Anti-Virus programs operate on two front. They operate as a utility program that you set to scan your files--usually when you are not using your machine.
Equally as important, anti-virus programs operate in the background as sentries throughout the day while your computer is up and runnings. This means your anti-virus program is busy scanning incoming data for malicious content even while you are working or playing on it.
Speed is of the essence here. When computer users notice that their machines are bogging down, it is often (thought not always) the anti-virus program sentry function that is at least partly to blame.
From the Vipre newletter we learned: VIPRE has the fastest real-time protection against 5 major competitors according to a comprehensive test by a leading independent testing organization in November 2010.
VIPRE processed 4,500 megabytes of file data in 195 seconds, compared to a benchmark of 127 seconds; the next closest competitor processed the same data in 233 seconds. Complete results are available upon request from GFI.