K7 Antivirus Premium review | TechSwitch

K7 Computing might not have the profile of the big-name competitors, however there’s extra to the Indian firm than you would possibly suppose: 25+ years of antivirus expertise, VirusTotal and OPSWAT companions, a spread of residence and enterprise merchandise, and greater than 20 million customers around the globe.K7 Antivirus Premium is the starter product within the vary, however do not assume meaning it is brief on options. There’s antivirus, exploit safety, a firewall, machine management, USB vaccination, primary system clean-up instruments and a digital keyboard.There’s additionally a notable omission, although, within the lack of any URL filtering. Many antivirus packages will attempt to detect and block entry to malicious or phishing web sites, however not this one.Single person pricing is sweet, with the package deal costing a mere $25 for a one machine, one-year license. Kaspersky Anti-Virus would not have all of the performance of K7 Antivirus Premium, however it’s noticeably costlier at $32.50 (£25).Add customers and years and it is just a little completely different. A 5 machine, two-year license for K7 Antivirus Premium is $100; an equal Kaspersky license is a close to equivalent $104 (£80). K7 nonetheless seems like good worth for the options you get, however the value benefits fade if you happen to go for a multi-user license.If you are intrigued by the prolonged characteristic checklist and low value, a free 30-day trial provides you a risk-free technique to discover out extra.SetupThe K7 Antivirus Premium installer regarded quite simple, only a ‘View EULA’ hyperlink and an ‘Install’ button, with not as a lot as a ‘select your set up folder’ choice to get in the best way. So, we tapped Install and watched because the setup window disappeared, and – did not return. No ‘Done’ message, no ‘Please reboot’ recommendation, nothing in any respect.Task Manager did not present any working installer, however the course of did not appear to have completed correctly, both (there was no K7 shortcut on our desktop, nothing on the Start menu, no K7 icon in our system tray.) We rebooted, and a K7 icon appeared in our system tray. Unfortunately, it would not reply to our left or right-clicks, simply displaying a tooltip of ‘Activation Pending.’ After a couple of minutes, pop-ups requested us if we wished to activate and replace the package deal, however once we clicked ‘sure please’, warned us that the replace had failed, and we must always reinstall.While this sounds simple, it actually wasn’t. Just as had occurred in our final K7 assessment (although for various causes), our first set up was damaged. When we ran the installer once more, it informed us K7 Antivirus Premium was put in already and we must always uninstall it; once we tried to run the uninstaller, it informed us the method had failed and we must always reinstall. Deadlock.We went to work, discovering and working K7’s cleanup instrument ourselves, cleansing our short-term folders, rebooting, closing all non-essential apps, making an attempt K7’s installer once more, and – this time, we seemed to be in luck. We have been prompted to enter our identify and electronic mail handle, and have been informed it was ‘activating the product.’Ten minutes later, when the ‘activating…’ message nonetheless hadn’t gone away, we realized there was one other drawback, so closed the window and rebooted. This time, the K7 console refused to launch in any respect, telling us it could not discover ‘libcef.dll’ (a part of Chromium’s Embedded Framework), and suggesting we reinstall.So, we retraced our steps, uninstalled manually, re-ran the cleanup instrument, wiped all our short-term information, rebooted, reinstalled, clicked Activate, offered our identify, and this time, lastly, have been informed activation was profitable.Checking out the K7 Computing folder revealed a comparatively small set up, just a little underneath 400MB. Most executable information have been K7’s personal code, although we seen a number of regarding Chromium and Java. It’s necessary that any antivirus can defend itself from malware, and proper now K7 Antivirus Premium does this very properly. We discovered processes and providers have been shielded from assault, information not simply deleted, and it appears malware will not have any fast technique to disable K7’s safety.FeaturesK7 Antivirus Premium has an uncommon interface which focuses extra in your safety standing than the rest. A big panel highlights particulars just like the final replace time, virus definition model and the way lengthy is likely to be left in your subscription. The few motion buttons – Scan, Tools, Settings – are tucked away on the fringe of the window.The program gives what seems like a well-recognized set of scan sorts in Quick, Complete, Custom and Rootkit, however this does not inform the entire story. When we ran a Quick Scan, it completed in a fraction of a second, apparently as a result of it checked solely 201 information. Other packages would possibly take two, three, 4 or extra minutes, however they’re additionally significantly extra thorough, masking working processes, loaded modules, startup applications, perhaps system folders, put in purposes and extra.The drawback with this feeble Quick Scan is you are left with few different choices. The Complete Scan would possibly take too lengthy if you happen to’ve a lot of knowledge, and the Custom Scan is not very configurable. You can specify a number of folders, however it will not bear in mind these selections for subsequent time, and you may’t embody different system areas (working processes, the Registry). As a consequence, you are often left to both scan not sufficient information, or far too many.Real-world scanning speeds have been slower than ordinary, and detection charges have been common at finest. When we turned on adware detection, K7 Antivirus Premium additionally picked up many information we might take into account to be secure. A ‘clean automatically’ default setting means you aren’t getting to determine how they’re handled, both: this system removes them to Quarantine with out additional prompting, until you flip the characteristic off.K7 Antivirus features a fairly clever firewall. It units up smart automated guidelines itself, so you are not hassled with limitless “can process X go online?” queries, however specialists can even add and edit customized guidelines as required.K7 Antivirus Premium is uncommon in having a tool management system. You’re in a position to disable USB, CD or DVD drives, for example. It’s additionally potential so as to add password safety, forestall applications launching from these gadgets, or cease customers copying information to them. A Tools tab bundles some a lot smaller capabilities. USB vaccination might be the spotlight, decreasing the prospect of a USB key changing into contaminated by autorun malware. A easy digital keyboard would possibly defend in opposition to keyloggers, and there are extraordinarily primary cleaners for Windows and browser short-term information.Browsing the Settings dialog reveals different attention-grabbing applied sciences and choices, many not enabled by default. There’s an Office plugin to scan all Word/Excel information opened by Office, for example. We would anticipate these information to have been scanned already, however perhaps checking them inside Office brings some advantages. If you are , the plugin will be put in with a click on.ProtectionWe run easy detection assessments on each antivirus we assessment, however these solely give a basic concept of what a package deal can do. To absolutely perceive the massive image, we additionally test product rankings with the foremost impartial testing labs.AV-Comparatives’ Real-World Protection Test measures the efficiency of eighteen high antivirus engines in opposition to the most recent threats. The July-November 2018 report takes a median of 5 assessments, and it positioned K7 in 11th place. While that is just a little disappointing, it isn’t a catastrophe, and exhibits K7 delivers comparable outcomes to a number of different big-name antivirus distributors. K7 Antivirus Premium ranked solely marginally behind McAfee and Symantec, for example, and it outperformed Panda, ESET, Emsisoft and BullGuard.AV-Test’s October 2018 Windows Home User report discovered K7 Total Security blocked 100% of recognized threats, however was marginally beneath common at defending in opposition to 0-day assaults. The finish consequence was a broad settlement with AV-Comparatives, as each labs positioned K7 within the decrease half of their rankings.Could the corporate regain some credit score by detecting and blocking our customized ransomware simulator, a risk it had by no means seen earlier than? Nope: we launched the simulator, and K7 simply regarded on because it encrypted hundreds of paperwork.There was some excellent news in AV-Test and AV-Comparatives’ efficiency assessments, which measure the influence of safety software program in your system’s pace. K7 has had some efficiency points up to now, however not any extra, it appears. AV-Test’s April and October 2018 efficiency assessments positioned K7 in first and second place out of 18 contenders, effortlessly outperforming the competitors.Final verdictK7 Antivirus Premium has some highly effective extras – specifically machine management, and a sensible firewall – however the core antivirus engine simply is not as correct or dependable because it must be. Throw within the set up points and lack of URL filtering and it isn’t a package deal we will suggest.