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.

Our primary focus is Kaspersky’s ability to detect malware and threats existing on local devices. So we purchased the cheapest subscription available, which was Kaspersky AntiVirus a.k.a. Kaspersky Standard. This software doesn’t offer a firewall, parental controls, or password storage, but it does include the Web Anti-Virus feature mentioned above.

Should you wish to bundle add-on software and tools, we recommend either the Kaspersky Plus and Premium plans, both of which offer all-in-one digital security through a host of other Kaspersky tools and services.

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.

Kaspersky’s first scan didn’t turn up anything, so we moved on to testing its real-time capabilities. We hid five pieces of malware in our system, including one inside a .zip archive file. Only a handful of antivirus programs we’ve tested have found that malware. But Kaspersky found all five malware instances. This type of detection rate is rare, with Bitdefender being the only other software we’ve tested to accomplish this.

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

Buying Kaspersky is straightforward. There are three plans available, each with its features clearly highlighted. Kaspersky naturally recommends the most expensive option, but you might not need it if you already have digital security tools.

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).

We paid $29.99 for an entire year of access, which averages out to just over $1 per month. That’s a great price if you’re just testing the waters. Better still, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee; if Kaspersky doesn’t turn out to be as good as expected, you can cancel within 30 days and request a refund.

When we purchased the license before the ban went into effect, the download took under a minute on our laggy computer. Unlike with some other software purchases, we weren’t asked if we wanted to buy upgrades or other services. There wasn’t a pop-up in sight.

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.

There were other scan options too, such as a selective scan that scanned specific folders and files, as well as a removable drive scan that scanned USB drives we plugged into our computer.

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.

As a whole, we found Kaspersky Anti-Virus to be very customizable. We especially loved the fact that there is a setting called “Gamer Mode”. This mode automatically postpones scheduled scans if the computer is running an app like a game in full-screen. As avid gamers, we hate being interrupted by pop-ups or slowed down by programs running in the background, and we can report that we weren’t interrupted at all during our test period.

We also appreciated that the software automatically postponed its tasks when the computer was running on battery or when the disks were running at high loads, reducing slowdowns. And we were grateful that Kaspersky allowed us to easily opt out of seeing special offers or receiving advertising from the company within the app. All in all, the app provided an experience that we found straightforward and customizable, and we appreciated the simple, easy to navigate design.

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.