Antivirus is a must for every PC, but a full security suite offers a wider range of protection. G Data Internet Security matches expectations for security suite features—antivirus, firewall, parental controls, spam filtering, and more. That said, the quality of the components spans quite a range, from very good to poor, and the poor ones haven’t improved appreciably in years. We simply can’t recommend this suite in its current state. For an entry-level suite that’s rich in features and high lab scores, consider Editors’ Choice winner Bitdefender Internet Security instead.What Does G Data Internet Security Cost?Just under $60 per year is a common price for a single security suite subscription, and roughly $80 gets you three licenses in many cases. G Data Internet Security runs quite a bit less. If you just need one installation, it’s $39.95 per year; $55.95 gets you three licenses.At the five-license level, G Data still undercuts most of the competition with its $71.95 subscription price. Vipre and Webroot run closer to $80. Bitdefender Internet Security costs $89.99 for five licenses, while Panda runs $85.99. Overall, G Data is on the less expensive side.
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It’s Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
McAfee and Norton are among the suites that include full VPN protection. Others offer a VPN limited in bandwidth, features, or both, requiring an extra fee for full power. G Data’s VPN is a separate product, but those buying this suite can bundle the VPN for an added $29.97—roughly half the $59.95 standalone price.
Getting Started With G Data Internet SecurityAs with the G Data standalone antivirus, you register and activate your purchase by filling in the registration code and an unusually detailed collection of personal information. Note, though, that you can skip most of the personal info—only your name and email are required. As with the antivirus, you can’t activate it until you check a box that isn’t visible without scrolling, which is awkward. And like the antivirus, this suite requires a reboot to finalize the installation.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
This app’s main window features the familiar bold G Data color scheme, with a red banner holding a row of icons at the top. As with the standalone antivirus, there are icons for Security Center, Virus Protection, and Autostart Manager. The suite adds icons for Firewall and Parental Control. Backup, which was present when I last reviewed this suite, no longer appears.What Antivirus Features Does G Data Share?This suite gives you precisely the antivirus protection and other features that you get in G Data Antivirus. I’ll summarize my findings here. For full details, please read my review of the antivirus.
Just one of the four antivirus labs I follow includes G Data in their tests and reports. Experts at AV-Test Institute rate antivirus tools on Protection, Performance, and Usability, with six points possible in each category. G Data earned a perfect 18 points at the time of my previous review but doesn’t appear in this lab’s latest report.AV-Comparatives doesn’t take a numeric approach to scoring. Rather, products receive certification at the Standard, Advanced, or Advanced+ levels. In the three tests I follow, G Data has one Advanced certification and two Advanced+, while Avast, AVG, Avira Internet Security, BitDefender, Kaspersky, and McAfee rate Advanced+ in all three.I’ve worked up an algorithm that maps available lab results onto a scale from 0 to 10 and generates an aggregate result for products that have at least two scores. Along with well over half of current antivirus tools, G Data doesn’t have two scores.The top aggregate score, a perfect 10, goes to Kaspersky and McAfee, each tested by three labs. Just three security suites appear in current results from all four labs: Avast One Silver, Norton, and Microsoft, with 9.6, 9.5, and 9.1 points, respectively.By default, G Data scans in the background when the computer is idle. I always advise a full scan of the whole computer just after installing antivirus protection. A full G Data scan on a clean test system took about a half-hour longer than the current average.
In my hands-on malware protection test, G Data detected 92% of the samples and earned 9.0 of 10 possible points. Tested with the current collection of samples, Avast and AVG Internet Security both attained 9.9 points.G Data did better in my malicious URL blocking test, which uses a feed of URLs recently observed by researchers at MRG-Effitas. It prevented 99% of the malware downloads, roughly half by preventing all access to the malware-hosting URL and half by recognizing the malware payload. Bitdefender, Guardio, Sophos Home Premium, Trend Micro Internet Security, and ZoneAlarm did even better, scoring a perfect 100% in their latest tests.
G Data uses a combination of real-time analysis and cloud-block list lookup to help users avoid phishing sites and fraudulent websites that try to steal login credentials. It did about the same this time as the last time I tested it, detecting 91% of the verified frauds. Half of its competitors have done better. Guardio, McAfee, Norton Genie, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security all reached 100% in their respective phishing protection tests.What Else Does G Data Antivirus Offer?Exploit protection is usually associated with firewalls, but G Data offers it in the standalone antivirus. Challenged to defend against a couple of dozen real exploits, it detected and blocked 56% of them, the best score in recent exploit tests.Not everyone needs a local spam filter, but for those that do, G Data makes this feature available in the standalone antivirus. It filters POP3 and IMAP email, tagging spam and suspected spam by modifying the subject line. For Outlook users, it diverts spam to a junk folder; those using a different email client must create a rule to deal with marked spam messages. G Data uses numerous filters to distinguish spam from valid mail, but most users should leave these at their default settings, except to whitelist known safe correspondents.My hands-on testing confirms that G Data’s keylogger protection works. A sample keylogger captures keystrokes in Notepad (which isn’t protected) but catches nothing typed in the browser.The ransomware protection component did well when previously tested and even better this time around. To simulate a brand-new ransomware attack that slips past other protective layers, I turned off all antivirus layers except for Anti-Ransomware. Out of 10 active real-world encrypting ransomware samples, two took no action. G Data detected all the rest, though some files fell to ransomware encryption before G Data detected the malicious behavior.Like the SafePay feature in Bitdefender and Kaspersky’s Safe Money, BankGuard protects your browsers from man-in-the-middle attacks and other data-stealing attacks. Unlike the other two, it does so invisibly. The AutoStart manager lets you reversibly disable programs from launching at startup or set them to launch after a delay. Once again, all these bonus features appear both in this suite and in the standalone antivirus.Vulnerable FirewallThe firewall that’s built into modern versions of Windows does a fine job of blocking simple attacks from outside and putting the system’s ports in stealth mode. A security suite that replaces Windows Firewall must handle those tasks at least as well, and G Data does indeed fend off port scans, block web-based attacks, and stealth all ports.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
On the firewall’s simple settings page, a large slider lets you choose from five preset security levels: Maximum, High, Standard, Low, and Disabled. Three other pages hold very detailed firewall settings, but G Data deliberately disables those by default, automatically changing the settings they contain as you change security levels. If you’re that rare person, a true firewall expert, you can choose custom settings and thereby gain access to those pages. But you probably aren’t, so just leave the firewall set to its default Standard level.Like most suites, G Data also keeps track of how programs use your network connection. Advanced firewall systems like Norton’s automatically define permissions for millions of known programs and carefully monitor any unknown programs, suppressing any that show signs of misusing the network. You’ll also find old-school firewalls that unwisely rely on the uninformed user to decide how to handle unknown programs. Typically, users either blindly click Allow or blindly click Block. It’s not a good plan.Like Bitdefender’s, G Data’s firewall runs in autopilot mode by default, meaning you won’t see any queries. It’s unclear that this does anything more than blocking unsolicited incoming connections, though. To see the program control component in action, I turn off autopilot. By default, the program temporarily turns autopilot back on if it detects you’re launching a full-screen application so as not to interrupt your game or movie.For a simple test, I tried launching a program that isn’t known to G Data, a small browser I coded myself. G Data popped up a screenful of information, including the port, protocol, and IP address involved, and gave me four choices: allow access once, allow it always, block access once, or block always. Unfortunately, it also popped up for numerous Windows internal components and for programs that surely should be known and trusted, such as Edge and Opera.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
In addition, firewall pop-ups appear for all user accounts, not just Administrators. A child playing games could disable OneDrive, your favorite browser, or essential Windows components. If that happens, open the Application Radar window from the main firewall page and unblock the application.Firewall protection that can be turned off by malicious code isn’t worth much, so I always check possible weak spots, starting with the Registry. Some products, such as Bitdefender, McAfee Total Protection, and others, prevent all changes to their Registry data. G Data not only doesn’t protect its Registry keys and values, it literally presents a value named FirewallOff. By changing that value from 0 to 1 and forcing a system reset, I disabled the firewall. For another experiment, I deleted all keys named “G Data” and forced a reboot. The suite didn’t even launch after reboot. A malicious program could do the same, though it would have to get past the antivirus.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
I also check that each security product protects its processes against termination and hardens its Windows services so they can’t be stopped or disabled. G Data proved slightly vulnerable here. I found that its four essential Windows servicers were hardened against tampering, better than when last tested. It protected seven of its eight processes from external termination, showing “Access denied,” but left the eighth unprotected.This personal firewall component handles the basic tasks of protecting against outside attacks and preventing programs from misusing your Internet connection, but that’s about all. If you use its program control, you’ll have to face a barrage of popup queries, along with the possibility that another user could screw up the system by answering those queries wrong. And unlike most firewalls, it doesn’t fully protect itself against attacks by malicious software.Cloud Storage Backup RemovedWhen I last reviewed this security suite, it had a seriously flawed backup system. The system for selecting what to back up was confusing, making it easy to remove files you thought were protected. It permitted full, differential, and incremental backups, but most users are confused by those choices. In any case, its only option for where to store backups involved third-party file storage services, and its connection to those services was broken. It was a mess.The current version solves the backup problem neatly…by simply omitting the backup. In truth, you’re better off with no backup than with a system as badly bungled as before. Backup does return in the G Data Total Security mega-suite.Poor Parental ControlsThis suite’s parental control system handles content filtering and time scheduling for Internet or computer use, but that’s all. It hasn’t changed appreciably in many years. You won’t find any advanced features, and the components it does include don’t work well.By default, the content filter blocks websites matching five categories: Drugs, Hackers, Violence, Extremist, and Pornography. A sixth option blocks all sites that use a secure connection. Why? because G Data can’t filter HTTPS sites by content.Blocking secure sites means you’d block PCMag, Google, Wikipedia, and the vast number of websites that correctly use an HTTPS connection. Leaving that option unchecked means you’re letting through any porn site or other unwanted site that uses HTTPS (and there are plenty). There is no good option here, and this is just the beginning of the parental control component’s failings.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
Parents can create new categories, but really, parents aren’t going to do that. Looking at the category-creation dialog, you can see that G Data detects content categories simply by looking for keywords in the URL, the header, the metadata, or the page text. That simple-minded analysis makes for poor filtering, as you’ll see below.Parents can limit time on the computer, the internet, or both. When enabled, the default for both categories is 1.5 hours per day, 10.5 hours per week, and 45 hours per month. You can also define a weekly schedule, in one-hour increments, for when the child can use the internet or the computer. This feature uses a handy grid that makes setting allowed and blocked times easy.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
When I tested G Data’s time scheduler to the test, I found that it doesn’t rely on the system clock. Years ago, it did, making the scheduler useless. I couldn’t find a similar way to defeat the daily cap.The keyword-based content filter is both too lax and too strict. Photo-based naughty sites with no banned words in the URL or page text flew right past the filter, while perfectly innocent sites got the boot. For example, it blocks any Blogspot blog because the filter found “pot” in the URL. It’s useless.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
You’d think the Hackers category would block secure anonymizing proxy websites, but it doesn’t. By connecting to one, I completely eluded the filter. You can be sure your teenager will figure out this hack.G Data reports which websites it blocks for each user, along with a date/time stamp and explanation. The explanation helped me confirm that, for example, the app did indeed block blogspot.com pages due to the embedded word pot.This is just not a useful system. It only controls screen time and filters websites based on content, and the content filter both misses inappropriate sites and blocks innocent ones. If you need parental control in your security suite, look elsewhere. For example, a Norton 360 license lets you install Norton Family, for vastly superior parental monitoring and control.This parental control system has remained nearly unchanged and unimproved for many years. I’d like to see some progress from G Data. Either make it work or get rid of it.File Shredder for Secure DeletionIf your desktop is overrun with a gazillion icons, you might not have noticed a new one that the G Data installer added. G Data Shredder is a secure deletion utility, for use when you want to delete a file beyond the possibility of forensic recovery. File encryption utilities often come with a shredder, so you can thoroughly wipe out the plain-text originals of your encrypted files.If you want to permanently dispose of a file, for security reasons or otherwise, just deleting it doesn’t do the job. Anybody can restore it from the Recycle Bin. Even if you bypass the bin, the file’s data remains on disk until its space gets reused, and forensic recovery software can usually bring it back.
(Credit: G Data/PCMag)
G Data’s shredder lets you permanently delete files by overwriting the data before deletion. By default, it just makes one pass, overwriting the file data with random bits. That’s enough to defeat software-based recovery. If the Feds (or the Mafia) are going over your computer for evidence, they might bring in hardware-based recovery systems. Even then, accepted wisdom is that physics proves it’s impossible to get anything back after seven overwrites. So why does G Data let you choose up to 99 overwrites? Any more than seven, and you’re just wasting time.Once you’ve configured the shredder, you drag files and folders onto its icon for secure deletion. You’ll also find a Shred choice on the right-click menu.Minimal Performance ImpactIf you feel that your security utility is dragging down performance, you’re likely to turn it off rather than get fragged due to lag. In truth, there was a time when bloated security suites dragged down performance, but it was a long while ago, and the makers have learned their lesson. Most modern suites don’t cause any serious performance impact.Even so, I put them to the test, averaging multiple runs of my test scripts on a clean physical computer, then installing the suite and averaging multiple script runs again. Comparing the before and after scores lets me see the effect the suite has on boot time, copying files between drives, and putting a large collection of files into and out of ZIP archives.The last time I tested G Data, its impact on test system performance was negligible. Boot time wasn’t affected at all; it only showed a minimal impact on my scripts testing file system operations. This time, the results were different but still low impact overall. It didn’t slow the two file-related tests at all. And while it increased boot time by 12%, the baseline boot time is less than 10 seconds, meaning that 12% is about one second in real time.
With an average drag of just 4%, G Data clearly won’t slow you down. Few products have shown a smaller impact, though Avira and Webroot Internet Security Complete didn’t slow any of the scripts in their latest rounds of testing.Protection for Other PlatformsFrom the My G Data dashboard online, you can check your installed devices and extend protection to more devices if you have licenses to spare. A link titled Protect your Android device on the main window suggests the availability of a mobile edition, but I couldn’t find any G Data mobile apps either in the Android Play Store or the Apple App Store. Apparently, the apps exist but are not available in the US.However, your G Data Internet Security licenses can be used on macOS devices to install G Data Antivirus for Mac, a basic, no-frills antivirus. It removes malware that’s already present and prevents new infestations, and that’s pretty much all. The independent labs don’t vouch for its capabilities, but it did well in a simple test using Windows malware. Do read my review for full details.Verdict: You Can Do BetterG Data Internet Security includes all the components you expect in a security suite, but their effectiveness varies. The antivirus component performed well in testing, but the parental control system is both limited and ineffective, and the simple firewall proved vulnerable to attack. Rather than fix a seriously broken backup system, G Data removed that component entirely. You’re better off with a service where all the components do their jobs well. For an entry-level security suite, our Editors’ Choice is Bitdefender Internet Security. It costs more than G Data, but it also offers consistent security and top lab scores, making it well worth the extra money.
Pros
Good scores in our hands-on antivirus tests
Includes firewall, spam filter, parental control
File shredder for secure deletion
Attractive pricing
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Cons
Ineffective parental controls
Firewall vulnerable to attack
Backup system no longer present
Limited scores from independent labs
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The Bottom Line
G Data Internet Security has all the components you expect in a suite, but the quality of those components is uneven and the suite hasn’t improved for years.
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