G Data Antivirus Review 2022 – Truth Behind the Hype

G DATA may not be the most well-known provider in the industry, but the German company has been around for over 30 years since it invented the first antivirus program. ‘s software has remained the same three decades later.

You want to find out the truth behind all the hype? This video will provide more information on G Data.

Security

During my evaluation, I tested two G DATA products: G DATA Antivirus & G DATA Internet Security. Both include antivirus protection. only the latter has firewall protection, parental control and a cloud backup feature. However, both products include real time system protectionwhich monitors every read and write operation on the system.

This low-level tool is very useful and can be used to access the entire system. To test the speed of detection, I downloaded a virus and received an email notification shortly after completing the download from Google Drive. The idle scan tool is an excellent addition to the real-time protection. It initiates a systemwide scan when there is no activity.

Deep Scanning With Low System Overhead

A startup and memory scanner checks for malicious programs running during system boots. A rootkit scanner scans for those that are loaded before system boot. All of these scans are also possible to be scheduled to run at predetermined times. This comprehensive list of virus scanning options offers a wide range of options.

G DATA is known for being a system performance hog. However, I didn’t find this to be true during my testing. The program used only 5.8% of my CPU while running a system scan. The program used 5.8% of my CPU while running a system scan. It was also less resource-intensive than the task manager program. As it indexes my folders, I didn’t notice any lag.

Solid Independent Lab Ratings

Four rating agencies have given high ratings in terms of independent test scores. G DATA was rated favorably because of its low false positive detection rate and its malware-crushing capabilities .

Features

G DATA Internet Security has many additional features that make it a complete solution to protect you from online threats. The parental control tool does a great job of locking down certain websites and URLs.

The autostart manger is an interesting addition that lets you take more control over which programs start and when (you can add programs in an “autostart without delay” list, which I haven’t seen anywhere else). It also comes with a keylogger protection program, which is essential for cybersecurity. It was possible to set the protection to run on different programs than many other programs that I tested. This is useful in the event of a program that needs to capture your keyboard input. This program could be added to the exception list.

The firewall utility gives you complete control of inbound and outbound firewall settings. However, the BankGuard utility adds additional protection to your browser when you access online banking websites.

I was especially impressed that the program could pick up on my weak WiFi password which I used to connect via a public hotspot. This feature allows you to read WiFi passphrases and prompts the user to change if they are not secure. A strong password is crucial for security-conscious home-owners.

Ease of use

It was simple to download, install, and use G DATA Antivirus & Internet Security. Although the program has many features, they are easily nested within advanced menus. Although upgrading from Antivirus to Internet Security required reinstalling, was able to get to grips with all the new features quickly because they share the same user interface.

Support

G DATA provides an online assistance center in the form a Q&A page, a ticketing system to receive personal assistance from an expert and an international phone number. Although the knowledge base contains a few resources, it isn’t the most complete I have seen. I would like to have seen more international numbers, pre-sales support tools and live chat. The support I received was prompt and courteous. Within an hour, I received an email response from support via ticket that addressed my query about parental control.

Pricing

Prices for Internet Security and Antivirus are tiedred according to the protection period. This is sufficient to provide security for many families. It is a strong value for money. It is also very affordable to purchase a single device plan.

G Data recommends that you “trust in German Sicherheit (security),” as you can see from the logo. You can trust the company or not, but it has been protecting your data for decades. G Data Internet Security has all you would expect from a security suite: antivirus, firewall parental controls, spam filtering and more. The components’ quality is varied, and has not improved in the past few years.

Just under $80 per year is a common price for a three-license security suite subscription–Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro match that price. Six G Data licenses are available for the same amount of money. You can choose the number of licenses that you need, starting at one for $39.95 and ending at 10 for $111.95. G Data is cheaper than many of its competitors.

The main window of this product features the bold G Data color scheme. A red banner holds a row icons at the top. The icons are the same as for standalone antivirus. They include icons for Security Center and Virus Protection. The suite also includes icons for Firewall and Backup as well as Parental Control.

Antivirus and Antivirus Shared

This suite provides you exactly the same antivirus protection and other features as G Data Antivirus. Here are my conclusions. You can read my full review of the antivirus for more details.

Chart of Lab Test ResultsMalware Protection Results
Chart showing Phishing Protection Results

G Data is included in reports and tests from two of the four antivirus laboratories I follow. G Data was awarded AA certification in the attack simulations by SE Labs (Opens in a new tab). This is the second highest level of five possible. This is a good result, however, in the most recent test, over 60% of products received AAA certification.

G Data did not perform as well in the three-part testing conducted by AV-Test Institute (Opens in a new tab). It received 5.5 out of six points in each category for usability, protection, and performance. This 16.5-point score is not great, as only six other products scored lower. Nearly all of the products scored 17.5 points or perfect 18 points, earning them the title of Top Product.

My aggregate lab score algorithm shows that the best products receive top marks from all four labs. Avira Internet Security Suite was tested by all four labs and scored 9.9 out of 10 points. Norton received 9.8 points and Kaspersky 9.7. Bitdefender Internet Security was only tested by three labs in the most recent reports. However, it scored 10 points with perfect scores in all three tests.

G Data scans the computer in the background by default. This happens even if the computer is not being used. After installing antivirus protection, I recommend a complete scan of your entire computer. A full G Data scan took me three times longer than the average in my previous test. A full scan took just a few minutes, which is a bit less than the average. A repeat scan took only 14 minutes.

G Data scored 9.8 points out of 10 in my malware protection test. It detected 98.9% of the samples. Webroot scored the best against the current sample set, scoring a perfect 10.

G Data performed well in my malicious URL blocking testing, which used a feed of URLs that researchers at MRG–Effitas (Opens in a new tab). It blocked all access to the malware-hosting URL, and prevented almost 99 percent of malware downloads. McAfee and Sophos scored even higher, with a 100% score in their most recent tests.

G Data uses real-time analysis in conjunction with cloud-blacklist lookups to help users avoid fraudulent websites and phishing sites that attempt to steal login credentials. Although it did better than my previous test, it still only detected 90% of verified frauds. Trend Micro Internet Security and Kaspersky both scored 100 percent in their most recent tests. Ten other products scored higher than G Data.

Other shared features

G Data provides exploit protection in its standalone antivirus. Firewalls are often associated with it. It detected and blocked 71% of the exploits I tried, which is better than many. Norton stopped all exploits during its most recent test.

G Data offers a standalone antivirus that includes a spam filter. However, not everyone requires it. It can filter IMAP and POP3 email and tagging spam. It diverts spam to an unread folder for Outlook users. Users who use a different email client need to create a rule to handle marked spam messages. G Data has many filters that distinguish spam mail from legitimate mail. However, most users should keep these settings at their default settings unless they wish to whitelist trusted correspondents.

Hands-on testing proved that G Data’s keylogger protection works. A keylogger sample captured keystrokes in Notepad (which doesn’t have protection), but nothing when I entered the browser.

In testing, the ransomware protection part didn’t perform as well. I disabled all layers but Anti-Ransomware to simulate a ransomware attack. G Data successfully captured four of the eight real-world ransomware samples that were encrypting my test system’s files. After they had done their harm, it caught two more and completely missed the other two.

BankGuard, like Bitdefender’s SafePay feature and Kaspersky Internet Security’s Safe Money feature, protects your browsers against man-in the-middle attacks as well as other data-stealing threats. It does this invisible, unlike the other two. AutoStart Manager allows you to reversibly stop programs from starting at startup or allow them to launch after a delay. These bonus features are available in both the standalone antivirus and this suite.

How We Test Security Software

Basic Firewall

Modern Windows versions include a firewall that blocks simple outside attacks and puts the system’s ports into stealth mode. G Data is a security suite that can replace Windows Firewall. It does a good job of handling these tasks. It stopped all my Web-based attacks and port scans, and stole all the ports.

The firewall’s basic settings page has a slider that allows you to choose between five security levels: Maximum (High), Standard (Standard), Low (Low) and Disabled. The firewall’s basic settings page has three other pages. G Data disables them by default. They contain more detailed settings and are automatically updated as you change security level. You can select custom settings to gain access to these pages if you are a firewall expert or a rare individual. You probably aren’t so leave the firewall at its default Standard setting.

G Data, like most suites, keeps track of which programs are connecting to your network. Advanced firewall systems such as Norton’s can automatically set permissions for millions known programs. They also monitor unknown programs to identify any suspicious activity and suppress any. Old-fashioned firewalls rely on uninformed users to determine how to handle unknown program. Users will often blindly click Allow or Block. This is a bad plan.

G Data’s firewall is similar to Bitdefender’s. It runs in autopilot mode and you won’t be able to see any queries. However, it’s unclear if this does more than just block unsolicited incoming connection requests. To see the program control part in action, I disabled autopilot. Autopilot will be temporarily turned off if you launch a full-screen app. This is to ensure that your movie or game doesn’t get interrupted.

To test it, I launched a program that would not be known by G Data. It was a small browser that I had written myself. G Data displayed a screen with information about the port, protocol and IP address. I had four options: allow access once or allow it all, block access once or block access always. It also appeared for many Windows internal components and programs that should have been trusted such as Chrome or Firefox.

Firewall pop-ups are also displayed for all user accounts and not just administrators. Playing games with your child could cause you to lose access to your browser or other essential Windows components. Open the Application Radar window on the main firewall page to unblock the application.

It’s not worth it to have firewall protection that can be disabled by malicious code. I therefore always look for potential weak points. Although I was unable to disable G Data, I could tweak the Registry. However, it did not protect its Registry data from being changed like Bitdefender or McAfee Total Protection. It protected all its processes from termination by Task Manager. I received an “Access denied” message.

G Data has made an improvement in its protection of Windows services that were previously disabled. Although I was able to terminate the backup service, all other services related to security, such as antivirus and firewall, resisted my attempts to alter them.

The personal firewall component protects against outside attacks and prevents programs from using your Internet connection in inappropriate ways. But that’s all. It now protects its most critical services from malware interference.

Cloud Storage Backup

Click the Backup icon in the upper right corner of the window to get started with G Data’s backup software. Next, click on New task. This will trigger a popup explaining that this product only offers cloud backup. Additional features like local backups or backing up to optical media require a G Data Total Security upgrade.

You create a backup job using cloud backups. This involves defining what you want to back up, where it should be stored, when it should be done, and how. A confusing folder and file tree is used for the first step of what to back up. Redundancy is the problem. Let’s say you first check the tree item using your username. This will select all of your user data to backup. You’ll notice that your music, documents, and other data are not backed up if you disable the Libraries option below. To ensure you have everything, I recommend you carefully review all your options before you proceed.

Next, choose where to store your backup files. However, the only option for a backup target is cloud. The program warned me that the cloud had been chosen as the target but that no login was required to continue. I clicked the cloud icon to open a menu which allowed me to choose between Dropbox and Google Drive. I selected Dropbox and logged in to G Data, giving it permissions to access my own folder.

Kaspersky Total Security offers backup storage on Dropbox. However, this is only one of many options. Kaspersky allows you to back up files to any network, local, or removable drive.

Instead of relying on your memory to perform the backup job every now and again, you can schedule a complete backup to run daily or weekly. A partial backup, which only saves changes, can be run on a separate schedule. This takes much less time. You might schedule a complete backup once a month and a partial one every other day.

Are you familiar with the differences between partial and incremental backups? Few people do. You can choose differential to have each partial backup contain all of the updated data since the previous full backup. Only the changes from the most recent backup, whether full or incremental, are included in incremental backups. Although incremental backups are less frequent, they all depend on each other, so it is possible for an incremental backup to become corrupt.

Although there are many settings that can be applied to backups, most users will only need to use a handful. You can choose to exclude files such as temporary files or thumbs.db files which Windows places in picture folders. This will save space. You can also increase the compression settings if you have limited cloud storage.

This is it. You’re done with creating backup jobs. Well, almost. G Data required a Windows account and password to be able to run backups, regardless of who is logged into it. This is not a requirement for other backup systems.

You can create as many jobs you want. You could, for example, run a weekly backup, but keep your most important files archived daily. You might also prefer backing up to Dropbox or Google Drive.

It is easy to restore backed up files. Select the backup set you wish to restore from a list. You can choose to restore all or some files, or only certain files, and then choose whether to restore to the original or new location. Restored files will overwrite any files already in the destination by default. You can opt to overwrite only files that are different in size, last modified times, or if the backup copy is older.

Some security suites do not require you to use third-party cloud storage. Norton 360 Deluxe subscriptions include 50GB hosted online backup. The three tiers combined Norton and Lifelock offer 100GB and 250GB respectively.

Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete isn’t quite as comprehensive as Norton. It offers 25GB as a default storage, with the option of purchasing more. This is still more than what you get from G Data. To make this system more user-friendly, I would like to see it simplified and streamlined.

Poor Parental Control

The parental control system in this suite handles content filtering and scheduling time for Internet or computer use. But that’s it. It doesn’t have any advanced features and it doesn’t work well with the parts that are there.

The content filter blocks websites that match five of the following categories by default: hackers, drugs, violence, extremists, and porn. The sixth option blocks websites that use secure connections. Why? G Data cannot filter HTTPS sites. You can’t block secure websites. This would mean you could block PCMag, Wikipedia and many other websites that use HTTPS. If you leave this option unchecked, it means that you are allowing through any porn or unwanted website that uses HTTPS (and there is plenty). This is just one of the many flaws in this component.