The median age in the US is about 40, which means that G Data Antivirus is older than almost half the population. The company maintains that this program, released in 1985, was the first antivirus utility ever. Over its long history, it has accumulated a collection of security features that go well beyond simple antivirus protection. It’s a fine choice, with good scores on our tests and high marks from one lab. That said, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus and Norton AntiVirus Plus both have their own impressive security bonuses, and both earn excellent scores from multiple independent testing labs, making them our Editors’ Choice winners for antivirus utilities.How Much Does G Data Antivirus Cost?The most common price for a single antivirus license is just under $40. Bitdefender, ESET NOD32 Antivirus, and Webroot match that price. A single G Data license costs $29.95, $10 less than that common price. Paying $39.95 gets you three G Data licenses. Toss in another $10, and you get licenses to install G Data on five devices.
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G Data’s licensing choices end at five, but others go higher. For $59.99 per year, you can install Sophos Home Premium on 10 devices. A 10-license subscription for Vipre Antivirus Plus costs $76.99 per year, while Bitdefender runs $79.99 per year.Lab ResultsG Data regularly participates in testing with two of the four independent testing labs I follow and earns excellent scores. However, it only appears in the very latest reports from one of those labs.
Testers at AV-Test Institute look at antivirus utilities from three different perspectives, assigning up to six points for each of the criteria Protection, Performance, and Usability. In the previous report from this lab, G Data earned the maximum in all three categories for a perfect 18-point total. A dozen other antiviruses matched G Data’s score, among them McAfee, Norton AntiVirus Plus, and Trend Micro. The latest report seriously shook things up, with a half-dozen competitors dropping by a half-point or more and no results at all for G Data.
AV-Comparatives doesn’t take a numeric approach to scoring. Rather, an antivirus that reaches the minimum necessary success achieves Standard certification, while those that go beyond the minimum can reach Advanced or Advanced+ certification. In the three tests I follow, G Data managed two Advanced+ ratings and one Advanced. That’s excellent, but Avast, AVG, Avira Free Security, BitDefender, Kaspersky, and McAfee took Advanced+ in all three tests.I use an algorithm that maps available lab results onto a scale from 0 to 10 and generates an aggregate result. I require results from at least two labs to generate an aggregate score; more than half the antiviruses I follow have just one result or none. With no results in the latest from AV-Test, G Data joins this group.The top aggregate score, a perfect 10, goes to Kaspersky and McAfee, each tested by three labs. Just three antivirus apps appear in current results from all four, Avast, Norton, and Microsoft, with 9.6, 9.5, and 9.1 points respectively.Getting Started With G DataInstalling G Data isn’t quite as quick and simple as many such apps, though it’s by no means arduous. It asks for a plethora of personal details when you create your account, so many that they push an important checkbox out of view. You won’t be able to activate your installation until you scroll down and check that box. And you must reboot to complete the installation, a step that’s becoming less common.As with many modern security product lines, you manage your G Data licenses through an online console. With the first installation, you create your online account. After that, you log into the account to extend G Data protection to additional devices.G Data’s main window hasn’t changed significantly in years. It features a bold red banner across the top, with icons to select Security Center, Virus Protection, and Autostart Manager (more about the last one later). It’s not red for danger or red like a stoplight—it’s just red. I still find it slightly jarring that the whole banner turns gray when a different program is active.The rest of the main window displays the status of the numerous protection features in several groups. A green checkmark icon indicates the feature is fully active. For a partially disabled component, the icon changes to a yellow exclamation point. A fully disabled feature gets a gray dash icon. Naturally, you want to see those green checkmarks throughout.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
Your antivirus system has many opportunities to save your PC from a malware attack. It can block all access to the malware-hosting website, eliminate threats on download, detect and delete known malware based on its signature, and even detect unknown malware based on behavior alone. G Data includes all these layers of protection, culminating in a behavioral monitor dubbed Beast.As always, you should run a full system scan immediately after installation. You fire up that scan by clicking Check Computer on the Virus Protection page. Once that initial scan finishes, the program’s on-access and idle-time scans should theoretically take care of any new intrusions. Even so, you may want to schedule a regular scan. G Data lets you schedule scans on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis or for every system startup.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
A full G Data scan on a clean test system took two hours and 12 minutes, about a half-hour longer than the current average. Many antivirus tools use that first scan to optimize the process using techniques such as marking known safe programs so future scans can skip them. In testing, a second scan with G Data didn’t run any faster.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
On the Virus Protection page, you can pick individual elements of the full scan, such as checking memory, analyzing removable drives, or scanning for rootkits. As with Kaspersky, Panda Free Antivirus, and others, you can create a bootable antivirus disc to handle malware that interferes with booting Windows. Note that Bitdefender bypasses the need for a disc, allowing you to boot into an alternate operating system with total ease.Effective Malware ProtectionMy malware protection test starts when I open the folder containing my current collection of malware samples. G Data started examining them right away. The process was significantly slower than with many competitors. In almost every case, it offered “Disinfect and copy to quarantine” as the default action—I chose to send the samples straight to quarantine. For a couple of PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs), it suggested simply blocking file access, but I told it to quarantine those as well. By the time it finished, 86% of the samples were in quarantine, down from 97% when tested with an earlier malware collection. Of antivirus programs tested with the current sample set, Aura detected the most at this phase, 91%.To complete the test, I launched the samples that survived G Data’s initial on-access examination. Having already ignored these, it didn’t prevent me from launching them, but its behavioral system made some arrests. In its last two reviews G Data scored 9.8 of 10 possible points; this time around it managed 92% detection and 9.0 points. Tested with the current collection of samples, Avast and AVG both attained 9.9 points.
I maintain a second set of samples, hand-modified versions of the originals. To create each modified sample, I change the filename, add zeroes at the end to change the file size, and overwrite some non-executable bytes with nonsense. Skipping any for which G Data didn’t detect the originals, I found G Data detected 86% of the same samples, even in their tweaked form, including all the virulent ransomware samples. That’s a good score, suggesting G Data’s detection techniques are flexible enough to handle polymorphic malware.For another view of each program’s ability to protect against malware, I use a feed of current malware-hosting URLs supplied by MRG-Effitas, typically no more than a couple of days old. I launch each URL in turn, discarding any that are defective and noting whether the antivirus blocks access to the URL, wipes out the malware download, or completely fails.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
In testing, I observed G Data replaced most dangerous URLs with a red warning screen that reported “infected code” without a specific malware name. In a few cases, it identified malware by name using a different warning screen. My G Data contact explained that the appearance of a name indicates G Data’s signature-based detection identified the threat, while the more generic warning means the URL matched G Data’s cloud database of dangerous URLs.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
I also found that G Data blocked the download of many samples, just leaving an error message in the browser and a note in the activity log. It would have popped up a notification, but I accidentally turned off those popups and couldn’t figure out how to restore them. A bit more than half of the detections occurred at the download phase. One way or another, it fended off 97% of the malware downloads. That’s impressive, though Bitdefender, Guardio, Sophos, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm PRO blocked 100% in their own tests.Decent Phishing ProtectionCoding a data-stealing Trojan and sneaking it onto victim PCs isn’t easy. Tricking users into handing you their passwords and other personal data (what we call phishing) is a lot less difficult. Phishing websites masquerade as financial sites, Web-based email services, and even online gaming sites. If you enter your username and password on the fraudulent site, you’ve given the fraudsters full access to your bank account, your email, or that character whose stats you’ve been building for a year.If the website looks just like PayPal, but the URL is something goofy like idiotfriend.ru, at least some users will detect the fraud. But sometimes, the URL is so close to the real thing that only those with sharp eyes will spot the phishing attack. Antivirus programs with a web protection component usually attempt to protect users against phishing as well, and G Data is no exception.
To test the efficacy of an antivirus tool’s antiphishing component, I first scour the web for the newest phishing URLs, making sure to include URLs that have been reported as fraudulent but that haven’t yet been analyzed and blacklisted. I launch each in turn in a browser protected by the antivirus under test. I also launch each URL in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, relying on the browser’s built-in phishing detection.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
G Data replaces unsecured HTTP frauds in the browser with a red warning page, much like its warning for a malware-hosting page. By observation, it displays this warning for some HTTPS frauds, but not all of them. For most HTTPS phishing pages, the browser just displayed an ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR message. I had to check G Data’s log to verify that, indeed, it was responsible for preventing access to these phishing pages.G Data succeeded against 91% of the verified frauds, about the same as in its last few tests. That’s a decent score, but fully half of recent antiviruses have scored higher. Five phishing protectors managed a perfect 100% in this test, among them Bitdefender and F-Secure Anti-Virus.Accurate Ransomware DetectionIf you click Real-time protection from G Data’s Security Center page, you’ll find multiple protective layers. In addition to the main Virus monitor, it includes Beast behavior-based detection, AntiRansomware, Exploit Protection, and DeepRay (a machine-learning system). A brand-new ransomware attack that gets past all the other layers could wreak havoc on your files. Even if G Data’s experts come up with a defense a day or two later, your files are still gone. Having a dedicated AntiRansomware layer is great, but does it work?To simulate the effect of G Data’s ransomware protection against a brand-new ransomware attack, I turned off the other protective layers, leaving only Anti-Ransomware. I cut off the test system from the rest of the network. Then, I hit the test system with my ransomware samples, one at a time. G Data’s system is designed to detect file-encrypting ransomware, so it’s unsurprising that it didn’t block a disk-encrypting ransomware sample and a disk-destroying wiper attack.As for the 10 file-encrypting ransomware samples, two did nothing (it happens). G Data detected all the rest, though half of them managed to encrypt some files before detection kicked in. That makes sense; encrypting files is one of the main behavioral triggers. Losses ranged from 14 documents to over 1,300 less important ancillary files. Remember, though, that to even see this component in action, I had to disable all the other layers of malware protection.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
I’ve encountered a couple of ransomware protection systems failing when the ransomware launches at startup before they can get their protective services in place. I took one of the samples G Data successfully detected and configured it to launch at startup. Good news! G Data successfully blocked the attack.When last tested, G Data detected all but one of the then-current samples. This time, it recognized and disabled all attempts to encrypt my files, albeit with collateral file damage in some cases. The Anti-Ransomware component made a very good showing.Spam Filtering, If You Need ItFewer and fewer people need a local spam filter utility, as more and more get email through services that remove spam automatically or through business email systems with server-side antispam systems. If you’re one of the few who need this feature, G Data has you covered. You get spam protection at the basic antivirus level; you don’t have to spring for a full security suite.The spam filter analyzes incoming POP3 emails and assigns a spam index to each message. At specific thresholds, it deems messages to be suspected, likely, or highly likely to be spam. By default, it marks the first category with [Suspected spam] in the subject and marks the other two with [Spam]. For Outlook users, it moves all three types to the Antispam folder; those using other email clients must define a message rule to sift out the spam. You can tweak its marking texts and even have it insert text in the message body, but most users should be fine with the default settings.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
You can manually add addresses or domains to the whitelist (never blocked) or the blacklist (always blocked). You can also tweak the Bayesian learning system and fiddle with other filters, but most users should just leave these settings as they’re initially configured.G Data also offers what it calls Email Check, which is separate from spam filtering. This feature checks both incoming and outgoing mail for malware and dangerous links. It’s a bit redundant—if you save or open a malicious attachment, real-time protection should catch it, just as web protection should kick in if you click a dangerous link. And with G Data actively eliminating malware, your system shouldn’t send any malicious attachments. But this additional protection layer can’t hurt.Bonus FeaturesAlong with the expected antivirus features, G Data gives you several features other companies might reserve for a security suite. Like ESET’s Safe Banking and Safepay in Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, G Data’s BankGuard aims to protect your financial transactions. Bitdefender runs SafePay on its own separate desktop, and ESET identifies a protected browser by giving it a glowing green border. By contrast, BankGuard works invisibly to protect all your browsers. The only way to see it in action is to encounter a Trojan that both gets past the antivirus component and attempts a man-in-the-browser attack or other data-stealing technique. That’s not a test I’ve been able to accomplish.The related keylogger protection feature was easier to test than BankGuard. I installed a popular free keylogger, typed some data into Notepad, typed into my browsers, and then typed in Notepad again. When I brought up the keylogger’s keystroke-capture report, it showed no keystrokes between the two uses of Notepad.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
I tested G Data’s exploit protection by hitting the test system with a couple of dozen exploits generated by the Core Impact penetration tool. It identified 48% of the exploits using the official CVE number and picked up a few others using generic detection, for a total of 56%. That’s the best score among recent antiviruses. Vipre comes close with 55%, and Bitdefender is next with 52%. Do note that none of the exploit attacks succeeded against the fully patched test system.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
G Data has long featured the ability to manage the programs that launch automatically when your system boots. Its Autostart Manager can set any program to launch after a delay, which defaults to two minutes. You can adjust that time from one to 10 minutes, set the delayed app to never launch, or have G Data automatically launch it when the system’s startup activity has died down. This is a more fine-grained control than you get with the similar feature in Norton and certainly more subtle than the simple on/off toggle offered by Windows itself.Verdict: Mature, Dependable AntivirusG Data has existed longer than most security companies, so it’s no surprise G Data Antivirus is a mature product. It includes components specifically designed to protect against spam, exploits, keyloggers, banking Trojans, and ransomware. It earned good scores on our hands-on tests and excellent scores from one independent lab. However, from the large field of available antivirus programs, we’ve chosen Bitdefender Antivirus Plus and Norton AntiVirus Plus as our Editors’ Choice winners. Both consistently earn top marks from multiple independent labs and boast a wealth of bonus features beyond what even G Data offers.
Pros
Good score on our hands-on malware protection test
Protects against banking Trojans, keyloggers, ransomware, and exploits
Relatively inexpensive
Includes spam filter
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The Bottom Line
Offering more than just the basics, G Data Antivirus includes a spam filter and components designed to fight ransomware and other malware types.
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