In my experience, the best virus protection packages are freeware; specifically, Microsoft Security Essentials is the one I recommend (and I do NOT like Microsoft in general). I think the only reason McAfee and Norton get so much money is that they have paid PC OEMs to preinstall "trial" packages (aka "crapware") on new PCs, and Joe Average doesn't know that there are less-expensive (And more effective) options.

MSE is a great product. Certainly better (lightweight, fast, as effective as the expensive ones) than any other free solution and most of the paid-for ones. Some like norton, macafee and trend are slowly getting 'less bad' but they still impose such a heavy load on the client PC and constant unjustified popup messages that its impossible to reccomend them to anyone.

Interestingly, the corporate version of norton always seemed to be really nice, but symantec really screw things up with their end-user version.

I like Malwarebytes. I use the freeware version and i've yet to come across a virus it could not remove.

I scanned this report and I have to say it seems rather ambiguous and they did not really do a proper sample size of antivirus software. Products like malwarebytes, sophos isn't listed.

Using the virustotal online scanner is just a cop out because it cant do any behavior analysis since its just a file scanner!

Saying things like: "For certain antivirus vendors, it may take up to four weeks to detect a new virus" Who are these certain vendors?

What about heuristic detection? From what I understand products like bitdefender scored a 100% detection rate on recent tests for both behavior and existing threats.

What they should have done instead of publishing a vague "some AV solutions is a waste of money" is to do a reverse version of this paper and say "here is a list of the best protections out there and this is their current shortcomings"

I personally haven't used any anti-virus software in years... hell I can't even remember the last time I used any at all.  My gaming rig only plays games 99% of the time, and my/wife's laptop is just used for youtube, facebook, and googling wikipedia.  

  Anyhow, my point being.  Since I stopped thinking I was a 10 year old hacking prodigy and visiting shady sites, I haven't had any issues.  Since I actually stopped using anti-virus software, I can only think of 1 time where I was knowingly infected.  I mainly just check what processes are running from time to time, and if i spot something out of the ordinary, i'll investigate.

It's not possible for any anti-virus to pick up the majority of newly "created" viruses. There are malware programmers who are constantly redesigning and improving on malware already found in the wild and it is EXTREMELY easy for a newbie to visit a website, download an open-sourced trogan/RAT, encrypted to make it 'FUD' (fully undetectable) through use of another tool and spread it at their own whim.

The key to system protection (after using a bit of common knowledge precaution) is preventative software such as the Online Armor or Comodo firewalls which actively monitor processes attempting to run.

Multi layered approach is best. Nothing is absolute full proof, paid for or free. I like my Avast along with Malwarebytes and Spybot and Zonealarm. :-)

I personally have started using Panda Cloud, it is very quiet as well as always there, it runs from the cloud over there servers to an internal small unit and seems to work very well. Of course I also have several external virus attack tools on my USB key if I ever get locked out event though I have generally always been able to get around that for me or customers. I like the idea of the solution being constantly updated externally and so far being unobtrusive and functional from all I have seen, even there PRO upgrade is well priced....