G Data offers a wide variety of features you would expect from a full software suite. This includes a straightforward, basic opening screen that doesn’t make things complicated by glossing over the security status using an “Protected!” As many other programs, this one uses green ticks or a caption to show the security status.
The program also does a superb job of detecting and blocking new malware. The ‘virus monitoring’ service that carries your data through the G Data cloud service not just updates the virus definition files, it also detects malware based on its behaviour. G Data blocked all of the unknown malware we threw its way in our tests. There was just one false positive.
In AV Comparatives’ offline detection test, G Data scored even higher than Bitdefender’s clone did. This is probably due to the program’s own DeepRay engine, which can detect malware that is disguised by analysing the actions the malware attempts to carry out. It looks for patterns that indicate malicious intent. For example, changing the settings of other programs, or tracking keystrokes.
The program is not up to par in a number of areas that we believe are important to an anti-virus suite. The program doesn’t include parental control, VPN or firewall. If you’re looking for those features, you’ll need to purchase G Data’s more expensive Internet Security package. This is a significant disadvantage, especially since top-of-the-line competitors like Norton 360 and Bitdefender provide the same features at a lower cost.