About ShieldLabs
ShieldLabs was founded to give people a straight answer to a simple question: which antivirus actually protects you, without slowing your computer to a crawl?
Our mission
Antivirus marketing pages all claim to be "the best." We test that claim directly — hands-on installs, real malware samples in isolated environments, and performance benchmarks on the same hardware for every product — so our rankings reflect what actually happens, not what a press release says.
Our team
Our reviews are written and fact-checked by security analysts with hands-on industry experience. Meet the team on our Authors page — including Jordan Voss, our Editor-in-Chief, and Elena Cross, our Senior Malware Analyst.
How we test
Every product gets scored on protection rate, performance impact, price, and user experience using a consistent, repeatable process. Read the full breakdown on our Methodology page.
Editorial independence
We earn revenue through affiliate commissions when readers buy through our links, but scores and rankings are never for sale. See our Disclosure page for the full breakdown of how we're funded.
Why We Started This Lab
The idea for ShieldLabs came out of a frustration we think most readers share: every antivirus comparison site online seems to agree on a different "best" product, and none of them show their work. We built a lab specifically so we could stop guessing and start measuring — real malware samples, real hardware, real installs, with the results published alongside the score so anyone can see exactly where a number came from.
What Makes Our Testing Different
Most review sites test a product once at launch and never touch it again. We treat every review as a living document, re-verified on a schedule and revisited immediately if a vendor ships a major update or a significant vulnerability comes to light. That means the score you see today reflects the product as it exists today, not whatever state it was in when the review was first published.
Who We Test For
We write for people making a real purchasing decision, not for search engines. That shapes what we prioritize: a parent choosing between a handful of household names, a small business owner who needs centralized management across a dozen machines, or someone on an aging laptop who just needs something that won't grind performance to a halt. Our Best Antivirus scenario pages exist specifically because those three people should get three different recommendations, not the same generic "top pick."
What We Won't Do
We won't publish a review we haven't personally installed and run. We won't accept a vendor's claimed detection rate without cross-checking it against independent lab data where it exists. And we won't let a product stay ranked highly on the strength of an old review after a real security incident — a lapsed track record gets reflected in the score, not buried in old copy.
Corrections and Accountability
Antivirus products change fast — pricing shifts, feature bundles get reshuffled, and detection engines get updated constantly. If something on this site is out of date, our Contact page is the fastest way to reach us, and we treat correction requests as a priority category, not an afterthought. Every review carries a named author specifically so a reader always knows who to hold accountable for what's written.
Where the Name ShieldLabs Comes From
We wanted a name that reflected what we actually do, rather than a generic "review" or "guide" label — a lab, in the literal sense, where products get installed, tested, and measured under controlled conditions before a single word gets published. That's the standard we try to hold every review to, whether the product in question is a household name or something most readers have never heard of.