Still on Windows XP? Norton and Qihoo 360 can help

The Germany-based AV-Test Institute has found Chinese Internet platform company Qihoo 360's Internet Security 9 and Norton Internet Security 2014 to be the most effective software out of 10 antivirus solutions for protection against Windows XP threats.

Source: Qihoo 360. AV-TEST Report: Exploit Protection on Windows XP

The institute created 54 samples, targeting seven different vulnerabilities, combined with different obfuscation and evasion options as well as different payloads to simulate a wide variety of possible malware attacks. Ten antivirus solutions were tested, including Qihoo 360, Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, Eset, Kaspersky, and Norton. 

The average block rate among the solutions evaluated was 73.5%. Qihoo 360 and Norton achieved a 100% block rate, detecting/blocking all 54 attacks, while Tencent PC Manager was ranked at the bottom with an 18.5% block rate. 

Microsoft ended support of the Windows XP operating system on April 8, but there are still Windows XP PCs in use. According to Qihoo 360, nearly 20% of PC users are still using Windows XP in China. 

Read the report here.