12 August 2008 16:00 GMT / By Stephen Patrick

Kaspersky is one of a number of names in the antivVirus and online security market that is growing in stature due to product improvements. This latest version takes many of the features we’ve seen in earlier editions and sensibly builds on them.

The interface has been streamlined and looks a lot more user-friendly. The main driving force has been to make it easier for first-time users to get to grips with. So you’ll find the main screen gives you all the facts you need, while the more heavy-duty functions have been hidden away. If you want to mess about with the settings you can, but we found the basic package more than effective.

One of Kaspersky’s main benefits to date has been its low resource needs and we’re happy to see this is still the case with this latest version. The scan engine has been bolstered, so it now takes advantage of dual-core processors without it affecting resource needs. We found you could easy run this software on a machine running a Pentium dual-core processor and just 512MB of memory without too much slow down.

Kaspersky claims there are two big changes to this edition. The first is improved scanning of both your OS and applications. It looks for vulnerabilities in your set-up and reports them back to you.

The other big change is that links to malware sites are disabled. However, the main function of the software is still very much about detecting and stopping a wide array of threats. Whether it’s Trojans, popups or even scanning your instant messaging tools, monitoring is fairly tight and we found few slip-ups when running.

A whitelist application has now been added, so the program doesn’t need to check every application on your PC to see if it’s malicious as the whitelist contains a list of legitimate tools.

If there is one problem with this software, it’s the instance to point users to the full Internet Security Suite, which offers more tools but is also more expensive. This feels as though Kaspersky is using Anti-Virus 2009 as an entry-level tool while at the same time trying to upgrade people to the more expensive Internet Security Suite.

The asking price includes a license to install the software on pu to three machines attached to the same address. We’ve seen it online for less than the £39.99 asking prince and if you’re upgrading from a previous edition, you’ll be able to pick up a copy for as little as £17, making this one of the most cost-effective solutions on the market.

Verdict

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 is a great all-round package that hasn’t changed too much from previous versions. The new interface is a logical move and the new features are worth having. For the price, this is as powerful an anti-virus tool as you’ll find elsewhere.

Score

Review Recap

Made by

Kaspersky Lab

Price as reviewed

£39.99

Latest price

Compare prices

The good

Simple to use, low resource needs

The bad

Deeper settings are awkward to use

Quick verdict

This is a powerful package that won’t sap your resources. We found it worked well and the asking price is more than reasonable

Score

Recommended articles