia’s secret services
Kaspersky antivirus review: is it safe to use?
Many independent testing labs have validated Kaspersky’s malware scanner as of late 2022. Kaspersky received perfect scores from independent testing labs AV-Comparatives and AV-Test, blocking 100 percent of zero-day malware and 100 percent of widespread malware with no false positives.
KASPERSKY SECURITY FEATURES
Although Kaspersky’s software track record and connections to the Russian intelligence and secret services raise a lot of questions about the company, the product itself asserts to be extremely effective.
The precise set of features that are offered will, of course, be greatly influenced by the pricing plan you choose, as with any paid service. This means that it could range from basic virus and malware protection to a full suite with many extra tools.
Let’s look at a few of the things that Kaspersky offers.
1. Virus checkers
Firstly, there are the scans. The Kaspersky anti virus software program performs the following scans:
- A quick scan looks for malware in the typical locations on your system, such as the temporary files folder. If any threats are discovered, the user is advised to do a thorough scan.
- Full scan: thoroughly examines the system.
- Selective scanning allows the user to pick specific files or directories to be scanned.
- Hard drives, USB sticks, and similar removable drives are scanned.
- Applications are checked for vulnerabilities using a vulnerability scan.
- System memory, disk boot sectors, and startup objects are all scanned in the background. The vulnerability scan must be launched first before the scan for vulnerabilities can be started.
We tested a few of these scans internally. Let’s examine how they performed:
2. Speedy scan
More than 3000 files were examined during the brief scan, which took about 1 minute and 30 seconds. The CPU load ranged from 25 to 58%. None of the 10 malware files were discovered by the scan, which is not unusual for rapid scans.
3. Full scan
A little more than 6 minutes were needed to complete the entire scan, which examined about 234k files. The average CPU load was high-around 85%. All 10 of the harmful files were located by the scan.
4. Vulnerability scan
It just took about 15 seconds to scan roughly 7k files during the vulnerability scan. It did not uncover any weaknesses.
5. Background scan
Together with the vulnerability scan, the background scan began, but it took much longer. In roughly 2 minutes, almost 3,5k files were analyzed, and no threats were found.
6. Malware protection
Kaspersky’s malware scanner has been tested as recently as fall of 2020 by key testing labs. It performed incredibly well, with fewer false positives than Norton, a close competitor, and 100% accuracy in detecting both prevalent and zero-day malware.
Is It Safe To Use Kaspersky Anti-Virus
This 100% success rate, according to SE Labs in London, was achieved by preventing the virus from being installed rather than by removing it after it had been set up. Only Trend Micro had a similarly flawless track record, whereas Norton and Microsoft’s top solutions permitted a small amount of malware to be implanted before removing it.
The base level of Kaspersky Anti-Virus only provides protection for computers running Windows because, as mentioned, Kaspersky malware protection only applies to threats to Windows.
7. Payment security
Safe Money, a premium feature of Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Total Security, makes it simple to secure important information while making an online payment while also protecting your identity.
It accomplishes this by starting a different web browser just for the transactions. In comparison to other browsers, this one is more secure. The payment page is immediately compared to the Kaspersky-maintained list of “trusted sites.”
Additionally, Safe Money verifies the security of your connection and searches your PC for dangers that can jeopardize the transaction.
Although many consumers make purchases online without giving it much thought, cybercriminals do target money transactions made using well-known web browsers. It is not overly neurotic to send money using a secure browser like Kaspersky Safe Money.
8. Real-time defense
Your device is protected by Kaspersky real-time protection from online threats, most frequently malware presented as legitimate files.
Our tests showed that it performed admirably. Eight out of ten threats were discovered and eliminated by the feature, which also found and unzipped all ten malicious files. However, the procedure was a little distinct from that of other antivirus software.
In contrast to previous applications that would place files into quarantine and prompt the user for action, it first detected the malware, then designated it for termination, and only then did it remove it.
9. Two-way firewall
Only Windows supports this functionality of Kaspersky antivirus. It is not in the app, but assumingly, it works by filtering incoming as well as outgoing online traffic. In essence, it prevents your PC from joining a botnet and should give alarms if anything strange is delivered to or received from your devices.
10. App lock
Kaspersky’s app lock feature is primarily intended for mobile devices. Users can limit access to specific mobile applications, including Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and others. Maximum privacy protection is thus guaranteed.
When someone tries to access an app that has been effectively locked by the app lock, it requests a code.
11. Web threat protection
The user is prevented from visiting phishing websites by Kaspersky’s Web Threat Protection, which examines a variety of links for their addresses. A URL Advisor, which scans websites and marks them as safe, suspicious, or harmful, is a feature comparable to this one.
It is important to note that the Kaspersky antivirus app does not have these functions.
12. Password manager
The most expensive package, Kaspersky Total Security, comes with the full edition of Kaspersky Password manager, enabling you to store an infinite number of passwords and vaults under a master password.
Internet security experts advise having a separate random password for each account because the majority of Internet users have numerous password-protected accounts. Password managers are becoming an increasingly important part of web browsing because most individuals can’t memorize so many random strings of characters.
In the Kaspersky Password Manager are
- Password generator: creates passwords with up to 99 characters.
- Password check alerts you if your password is outdated or weak.
- Notifies you if any of your passwords have been published online using leak detection.
- A storage option for your private documents is a document vault.
- On websites or apps, auto-fill automatically fills out the login information.
Websites marked as ignored – If you don’t want the password manager to save passwords for a certain website, mark it as ignored.
For Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome, Kaspersky has created a browser extension. When you install the browser extension and activate it using your master password, passwords from your vault will be auto-filled anytime you use that browser to access the required website.
The Kaspersky password manager is fairly good, but not quite at the same level as other top password managers like NordPass or Keeper. The free version only allows for 15 data entries, regardless of whether they are passwords, images, documents, or other types of files, and the browser extensions occasionally don’t function.
13. Protection of privacy
Privacy Protection is a premium feature of Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Total Security that offers multiple options to protect your browsing habits.
By default, Privacy Protection notifies you when someone tries to gather your data, like when Facebook suspiciously knows what you have in your Amazon cart and tries to sell it to you. If you want to browse secretly and prevent your browsing history from being used for marketing purposes, the functionality can also be set to block data gathering.
An intelligent ad blocker is part of Privacy Protection; it avoids blocking ads when doing so would render a website inoperable, as is the case with many banner adverts.
A setting in Privacy Protection allows you to prevent Peeping Toms from using the webcam outside of your home. It should be noted that well-known applications like Zoom and Loom require access to your webcam, but you may add these websites to a “safe” list to only allow certain websites access to the webcam.
14. Child protection
a benefit of the most expensive plan The premium edition of Kaspersky Safe Kids, Kaspersky Total Security, provides a GPS monitor to track the whereabouts of your children’s handsets. On the devices themselves, it restricts access to apps, screens texts and calls, keeps tabs on social networks, filters problematic YouTube content, and monitors social networks.
Safe Kids was not created for iOS and performs inferiorly on an iOS smartphone compared to an Android device.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can one trust Kaspersky Antivirus?
In independent examinations of security software, Kaspersky products consistently outperform the competition; in the AV-Comparatives Summary Report for 2021, Kaspersky Internet Security came in second place behind Avast as a top consumer solution for Advanced Threat Protection (ATP).
Do I need to uninstall Kaspersky 2022?
If you’re one of its more than 400 million users, you might be in risk. Kaspersky was placed to the FCC’s list of businesses that the United States faces “unacceptable national security risks” on Friday. We advise deleting Kaspersky from your PC if you use it.
Kaspersky or McAfee: which is superior?
Kaspersky demonstrated a 99.90% success rate in safeguarding a PC from infection during the malware test. With this rating, Kaspersky is ranked in the center of all the antivirus companies examined in this test. McAfee excelled in the Real World Protection test, defending users against 99.8% of online attacks.
References:
https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/should-you-buy-kaspersky-security-products
https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-its-still-safe-to-use-Kaspersky-antivirus
