A new survey of 1,328 users in 87 countries across all regions by AV Comparatives between November and December 2025 yields a number of interesting results. The same three vendors – Bitdefender, ESET, and Kaspersky – are the three leaders in both the smartphone and desktop anti malware categories.
- Bitdefender is the most popular choice of mobile anti-malware security solution. It is the first choice in every major region except Asia Pacific where it comes second only to Kaspersky.
- Globally, the ten most popular mobile anti malware vendors, in descending order, are: Bitdefender, ESET, Kaspersky, Avast, Norton, McAfee, Sophos, Malwarebytes, AVG, F-Secure
- ESET is the most popular choice of desktop anti malware products for Windows platforms.
- The most popular desktop anti malware products for Windows platforms among survey participants are (in descending order): ESET, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Microsoft Defender, Avast, Norton, McAfee, Malwarebytes, AVG, Avira, F-Secure, and G Data.
- Bitdefender, ESET, and Kaspersky all hail from Central and Eastern Europe – Bitdefender (Romania); ESET (Czech Republic) and Kaspersky (Russia). Avast (owned by Gen Digital) which comes in at #4 and #5 in the two categories, also hails from the Czech Republic. You have to wonder whether the EU is fully capitalizing on all the cybersecurity talent of Central and Eastern Europe.
- F-Secure is the clear market leader among telco partners selling endpoint security. F-Secure centres its business model on serving the telco and other channel partners in a way that no other major anti malware vendor does. But in this user survey, F-Secure doesn’t score highly. In the desktop category, F-Secure comes in at #7 in North America. Surprisingly, given that it’s headquartered in Finland, it comes in at #9 in Europe. The company fares even less well in the mobile anti-malware category. F-Secure comes in at #5 in North America and #9 in Asia Pacific. But it doesn’t even make the top 10 in Europe or Central and South America.
You can view the full report here
