Kaspersky Antivirus Review

Can You Trust Kaspersky?

When it comes to trusting Kaspersky, let’s start at the beginning. Eugene Kaspersky – a Russian cybersecurity expert – along with two colleagues, began developing what would become a household name in antivirus software in 1989. After eight years, they established Kaspersky Lab and its signature antivirus software. Even in the late 80s, the software turned heads for its unique features. For instance, it was the first antivirus software to have a quarantine feature, which would become an industry standard.

Rightly or wrongly, Eugene Kaspersky’s Russian roots would prove problematic. Below is a short timeline of Kaspersky, his namesake software, and what led to the Kaspersky ban in the US.

• 2012: Rumors about Kaspersky’s alleged ties with the Russian government started spreading when Bloomberg pointed out a pattern of new hires with connections to the Russian military establishment.1
• 2017: During the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security banned the use of Kaspersky software by all federal departments, alleging that Kaspersky worked with Russia’s Federal Security Server on secret projects.2
• 2017: In the same year, the NSA alleged that Kaspersky helped Russia hack into an NSA contractor’s laptop in 2015.3
• 2022: When Russia’s war against Ukraine escalated, several government agencies around the world put out warnings urging the public to stop using Kaspersky software due to its alleged ties with Russia. Among those agencies was The German Federal Office for Information Security, known as BSI.
• 2023: More governments announced bans on Kaspersky, including Canada where the use of Kaspersky software on government-issued phones and computers is no longer allowed.
• 2024: Reports started coming out in April that Kaspersky could face a blanket ban in the U.S. It was later confirmed by the Commerce Department in June, and it took effect on July 20. By September 2024, all U.S. users will no longer receive crucial software updates, including malware database updates.
• 2024: Following the ban, Kaspersky has announced that it will gradually shutter its U.S. office, ending its 20-year operation in the country.

Despite everything that has happened, Kaspersky maintains that it’s a private company without ties to the Kremlin. Likely due to security concerns, the company began moving its core infrastructure from Moscow to Switzerland in 2018. The move was reportedly completed in 2022, and yet, the US still enacted its ban in 2024.

For its part, Kaspersky responded to the ban in the US by saying it had implemented transparency measures that go far beyond those of any other cyber security company “to demonstrate its enduring commitment to integrity and trustworthiness.” It also began shutting down US operations saying “business opportunities in the country are no longer viable.”

What Malware Did Kaspersky Find?

Kaspersky can protect you from a wide range of threats like viruses, adware, keyloggers, and zero-day attacks, to name a few.

It can also protect you from phishing sites. We tested a feature called Web Anti-Virus, which blocked us from accessing websites that might contain malware. After a few browsing sessions, we pulled up the report from Web Anti-Virus, which told us that it blocked 65 million unique malicious objects. Yikes.

It’s a great feature, but it’s also available in other top VPNs like NordVPN, Surfshark, and Private Internet Access. NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro feature has even been independently tested by AV-Labs, giving us some extra confidence in its effectiveness.

When we last tested Kaspersky, our main focus was to see how well it found malware and other threats on our devices. So, we bought the lowest tier subscription called Kaspersky Standard. This subscription didn’t include a firewall, password manager, or parental controls. However, it did include the Web Anti-Virus feature that we like so much.

If you’re in an area where Kaspersky is still available, we recommend looking at the other two subscription tiers: Plus and Premium. These plans offer more comprehensive protection, Including features like a firewall, VPN, and identity protection.

Testing Kaspersky for Viruses

Once installed, we cleared our desktop and started the first scan. This took about 18 minutes, which is normal for a first scan. It was actually quite fast, given that we had to wait overnight for the first scan to finish when we tested McAfee.

Our initial scan didn’t turn up any malware. To figure out if cyber threats were hiding in places where Kaspersky couldn’t find them, we hid five malware programs in our computer, including one inside a .zip file. Only a few antivirus programs we’ve tested over the years have found malware inside a .zip file, but Kaspersky was able to find it along with all the rest. Of all the top antivirus programs in 2025, only Bitdefender has been able to find malware hidden in a .zip file.

Third-Party Tests Corroborate Our Results

AV-Test, an institution that tests antivirus software in controlled environments, tested Kaspersky in October 2023. Their results corroborated ours.

Kaspersky got a perfect score when detecting zero-day malware attacks and widespread or prevalent malware within four weeks before the test. Unlike our sample size of five malware instances, AV-Test used up to 20,000 samples. They also performed the tests across Android and Windows.

Purchasing and Installing Kaspersky

The last time we bought Kaspersky, the purchase was relatively straightforward. Three plans were available for purchase on the website and we chose the Standard plan. As you might expect, Kaspersky tried to nudge us towards the most expensive option.

For us, the Kaspersky Standard plan offered everything we needed to test the antivirus software. It didn’t have any of the extras like a VPN and identity protection, but the antivirus software that comes with it is full-featured. It can perform scans, offers real-time protection, and even has performance optimization for desktops (Windows and macOS) and smartphones (Android and iOS).

When we bought Kaspersky, it came with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you’re in the US and bought Kaspersky before the ban, you can try to get your money back. Some users have reported getting a pro-rated refund while others have had their refund request denied.

Moving on, our download of Kaspersky took under a minute. Unlike with some other software purchases, we weren’t asked if we wanted to buy upgrades or other services. Not even a pop-up in sight, which we were glad not to see.

Our Experience Using Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Kaspersky Anti-Virus has a simple, clean interface focused mainly on its primary job of checking for viruses. It’s broken into four main sections: scan, database update, reports, and on-screen keyboard, and it also has links to settings and additional tools. We’ll run through them from the most simple to the most complicated.

On-Screen Keyboard

The on-screen keyboard feature may seem trivial — unnecessary even. But to those familiar with the keylogger method of hacking, this is a nice addition.

Hackers use programs that record keystrokes (a.k.a. keyloggers) to steal personal information, account passwords, and other data we type on our keyboards. It’s a sneaky way to steal data and it’s often left unnoticed.

With Kaspersky’s malware detection capability, we’re positive it would have detected keyloggers if we had any on our computer, but as an added measure, we like to use the on-screen keyboard when typing sensitive information like passwords. It’s less convenient to use than a normal keyboard, but on-screen keyboards provide extra privacy (unless someone is watching from behind you).

Reports

Just as it sounds, Kaspersky’s Reports section showed us details on the software’s scans of files, web traffic, network threats, and more. That’s also where we found data from one of Kaspersky’s more advanced features, System Watcher. While we thankfully weren’t the victims of a malware attack while testing the product, System Watcher provided us the ability to roll back the impact of a malware attack, like remote file locks.

Database Update

The Database Update section was just as straightforward. It let us know that the software was up to date with all of the latest information about threats, and was set to automatically update at regular intervals. We had the option to set it to refresh at certain times, but we thought it was best to leave the recommended auto updates in place. It’s also possible to run a manual update.

Scans

The scan menu offered a host of features, the most prominent of which is the Quick Scan. This scan, which we ran right away, took seven minutes. It focused on the areas on our computer most susceptible to viruses and malware. If it found anything troubling, the software would run a full scan of every single piece of information on the machine.

Our quick scan didn’t find anything, so we decided to run a full scan. The software warned us that it may take a while and might slow down our computer. That it did. We couldn’t use our computer for the duration of our scan and had to leave Kaspersky running overnight. The final report said that it spent over four hours scanning our device – and still found nothing. That’s not necessarily bad though. As mentioned earlier, when we did the tests with actual malware, Kaspersky caught them all.

Our quick scan didn’t find anything, so we decided to run a processor-hogging full scan. We couldn’t use our computer and had to let it run overnight. The final report said that it still found nothing. Given that Kaspersky passed our tests with actual malware, we felt pretty confident that the full scan did its job.

We suggest creating a schedule to perform a quick scan everyday and a full scan every month. That way, it won’t disrupt your normal desktop usage while also making sure malware doesn’t get on it.

Despite the ease of changing the settings, we were surprised to find that the default setting wasn’t for automatic scans, even though Kaspersky recommends against manual (non-automated) scans. We did notice, however, that the “Background scan” mode that scans the system memory was switched on by default. There were also several other settings like deletion of malicious tools and automatic launch at startup that were on by default.

Getting comfortable with the settings is a good idea because Kaspersky is very customizable. We liked the setting called Gamer Mode that automatically postpones scheduled scans if the computer is running a game or other app in full-screen mode. As avid gamers, this feature worked perfectly during our test period.

Kaspersky also postponed tasks when the computer was running on its battery or the disks were running at high loads. We liked that Kaspersky let us easily opt out of seeing advertising from the company inside the app. All in all, the app provided an experience that we found straightforward and customizable.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Pricing

While Kaspersky offers several different levels of protection that combine antivirus with capabilities like VPNs and child settings, here we’re focusing on the straight antivirus offering (but if you want to learn more about VPNs, read our VPN guide or our list of the best VPN options).

We paid $27.99 for one year of Kaspersky Standard (formerly Anti-Virus), which covered both our Lenovo ThinkPad and two other Windows computers. That price is a first-time customer deal, though, so we’ll be sure to keep an eye on the renewal, which costs $56.99.

A Kaspersky subscription can cover as many as 10 devices, which is perfect for families. Although adults primarily need antivirus software, leaving a child’s smartphone without antivirus is one of the biggest mistakes parents make when setting up a child’s smartphone. Don’t make that mistake.

After all, Kaspersky’s pricing is on the lower end of the spectrum. Keep in mind that the subscription price you’re paying is good for one or two years, so if you do the math, the cost of protecting one device is less than a dollar per month. That and Kaspersky’s skill at detecting viruses and malware make for a good purchase.

Kaspersky is particularly cost-effective if you’re looking to protect a number of devices. One year of protection for 10 devices costs less than $50. For roughly the same price, you can get protection from Kaspersky’s rival Norton for only five devices. You’d need to pay at least $99 to get 10-device protection from Norton, although that subscription plan offers other premium benefits.

From some other brands, 10-device protection is not even available. For example, TotalAV can protect a maximum of six devices with its most advanced plan, which costs $49.99 in the first year.

It’s safe to say that Kaspersky is a cost-effective solution for households with multiple devices.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus App

While we tested Kaspersky’s Windows app for this review, it’s also available for Android and iOS devices, although they weren’t included in the Kaspersky Anti-Virus package we purchased. In the Google Play Store, it’s listed under Kaspersky Mobile Antivirus: AppLock & Web Security, alongside a shiny 4.8 customer rating. With a 4.7 rating, the iOS app can be found under the name Kaspersky Security Cloud & VPNWare on the App store. While we only tested the desktop app, those reviews are certainly a strong sign that the phone versions are also well-designed.