Editorial policy

Who writes this site

Every page is written and maintained by the AVSO Editorial Desk. We publish under a shared desk name rather than personal bylines, because the method, not a personality, is what you should be able to check. The desk is responsible for every figure, and every figure carries its source and date.

We do not run a malware lab, and no page on this site claims hands-on detection testing. Protection and performance results come from AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives; the full method is on how we test.

What counts as a source

• Lab results come only from the labs' own published reports. We currently cite 13 reports, each linked in the numbered source list at the foot of the page that uses it.
• Prices and plan contents are read on each vendor's own US pricing page. A price we could only find elsewhere is marked Unverified and footnoted with where it came from.
• Regulatory facts, such as the Kaspersky ban, are cited to the government notice itself, with news coverage only as a secondary source.
• We do not use reader star ratings, user counts or vendor marketing claims as evidence.

Independence and how we make money

Some outbound buttons are affiliate links: if you buy through one, the vendor may pay us a commission at no extra cost to you. Most buttons go straight to official pricing pages because the vendor has no affiliate arrangement with us. The current status of every vendor is on how we make money.

Rankings come from the published formula on the methodology page. Commission does not move a product up or down, and there is no paid placement. Button labels say where a link goes ("View Bitdefender pricing") and never imply urgency or a discount we have not seen.

How figures are shown

• Prices are USD before tax, with two decimals, labelled by term: "first year", "first 15 months" or "per year".
• Renewal is the yearly price from year two. "Not stated" means the vendor did not publish it; we never estimate it.
• Editorial scores have one decimal and are out of 10. Lab results are copied as the lab printed them, including award names.
• Unverified (amber) marks a figure we could not confirm on the vendor's site; "Not tested" means the product was not in that lab test.
• Dates are written as day, month, year: 12 Nov 2026.

Updates

We re-check lab results when either lab publishes a new consumer report, and prices at least monthly and around major sales. Every page shows the date its prices and lab results were last verified; the current date is 12 Nov 2026. Figures live in shared data files, so an update reaches every page that uses them at the same time.

Corrections

If you find an error or a newer lab report, email editors@antivirussoftwareonline.com with the page and the source. We fix the underlying data rather than a single page. A correction that changes a score, a ranking or a price is listed below with its date.

Corrections log

No corrections have been published since this edition went live on 12 Nov 2026.