Group Test - Corporate Anti-virus Tools - Editor's Choice

It's worth noting that we invited a number of other vendors, beyond those featured here, to take part in this group test, but not all were able to provide products in time for testing. The most notable omissions are McAfee and Trend Micro, both of which have corporate-grade offerings you may want to consider. That said, the remaining vendors are respected players in this market and their products are representative of what's available, making them all worthy of consideration by buyers looking for a corporate anti-virus solution.

Bear in mind too that when evaluating the products submitted we concentrated not only on their ability to detect viruses (all have been proved to offer high detection rates in numerous independent tests) but also on other criteria. In particular, we were interested in platform support beyond basic desktop protection and in remote management of both the software and general anti-virus policies.

As far as platform support is concerned, all the products have modules to protect a range of servers and gateways, the exception being Symantec Anti-virus Corporate Edition. This package is very much a Windows desktop/server solution, although if you want to protect email and other gateway systems the company has other products, so don't write it off on that account only.

On the management front, the most impressive solution was from F-Secure. Not only is it available for both Linux and Windows servers, but it can also be used to manage the whole range of F-Secure anti-virus tools, except the Linux client. It can also manage F-Secure firewall, VPN and other products. Other interfaces were easier to get to grips with, but limited in the main to managing Windows desktops and servers, calling for a plethora of other tools to look after the various gateway deployments.

It was a close-run thing and we found it hard to find much wrong with any of the products looked at. In the end, however, F-Secure had to win the day, based on a combination of its wide platform support and extensive management capabilities. F-Secure Anti-Virus Total Suite, therefore, receives our Editor's Choice award.

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