Buying Guide: Best monitor: 9 reviewed and rated

Best PC monitor: how to choose

We've said it before, we're going to damn well say it again, and we're going keep saying it over and over until somebody starts listening.

By far and away and without a shadow of a doubt, the best long term investment you can make for your PC is a decent screen. Repeat, LCD screen.

That's especially true at the top-end of the market, where some specs have stagnated. Back in 2006, the pinnacle of PC screendom was 30 inches and a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,600. Fast forward to the dawn of 2012 and absolutely nothing has changed. That's still as good as it gets.

In fact, if anything, prices of premium panels have hardened. Premium 24-inch monitors based on the better VA and IPS panels are quite possibly more expensive than they were five or six years ago. The problem is the market for higher-priced panels – there isn't one.

People buy almost purely on price; they just want cheap and cheerful. That said, this obsession with cheaper screens means the focus is on squeezing the most out of a sub-£300 budget.

Today, that figure doesn't just secure full HD resolutions and stretch to 27-inch and even 28-inch monitors, it also bags you a multi-function monitor packing everything from an integrated TV tuner to full stereoscopic 3D support using the technology of your choice.

Until recently, what you wouldn't get was anything other than TN technology for the panel, but there are now some exceptions. Along with some affordable VA panels, the new kid on the block is e-IPS tech, which is effectively a cheaper version of the IPS screens favoured for their colour reproduction and found in many premium devices including, yes you guessed it, Apple's iPhone and iPad gadgets.

As for the TN masses, the good news is that the technology continues to improve, closing the gap with IPS and VA. It's also worth noting that the increasingly widespread use of LED backlighting, even at the arse end of the market, has given TN a kick up the backside too.

All of which means there's serious value to be had if you know what you're buying, which is exactly where this month's LCD panelfest comes in.

Every screen purchase should start from a position of informed awareness. You need to know what you're buying and that means getting to grips with the different panel technologies. Yup, we have been here before, but given the lengths some monitor makers go to obscure and obfuscate the underlying technology, it's more critical than ever to know your TNs from your PVAs.

Twisted Nematic

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From the top, the cheapest and most commonly used panel tech is our old friend TN. Otherwise known as 'twisted nematic', in layman's terms the thing that really matters about TN technology is that the liquid crystals in each picture cell are effectively fixed at one end. When an electrical current is applied, the crystals twist rather than rotate.

This explains TN's strengths and its weaknesses. The tension involved in twisting crystals in one direction means they pop back the other way more rapidly. The result? Fast pixel response.

Of course, with one end fixed, you never get the full rotation achieved by other LCD tech, which means light isn't managed as accurately or blocked as fully. Result? Inferior colour accuracy, less expansive viewing angles and poorer contrast.

One of the specific consequences of the restricted crystal articulation is the need for dithering. TN panels can't natively display as many colours as IPS and VA screens. The solution involves forcing pixels to jump rapidly between two colour states in order to fool the human eye into observing a third, incremental colour. In theory, it should be invisible. In practice, it's sometimes possible to see the pixels fizzing away as they hop between colours.

Everything is relative though. Ongoing improvement of TN technology has given us panels superior in some regards to IPS panels of six or seven years ago.

What's more, it's not just the panel technology that has improved. The market-wide shift from CCFL backlights to LED technology has been a big help for TN screens. You get a broader spectrum of light, which helps compensate for the inherently poor colours. So, TN monitors with LED backlights are more vibrant and sock you with more saturated colours. Yay!

Despite all of this, there are limitations to TN, and they can be spotted on the spec sheets. That's true even when the monitor maker doesn't deign to mention the panel type. Unfortunately, that's pretty frequent.

Anyway, the markers you're looking for go something like this. Start with the viewing angles, the metrics manufacturers use vary, but if either figure is under 170°, you're looking at a TN. Typically a vertical angle of 160° really gives the game away.

The other major give away is contrast. The tricky thing here is that dynamic contrast – in other words, contrast achieved by modulating the backlight - is often the only figure quoted. Any figure of roughly 5,000 to one or greater will be the dynamic rating. If it's lower than that, it's likely to be contrast with a static backlight.

In-Plane Switching

THE WINKING SKEEVER: "Skyrim belongs to the Nords!"

Until recently, anything capable of 1,000 to one or more for static contrast was very likely to be VA or IPS. More recently, TN monitors capable of 1,000 to one static contrast have appeared.

At the same time, VA and IPS panels have upped their game. So any quoted figure above 1,000 to one (but below 5,000 to one) will indicate a panel other than TN.

The final give away is price, but here again, things have begun to change. Until recently, VA and IPS panels were always much more expensive. The good news is that lower cost derivatives, including e-IPS and MVA, are becoming ever more common. It's now possible, for instance, to buy a 24-inch MVA screen for under £180. If that's TN, what about the other two?

Our next candidate is 'In-Plane Switching' or IPS technology. It occupies completely the opposite end of the scale from TN for everything from price to colour accuracy.

Critically, where other panel technologies include a single controller transistor per subpixel, IPS packs a pair and offers superior crystal control and, in turn, the best colour accuracy. Of course, increase a product's complexity and you increase costs. But that's not the only downside – the extra transistors also block light. That makes IPS notably less vibrant and saturated than the best VA panels.

Another upside of IPS is extremely wide and consistent viewing angles. Unlike TN crystals with their rooted ends, the liquid crystals in an IPS panel rotate fully about their axis. That matters because it allows them to present a more consistent face to the viewer at varying angles and means a more constant quantity of light passes the red, green and blue subpixels regardless of the viewing angle. In other words, you don't get wonky colours if you sit in an off-centre position at your desk.

There is, however, a snag. That greater range of crystal articulation translates into longer response times when transitioning between extreme colours. The longer that process takes, the blurrier a panel looks when rendering moving images.

That said, just as TN technology is closing the gap for colours and contrast, IPS screens keep getting faster. Factor in the static fidelity advantages and it's easy to see why IPS is the tech of choice for graphics professionals.

Vertical Alignment

CAUGHT IN LIMBO: VA panels would suit cult smash hits such as Limbo well

The last of our trio of panel technologies is VA or 'Vertical Alignment'. There are two types of VA panels, PVA (Patterned Vertical Alignment) and MVA (Multidomain Vertical Alignment).

PVA is more common, but both share the same basic characteristics and give similar image quality. For the most part, VA panels fall half way between TN and IPS technology. In terms of cost, colour accuracy and pixel response, VA panels split the difference.

That said, VA screens also have a number of distinct characteristics that set them apart. Most notably, the default position of the liquid crystals in a VA pixel blocks light from passing through. The upshot is that VA screens deliver the deepest, inkiest blacks of any panel type, and the best static contrast ratios.

Colour saturation is another plus point for VA screens, even if outright colour accuracy is a click or two behind the best IPS screens.

Colour gamut is another VA strong point. Like IPS technology, VA panels are typically true 8-bit per colour channel. That means colour dithering isn't necessary.

Overall, VA panels give the most vibrant, eye-catching image quality of any LCD technology. The richness and depth of a good VA monitor is spectacular. For that reason, many high-end HDTVs, including Samsung and Sony sets, use PVA LCD panels.

If VA technology does have a weakness, it's pixel response. In an attempt to reduce response times, many VA monitors use a technology known as pixel overdrive. While it can be effective for speeding up pixel response, it creates problems of its own, including input lag and inverse ghosting.

The spiel here involves altering the colour of a pixel. That requires a change in the voltage applied. The idea behind overdrive is to either increase or reduce the voltage fed to any given pixel more acutely than required for the target colour state. This accelerates the pixel towards the new colour state more rapidly. Before the pixel can overshoot the target colour, the voltage is normalised.

Tricks of the trade

NEW KEN ON THE BLOCK: Badly overdriven panels can exhibit inverse ghosting, blighting your image with nasty colour trails

That's the theory, at least. Overdriven panels are definitely sharper when displaying movement, but close inspection of some overdriven monitors reveals something slightly rotten.

The first problem is usually referred to as inverse ghosting. This often manifests as a trail of shadows in the wake of a moving object, approximately in the opposite colour to that object. It's quite distinct, therefore, from the smeared trail seen on monitors with poor pixel response.

This is due to excessive overdrive leading to pixels overshooting the required colour state. Inverse ghosting can affect both TN and PVA panels with overdrive technology, but the other major problem – input lag, seems to be restricted to PVA screens.

The problem here is a measurable delay between the video signal being sent to the monitor and the screen responding with a refreshed image. Typically, this is noticed as a lag between a physical mouse input and the movement of the cursor, crosshair or application window on the screen.

Of course, the method of processing a digital signal results in at least some lag on all LCD screens compared to the instantaneous output of an analogue CRT monitor. Using a CRT monitor in cloned mode as a control device, LCD screens usually lag behind by 10 to 20 milliseconds. With some overdriven screens, this increases to 50 milliseconds or more.

The result is a sticky, disconnected feel on the desktop. That's a serious problem for gaming, and can make first-person shooters in particular almost unplayable.

That's the major panel technologies all summed up, but there are one or two universal issues to address. The first is video interfaces.

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In theory, all the major digital interfaces are quite similar. You can't see the difference between DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort on your screen.

In practice, however, HDMI can present problems. With certain video card and driver combos, HDMI connections can throw up scanning issues that prevent the panel running pixel for pixel. In other words, you can't achieve native resolution, and that's critical for any LCD.

Admittedly, most PCs won't suffer from this problem, but when it does happen, it can be insurmountable short of buying a new video card. Our advice is not to go with any monitor that is restricted to HDMI.

Next up are the related issues of resolutions and aspect ratios. For the most part, the monitor industry has settled on full HD 1080p or 1,920 x 1,080 for the former and therefore 16:9 for the latter. The first implication of this is that it usually doesn't matter what size screen you go for, your resolution and desktop space or in-game detail will be the same.

Indeed, you could argue larger screens look worse. You just end up with bigger, jaggier looking pixels. However, if you mainly use your PC for gaming, a bigger screen gives you the option of sitting further away. Larger panels are also handy for watching TV and movies, but there are a few exceptions to this rule of ubiquitous 1080p.

A few monitors are still available in 16:10 aspect. Most common among these are 24-inch panels with 1,920 x 1,200 pixel grids. That's a useful dollop of vertical pixels. And let's be clear, vertical pixels are really useful for normal PC usage rather than watching HD movies.

The best eyeful

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A few monitors are available with the slightly higher 2,048 x 1,152 resolution. The problem is, it's only a small increase over 1080p, and it's still 16:9. Finally, at the top end you have the two ultra-high resolution panels in the shape of 27-inch running 2,560 x 1,440 pixels and 30-inch 2,560 x 1,600.

We've extensive experience running both of those options and we heavily favour the latter. It's a subjective issue, but the 30-incher feels larger, more expansive and more luxurious well beyond the extra three inches and 160 vertical pixels.

Anyway, the great shame about these panels is that prices haven't really shifted since the first 30-inchers appeared five or six years ago. You're still looking at the best part of a grand for a 30-incher. The 27-inch alternative can be had from around £500, but that's an awful lot to spend on something ever so slightly suboptimal.

Best PC Monitor: reviews 1-5

1. Asus PA238Q

Price: £236
Panel type: IPS Monitor

Fed up with cheap and not-always-cheerful monitors based on TN panel technology? Then get a load of the new Asus PA238Q. At around £235, it's pricier than your average 23-inch TN screen. But joy of joys, it's got an IPS panel.

IPS, of course, stands for 'In-Plane Switching' and it just so happens to be the finest panel technology known to man or beast. That's why Apple, for instance, uses IPS exclusively in its iPhones and iPads. It's simply the best when it comes to colour accuracy and viewing angles.

As it happens, colour accuracy is a big part of the remit for the Asus PA238Q. It's pitched as a low-cost screen for the graphics professional. However, Asus is also claiming 6ms response times, which is very impressive for an IPS screen and makes for a tantalising all-round package.

Could this affordable, colour-accurate screen also be killer in-game and at the movies? There's only one way to find out.

Read the full Asus PA238Q review

2. Asus VG278H

Price: £530
Panel type: TN Monitor

You know how it goes by now - a 3D monitor is a capable gaming screen that lacks colour quality of IPS panels and is slightly overpriced… Well this one's different. The reason? LightBoost.

This is Nvidia's big idea for improving 3D image quality. LightBoost is an extra layer that compensates for any dimness in the image, making it twice as bright as previous 3D screens. The shocker is that the LightBoost isn't a fancy gimmick and actually does make a big difference.

That's not this screen's only endearing feature – there's the height-adjustable bezel, a bundled pair of Nvidia 3D Vision 2 glasses and a 27-inch panel too.

We're impressed with the effort Asus has gone to with the VG278H's bezel. It's rare to get a height-adjustable panel outside of IPS screens. In our opinion, the panel surround looks a little cheap and flimsy for over £500.

The screen itself is an LED-backlit TN, and as a result it's image quality is a mixed bag. The screen suffered from gradient banding from white to black in our tests, displaying striped shades instead of smooth transitions. The viewing angle is also poor, and there's some significant colour distortion at wider angles.

Read the full Asus VG278H review

3. BenQ RL2240H

Price: £110
Panel type: TN Monitor

You're a gamer, you're on a tight budget and you need an LCD screen. Five years ago, we'd have pitied your predicament. Whatever you ended up with, it wasn't going to be pretty. Fast forward to today and this gaming-optimised 22-inch panel is yours for just £110. And it's full HD. Yippee.

That's right, a full HD screen from a proper brand for £100 and the cost of a packet of fags. Ish. Give it up for globalisation and preposterously low electronics prices – but we digress.

Cost and relatively modest screen diagonal aside, this BenQ also claims to improve your gaming prowess in RTS games. What you're actually getting is an operating mode with colours and contrast tweaked for the demands of RTS games.

If we're really honest, as with most preset modes, we probably wouldn't bother. The difference is marginal at best, and where it is noticeable, not unambiguously for the better.

Read the full BenQ RL2240H review

4. BenQ EW2730V

Price: £300
Panel type: VA Monitor

Fitness for purpose. More than anything, that's what this big BenQ delivers. It would be all too easy to immediately disregard it based on its humdrum 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution. After all, you can have precisely the same pixel grid for a little over £100.

Okay, at that price point, you'll be squeezing those pixels into a much smaller 22-inch LCD panel. But when it comes to apps and web surfing, it's pixel count not screen diagonal that really matters. You get no more viewable Windows desktop with this £300, 27-inch screen than you do from BenQ's £110 special offer 1080p (opposite). But what if it's games and movies above all else you want to your screen for?

In that scenario, the BenQ EW2730V might just be purpose personifi ed. For starters, BenQ has given it a glorious, luxurious VA or Vertical Alignment panel. That's not just any VA panel, but one from the very latest generation, complete with a claimed contrast performance of 3,000:1. Then there are 178° viewing angles in both planes; an LED backlight; a gorgeous looking chassis and stand replete with slithers of brushed alloy.

Read the full BenQ EW2730V review

5. Dell UltraSharp U2412M

Price: £275
Panel type: IPS Monitor

An affordable alternative to the daily drudgery of TN technology. Please tell us it's not too much to ask for, surely. Finally, mercifully it's becoming a reality. For proof, look no further than Dell's new UltraSharp U2412M.

At £275, it would be awfully pricey for a TN 24-inch, but it's still a lot cheaper than your typical premium IPS and PVA panel, which tend to slot in at around £400 to £600. And yet what we have here is a bona fide, card-carrying IPS panel.

Okay, it's e-IPS, the prefix indicating a new generation of lower-cost IPS screens, but it's IPS all the same. Cue much rejoicing.

Glance at the spec sheet and you'll discover that Dell has addressed another of our panel pecadillos. The U2412M sports a 1,920 x 1,200 pixel grid, and, therefore, a 16:10 aspect ratio. That might not sound like a big difference from the 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution that's become dominant in recent years – as after all, how much difference can those extra 120 vertical pixels really make?

Read the Dell UltraSharp U2412M full review

Best PC Monitor: reviews 6-9 and verdict

6. LG DM2350D

Price: £236
Panel type: IPS Monitor

A TV screen that does the lot – that's the plan for the new LG DM2350D Cinema 3D Monitor TV. It's a full HD PC monitor, it's also a digital TV with an integrated DVB tuner and IR remote, but the LG's real party piece is that it throws stereoscopic 3D into the mix. What's more, it all comes in a compact package that does a half decent impression of a miniature high-end HDTV.

If you're short on space and want style, you could do an awful lot worse. As a monitor for a desktop or portable PC, the LG is pretty much par for the course. It's a 23-inch panel with a full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 pixel grid. At this price point – and bearing in mind the built-in tuner and 3D support – it's no surprise to find that the underlying technology is TN.

That said, LG's latest effort is one of the better TN panels that we've seen. Part of the explanation is the use of an LED backlight. The result is richer, more saturated colours than you get with a TN panel powered by an old school CCFL lamp. Like most TN screens, pixel response is excellent, too, making this screen a great choice for keen gamers.

Read the full LG DM2350D review

7. Philips Brilliance 248C3LHSB

Price: £192
Panel type: TN Monitor

There's a parallel universe where we're all millionaires, our PCs are hooked up to 30-inch LED-powered beasts with 120Hz refresh. Life is pretty sweet.

Back in this universe, compromises must be made. Which is where the Philips Brilliance comes in. It's the solution, or so Philips hopes, to the following crucial conundrum: just how much screen can you get for under £200?

The real answer begins with 24-inches or more accurately 23.6-inches of corner to corner screen diagonal. Next up is 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. It's the full HD grid, then. Finally, and rather predictably, you get TN panel technology. More on that in a moment.

Because one thing you might not expect to get at this price point is a really classy chassis and stand. But that's precisely what Philips has come up with. Granted, the stand is limited to tilt-only adjustment. That aside, it's a remarkable high quality effort which leverages cast aluminium for the base and both looks and feels positively pukka.

Read the full Philips Brilliance 248C3LHSB review

8. Samsung 5 Series T27A550

Price: £325
Panel type: TN Monitor

Movies, games, PC and TV – can a single screen really deliver on each and every count? That's the challenge for the new Samsung Series 5 T27A550 HDTV monitor.

It's a 27-inch beast with an integrated digital TV tuner and enough inputs to soak up everything from desktop PCs to games consoles and set-top boxes. It's the total video solution.

That it's also priced at just £240; looks a little like a miniature high-end HDT; sports a full HD 1,920 x 1,080 pixel grid and comes complete with an IR remote just sweetens the deal. It's an awful lot of screen, features and technology for your money.

Of course, HDTV prices have been tumbling of late. A 32-inch HDTV can be had for under £250. Likewise, pretty much any HDTV with an HDMI port is capable of doubling as a monitor for a PC or a screen for gaming console and set-top box larks.

It's also worth noting that the panel itself is based on TN technology. At this price that's inevitable. But it's worth remembering that large, expensive HDTVs use more sophisticated VA or IPS technology.

Read the full Samsung 5 Series T27A550 review

9. Samsung 8 Series S27A850D

Price: £550
Panel type: PLS Monitor

We have a habit of relentlessly banging the TN-vs-the-rest drum. But we do it because we care. Both about technology and your very fine elves. Sorry, selves.

Samsung's all-new S27A850D has us at something of a disadvantage. Many of its on-paper specs are thoroughly familiar. A 27-inch diagonal and 2,560 x 1,440 native resolution puts it firmly in the premium, high resolution camp. Bung in a static contrast ratio of 1,000 to one and you might assume you're looking at yet another screen sporting LG's familiar 27-inch IPS panel. Yes, the same one used by Apple in its 27-inch iMac.

On the other hand, Samsung is one of the very small handful of outfits with the gumption to fabricate its own LCD panels. Manufacturing the substrates that form the basis of large, full-colour is a criminally complex and expensive process.

Consequently, around five to six companies make nearly all the LCD substrates worldwide. And that in turn means that Samsung in not normally in the business of buying in panels.

Read the full Samsung 8 Series S27A850D review

And the winner is... Asus PA238Q

Not enough real choice. Until very recently, that's been the problem with LCD panels. Almost everything remotely affordable had a TN panel and 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. But no longer.

This month's screen test includes all shapes and sizes, including the welcome return of the 16:10 aspect ratio and, critically, all manner of panel types, including an all-new technology from Samsung.

Prices at the high end are steep at £550, but there's some serious quality to be had from as little as £200. What's more, previously costly panel technology at more affordable prices has pushed decent TN monitors even lower. You can now get a very reasonable screen for little more than £100. On to the final reckoning.

Unlike previous screen group tests, there are no real stinkers this time round, but somebody has to come last and that dubious honour goes jointly to the Philips Brilliance 248C3LHSB and Samsung 5 Series T27A550.

The Philips is an expensive, plain ol' 24-inch TN panel that lacks DVI connectivity, which is a pain with AMD graphics cards. The Sammy 5 Series, meanwhile, packs a lot of features into its generous 27-inch, TN-powered proportions, including a TV tuner, but it doesn't do anything particularly well, and again, that missing DVI port could prove painful.

Another screen that does no real wrong is Asus's immense VG278H, but at well over £500, you're being asked to pay a big premium for that integrated Nvidia 3D Vision support.

Indeed, if stereoscopic 3D is your bag, we'd probably settle for LG's 23-inch DM2350D. It's smaller, and its polarised 3D technology doesn't work as well as Nvidia's active shutter solution. But it's well under half the price of the Asus and adds an integrated TV tuner.

Meanwhile, if you want to match the big Asus's screen diagonal but don't care for stereoscopic 3D, the BenQ EW2730V blows it away for raw image quality and will save you around £230.

Unexpected wins

Next up is Dell's UltraSharp U2412M. With so much going for it on paper, it was our favourite to come out on top. After all, an IPS panel, 16:10 aspect ratio and fully adjustable stand for under £300 are exactly what we've been begging for. It is good, but just not as brilliant as we'd been hoping for.

Which is pretty much the opposite of what we'd say for the BenQ RL2240H. At £110 our expectations weren't high, and let's be clear, in absolute terms there are many better screens here. But it's still a stunning effort for so little money and a sheer delight for anyone on a tight budget. It really is a most tolerable monitor.

Right at the opposite end of the scale is Samsung's epic S27A850D and its fancy new PLS panel tech. It's a fabulous screen that delivers the best elements of PVA and IPS technology in a single screen. It's got an understated but flexible and well-made chassis, too. And it'd be a winner save for a single flaw. At £550 it's simply too expensive.

All of which means our winner is the Asus PA238Q. How Asus can deliver such a screen at this price point is a mystery. The gorgeous IPS panel would be enough, but Asus has also conjured up a great chassis and factory colour calibration and kept the whole thing within spitting distance of £200. It's a simply stunning effort.

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In Depth: Best free antivirus: 9 reviewed and rated

Best free antivirus: how to choose

From hacked ad servers to malicious Facebook pages, the web is a dangerous place, and so it's vital that you install good antivirus software to protect you from harm.

And this doesn't have to mean paying a bulky annual subscription for the rest of your life, as there are plenty of free security tools which claim they have what it takes to keep you safe.

Do these tools really deliver on what they promise, though? To find out, we took ten popular packages and put them through a gruelling series of tests, measuring their speeds, assessing detection rates, and finding out exactly how their installation affected our test PC's performance.

And if you sometimes feel that all free antivirus tools are more or less the same, then our results will prove a real surprise.

If you're tired of antivirus packages slowing down your PC, for instance, then the good news is that some are really lightweight. But choose unwisely and you could find your boot times extended by 20 seconds, and Firefox launching up to 5 times more slowly than before.

Scan times are important, too. So you'll probably want to know which of our test packages was the slowest, and which tool completed its tests 22 times more quickly.

And if you're interested in accuracy and reliability then we've the detection rate scores you need, and some surprising reports of major reliability issues, including one package which refused to install updates, and another that proved unable to complete a single scan.

Which is the best free antivirus package, then? Read on to see just what we've uncovered.

How we tested

The test process started at installation: we checked the size of the installer, the time it took for the installation process to complete, and the hard drive footprint afterwards.

And after rebooting, we began looking for any performance impact on our trial PC. We measured this by checking our system boot time, Firefox and Outlook launch times; every figure was taken 8 times, the first three dropped (it's normal for these to be slower) and the others averaged to produce a final result.

Our test environment contained malware grabbed from a variety of sources - newly infected URLs, malicious email attachments and more - and we next set our test programs to scanning these.

The results and scan times were recorded, but it's not enough to do these just once: many antivirus tools now include intelligent optimisations, for example not checking files again unless they've changed, and these need to be assessed. So we scanned the same environment three times with each tool, just to look for any improvements.

And while these definitive figures were useful, we also had to consider the more complex issues which arise in any software review: the range of features, the interface, usability issues and any quirks or problems that we might have noticed.

These tests don't cover everything, of course. In particular, we weren't trying to test how antivirus packages protect against malicious websites, or brand new, previously undiscovered dangers. You can see our full test results in this PDF.

There's still plenty of useful information here, though - read on to find the best free antivirus tool for you.

Best free antivirus: 1-5

1. Ad-Aware Free Antivirus 4.6

After a reasonably quick and hassle-free installation Ad-Aware Free presents an interface that will be reasonably familiar to anyone who's used the company's programs in recent years. So the opening screen has three main buttons to check for updates, scan your PC or monitor your real-time protection, and smaller toolbar buttons allow you to do much the same thing with a little extra functionality. It's basic, and not as straightforward as it should be, but it'll only take a few minutes of exploration before you understand where everything is.

Ad-Aware Free is a little limited, by comparison with some of the competition. There's no browsing protection, for instance (though downloads are covered), and no email scanner. The program installs as a trial version of Ad-Aware Pro, with four real-time protection modules - Processes, Files, Registry and Network - but once the trial expires only the first will be available. You don't get the "advanced rootkit removal system", either, and there's no gaming mode. Although you do get one minor extra in TrackSweep, a tool for clearing your internet traces in IE, Firefox, Opera and Chrome.

Performance news proved mixed. Ad-Aware Free had no effect on our boot times, but Firefox and Outlook loaded significantly more slowly after its installation. And an average time for our first scan improved significantly after a few tests, with the program achieving the second fastest time by the third check. Not bad at all, especially as Ad-Aware Free also achieved a very respectable 97% in our own accuracy tests.

Ad-Aware Free Antivirus is fairly straightforward to use, then, and will certainly help to keep your system safe. Other free antivirus solutions provide more power and features, though, so unless you're a big Lavasoft fan then we'd recommend you look elsewhere.

We liked

Fairly easy to use, doesn't impact boot time, scan times drop significantly after a few tests, good accuracy scores, cleans your browser tracks

We disliked

Short on features, no game mode, initial scan times are only average

2. Avast Free Antivirus 6.0.1367

Avast's Free Antivirus is an interesting and unusual package which stands out from the competition in many ways - not all of them good.

The program had one of the fastest installation processes, for instance, taking only 153 second to finish on our test system (and that included a quick system scan).

The clear interface provides easy access to its many features, including multiple scan modes and real-time shield covering email, web traffic, P2P and instant messaging tools, network traffic, scripts and behavioural monitoring. A browser plugin provides basic surfing protection, too, by highlighting the reputation of the current site.

And the program provides spoken alerts on many occasions, so for example a voice will tell you when an update has just been downloaded. At first we thought this was a gimmick, but actually it makes a lot of sense - you can hear what's happening with the program even if you're in the next room, so it's far better than simple system tray alerts. (Although you can turn them off if you like.)

On the down side, though, scan times of our test system were lengthy at over 50 minutes, and these didn't drop significantly over time.

There was a notable performance impact on our test PC, with boot times extending by around 18 seconds (fortunately the effect on application launch times was relatively insignificant).

And the program's score of 94% in our accuracy tests - not helped by its reporting of several false positives - proved fractionally below average.

We really don't want to rule avast! out; it's a powerful package, very configurable and with lots of features. But the mix of lengthy scans with mildly below par accuracy isn't a good one, and on balance you'll probably get better protection from some of the competition.

We liked

Fast installation, lots of features, clean interface, plenty of real-time protection layer, spoken alerts,

We disliked

Lengthy scan times, PC boot times were significantly longer, marginally below average accuracy,

3. AVG Anti-Virus FREE 2012

The AVG Anti-Virus FREE installation can take a while, as the compact installer must download and process 52MB of files, and recommends a reboot when it's finished. The entire process took around 6 minutes on our test PC, far longer than most of the competition, although still not bad when you consider the features on offer here.

There's capable real-time antivirus protection, for instance, and a good on-demand scanner. LinkScanner checks the URLs you're visiting to protect you from malicious sites. E-mail Protection scans incoming emails for spam and malicious attachments, there's rootkit and identity protection, and you even get an (optional) web security toolbar to keep you safe online.

To support all this you'll find 7 or 8 AVG-related processes running in the background at any one time, but this doesn't have the system impact you might expect. They'll typically consume a below-average 20MB of RAM, for instance, and while AVG extended our boot time by around 10 seconds it otherwise had little impact on our system.

Conventional scanning performance was also very good. The first scan of our test system was lengthy at 33:31, but thorough, achieving a 98% accuracy score and identifying an issue which others missed (an executable signed with a broken digital signature). On the second scan, AVG's time plummeted to 2:40, and by the third it was only 2:23.

While this was the best repeat scan performance here, in part it may be due to AVG having a separate scan for rootkits, which required an extra 3:22 on our test PC. The program is still speedy, though, even taking this into account, and overall it remains a capable and effective free antivirus tool.

We liked

Lots of features, relatively lightweight, fast, accurate

We disliked

Lengthy installation process, requires lots of background processes, separate scan for rootkits

4. Avira Free Antivirus

Avira's Free Antivirus product is unusual in that it provides basic web protection, but only if you install the Ask toolbar. Despite what you often read online, this is no worse than most other browser toolbars, but if you disapprove then the installer provides the option to install the core antivirus engine only.

Aside from this, the installation is speedy, with the initial setup complete in 93 seconds on our test PC. And the first scan was even more impressive at a mere 11:21: only Emsisoft's Anti-Malware was faster. There's no clever whitelisting scheme here, though, so subsequent scans remained above 10 minutes, enough to see the program drop back into 5th place.

Of course, as we've mentioned elsewhere, speed isn't everything; it's pointless being fast if you miss a lot of malware. And fortunately that's not a complaint we can make about Avira Free Antivirus, as the program scored an excellent 99% in our detection tests.

The problem here, though, is that this free build is missing a lot of features from the professional version: antiphishing, behaviour monitoring, email protection, game mode, and an antidrive-by monitor to block unwanted downloads when you're online. So while our tests show Avira's on-demand scanner is good, the program could leave you vulnerable to many other threats.

If you're looking for a single free antivirus tool to take care of everything, then, Avira Free Antivirus probably isn't for you. But if you're an experienced PC user looking for an accurate antivirus tool as a base, which you'll then supplement with other tools, then this fast, lightweight program could be the ideal choice.

We liked

Speedy installation, fast initial scan times, lightweight, accurate

We disliked

Free version omits lots of features, web protection requires you to install the Ask toolbar

5. Comodo Antivirus 5.9.2

The first Comodo Antivirus feature you're likely to notice is Defense+, the program's host intrusion detection system, which monitors application behaviour and only allows trusted software to run. It's a powerful tool and can do a lot to help make you more secure, but it's also complex, with warning dialogs which can be intimidating to a PC novice. And it raises more alerts than you might expect: Defense+ jumped in to "protect" us from QTTask, for instance, even though it's a well-known and entirely safe component of Apple's QuickTime.

Defense+ may also slow down the launch of some applications, at least initially, with Outlook once taking around 10 seconds longer than usual to launch on our test PC. This did seem to improve after a few launches, though, with launch times returning to normal (although the system boot was still a little longer than usual, and RAM use was also above average).

The story was a little more uncertain when it came to scanning performance. The program started well, with a third-ranking 16:11 initial scan, but there was little improvement and by the third scan it had dropped back to 7th place.

This extra time clearly isn't buying you any better accuracy, though, as Comodo Antivirus scored a below-average 93% on our detection tests. It does do well at detecting "potentially unwanted programs", legitimate tools which can be used maliciously (a utility to display your email client passwords, say), which may appeal to some. But in our case this only wasted time by raising a host of alerts about programs which were entirely safe.

Despite these problems, Comodo Antivirus can't be ignored completely. Sure, it's not as accurate as blocking malware as many competitors, but even if a file manages to launch on your system then Defense+ may well still detect and block it (and it'll do the same even with brand new viruses which other tools are yet to recognise). So while PC novices should probably give the program a miss, more experienced users may find the power and configurability of Defense+ has a lot of appeal.

We liked

Powerful host intrusion detection system, fast first scan time, little impact on system performance (on average)

We disliked

Defense+ alerts can be complex, some false positives, scan performance doesn't improve much over time

Best free antivirus: 6-10

6. Emsisoft Anti-Malware 6.0

Many free antivirus packages have significant omissions, which the developers hope will persuade you to opt for a commercial version - so it's wise to check this before you install. And this applies particularly to Emsisoft Anti-Malware 6.0, as it doesn't provide any real-time antivirus protection. This doesn't necessarily mean you should ignore the program, though, as our tests revealed some notable plus points.

Installation is fast and straightforward, for instance. A clear and appealing interface makes it easy to find the functionality you need. And scanning performance proved excellent, with the program checking our test system in a little over 8 minutes for scan #1 - the fastest initial scan of anyone in this group - and accelerating to 6:13 after a few additional checks.

In part this speed is due to the program being very selective about the files it scans. This doesn't seem to affect its accuracy, though, as Anti-Malware scored an excellent 98% in our own detection tests, and it's also often rated highly by independent testing labs.

The lack of real-time monitoring means the problem had no noticeable impact on boot or application launch times, too, at least according to our tests. So although this does leave a hole in your PC's protection, it does mean you could install another tool to provide that functionality. And while we didn't test this, the developers claim that "Emsisoft Anti-Malware was designed to run parallel with other antivirus and firewall software", so in theory at least you should be able to install other packages without seeing any significant conflicts.

We liked

Quick and easy installation, clear interface, excellent scanning performance, accurate, can run alongside other security tools

We disliked

No real-time antivirus protection

7. Microsoft Security Essentials 2.1.11160

As its name suggests, Microsoft Security Essentials is just about the antivirus basics. So there's no application firewall here, no host intrusion protection system, no smart file whitelisting schemes, no bonus extras of any kind.

Still, who cares? There's good all-round real-time protection (downloads, on-access file scanning, behaviour monitoring, network checks), on-demand and scheduled scanning options, all wrapped up in a simple, easy-to-understand interface, which works for us.

Full review: Microsoft Security Essentials

The program's simplicity also helps to reduce its impact on your system. It requires the smallest amount of drive space of any of the competition; typically consumes under 10MB RAM when running in the background; didn't noticeably increase our boot time at all; and had less impact than most on our application launch times.

There is one issue, though, in the program's scan speeds. Security Essentials first scan came in at around 20 minutes, for a reasonable fourth place. The program doesn't whitelist files, though, so every scan takes more or less the same amount of time, and in the long term only avast! Free Antivirus proved slower.

And Security Essentials' accuracy proved nothing special, too, with the program scoring only 92% in our on-demand scanning tests.

The program didn't do anything obviously wrong, then. It doesn't leave out core features or display banner ads in the hope that you'll upgrade to something else; it won't drain your system's resources, or cause odd problems elsewhere. And if you just want something that won't get in your way, picking Microsoft Security Essentials could make a lot of sense. But if you want the very best, particularly when it comes to detection rates, then you need to keep looking.

We liked

Easy to use, very little impact on system performance, good all-round real-time protection

We disliked

Scan times not the best, below-average detection rates

8. Outpost Security Suite Free 7.1

Outpost Security Suite Free is the most generously specified product in our roundup, bundling an antivirus engine, firewall, spam filter and surfing protection into a single package.

Sounds good. We're really only interested in the antivirus element in this test, though, and here there's a problem. Outpost Security Suite Free doesn't get "priority updates". When we installed the program, it didn't automatically download a database upgrade itself. The message warning us that the system was out-of-date contained a "fix it now" button which only suggested that we upgraded to the paid version. And when we tried to update manually, we repeatedly saw a "cannot download some components" warning, followed by a "Malware database update failed" error - a fairly critical problem.

Continuing regardless, we found further issues elsewhere. The program's lengthy feature list also means it uses more RAM than some of the competition (30-40MB in regular background use, sometimes over 100MB when scanning). And after installation our Firefox launch times rose from under 2, to 8-10 seconds (although Outlook launch and boot times remained relatively unaffected).

Scan times were also notable, and not in a good way: the first scan on our test system took almost an hour, the slowest in this group. Smart optimisation meant that subsequent scans dropped to around 10 minutes, a far more acceptable figure. And when you're able to use a recent database, the program's accuracy is reasonable enough, with it scoring 95% on our tests.

We wouldn't entirely rule the program out, then - there's plenty to like about this suite, and if you're luckier than us on the update front then it should do a good job of keeping you safe. For the purpose of this test, though, the program's repeated inability to download an initial update is inexcusable, and has to result in a low score.

We liked

loads of security suite features, little effect on boot/ Outlook launch times, reasonably accurate

We disliked

no "priority updates", repeatedly failed to update our malware database, very lengthy initial scan times, Firefox launch time extended significantly

9. PC Tools Antivirus Free 2012

PC Tools Antivirus Free 2012 is a cut-down version of the company's Spyware Doctor with Antivirus product, which leaves out ThreatFire, most web and real-time protection, the program's game mode, web-based support, and more. You still get on-demand and scheduled scanning, warnings about phishing sites and real-time checks on incoming emails and the files you access, though, so there's just about enough to get by.

Despite the program's basic nature, setup takes a while, and its installation footprint is the largest here (the program gobbled up more than 400MB of drive space, mostly due to its huge antivirus database). The various PC Tools background processes typically only consume around 20MB when running in the background, though, and they have only an average impact on boot and Firefox launch times (although Outlook took much longer to fire up).

PC Tools Antivirus Free has a few design quirks. Right-click a drive in Explorer, choose the "Scan with PC Tools" option and you'd expect to see the scanning window pop up, right? But it doesn't; if you'd like to monitor the scanning process then you'll have to open the program yourself via its system tray icon.

Scanning itself works well, though. Performance was good, with the initial scan time of 29:20 falling to under 5 minutes by the third check (third fastest in this group). And accuracy was more than acceptable, as Antivirus Free returned 94% in our on-demand scanning test.

Put it all together and PC Tools Antivirus Free 2012 is a good basic security tool. It doesn't have any compelling features which demand you pick this program above all others, but the strength here is more on Antivirus Free's reliability: it's straightforward and easy to use, with none of the hassles, problems and conflicts we'd experienced with some of the other packages in this group.

We liked

Easy to use, relatively lightweight, above average scan times, reasonable detection rates

We disliked

Massive hard drive footprint, slowed down Outlook launch significantly, some design quirks, feature list is considerably cut down from the commercial version

Conclusion

We spent a great deal of time testing each of our trial antivirus packages, and the hope was that all these objective measurements would clearly reveal which tool was the best.

Unfortunately, it turned out not to be quite as easy as that, as no package excelled in every area. Some were lightweight but less accurate, others were good at detecting malware but had a significant performance on your system, and so it went on. Picking a winner inevitably involves some compromises, then, and may vary depending on your requirements.

If you're looking solely for the most accurate scanner, for instance, then Avira Free Antivirus topped our list. It also omits a lot of useful features, though, and had only average scanning times by our third system check, so wasn't our winner overall.

Similarly, Emsisoft Anti-Malware was fast, lightweight, and only a point behind Avira on the detection scales. But it doesn't provide real-time protection and so also just missed the winning spot. (Although if you want to build your own security suite and run the program alongside another security tool then you could achieve excellent results.)

And Outpost's Security Suite Free had to be marked down because of our hassles with its update process, but if you're looking for a one-stop, zero-cost security solution then it may still be worth a try.

After weighing up all our results, though, there was really only one candidate for first place: AVG Free 2012. Its initial scan time was lengthy and the program isn't the most lightweight. But it has plenty of features, smart optimisations accelerated it to the fastest third scan here, and it scored a respectable second place for detection rates, making AVG Free 2012 a good all-round winner of our best free antivirus award.

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In Depth: Best Linux email client: 5 reviewed and rated

Best Linux email client

The email client, along with the word processor, is probably one of the most recognisable pieces of software on the desktop. They come in all shapes and sizes, from standalone lightweight command-line clients, to massive personal information managers (PIMs), that do a lot more than just check email.

Email clients are especially important for the business user but are useful even for those not dependant on a corporate email server. Virtually all email clients can now hook up with online webmail services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Even if you don't use them to check your email on a daily basis, they're handy to keep an offline backup of all your email in case of problems with the service.

There are various factors you need to consider when selecting a client. What type of user you are and how you want to use it are the most critical. If you're an enterprise user fetching email from the corporate email server, you'll probably have the client running all the time, so it needs to be well-integrated into the desktop.

If you're a home user, though, who only wants to back up email from an online service, your demands are very different.

Our selection

Evolution
KMail
Thunderbird
Claws Mail
Zimbra Desktop

How we tested...

We ran all the email clients on a 2.1GHz dual-core laptop with 2GB of RAM. While they all work across distributions, for best results we ran them on their recommended platforms. That is, KMail atop KDE and Evolution under Gnome.

For a fair comparison, we used the latest offerings of each of the clients. KMail 4.7, released as part of KDE SC 4.7 was installed on OpenSUSE 11.4. The latest version of Evolution 3.0.2 requires libraries shipped with Gnome 3, and so we installed it on top of Fedora 15, which also hosts our Thunderbird and Claws Mail installation. Zimbra Desktop creates desktop icons, which have no place in Gnome 3, so we installed it on Ubuntu 11.04.

An email client should, at the very least, be able to handle thousands of emails without a drop in performance, compose messages offline, and be secure - just some of the features we're scoring on.

Desktop integration

Almost all the clients covered here are cross-platform and can run on any distribution. While it's good to have a choice, all distributions and desktops ship with a default email client, so Gnome has Evolution and KDE has KMail.

Traditionally, this also meant that Evolution was the default on Fedora and Ubuntu and KMail on OpenSUSE and Mandriva, among others. But the latest releases of these distributions, desktops and email clients has changed the situation somewhat. Since Evolution now requires Gnome 3 libraries, Ubuntu will switch to Thunderbird as its default email client with the 11.10 release.

KMail is one of the weakest clients in our selection, and we aren't the only ones who think so; in the latest Mandriva release it's also been replaced by Thunderbird.

Using the default client does have obvious advantages. For example, in Gnome, you can right-click on a file in the Nautilus file manager, select Send To and specify email, to email the file as an attachment to a message. This launches a compose message window with the selected file listed as an attachment, so you don't have to explicitly launch Evolution in order to compose a message. You can do the same with KMail on KDE in the Dolphin file manager by right-clicking a file and selecting Actions > Send To.

Default clients by definition, though, don't suit everyone. They have to cater for a large section of the user base, which is why KMail and Evolution aren't just email clients but PIMs, which can create to-do lists and schedule reminders. This is too much functionality for someone who only wants a client to back up email.

Almost all of the clients support the Mbox mailbox file format. Claws Mail offers it via a plugin. The mbox format stores messages concatenated into a simple text file. Maildir and MH are alternate formats. The format in which mail is stored is important when you have to shuttle between clients. The format you export your mails in from one client, should be supported by the client you import mails into, or you will have to convert the mail into a supported format before importing it.

If you have to use multiple machines, running different operating systems, you might want to choose a popular format such as mbox, which is supported by email clients on all distributions and operating systems.

While KMail and Evolution are only available for Linux distributions, Claws Mail, Thunderbird and Zimbra Desktop can be installed on any Windows, Mac or Linux machine.

Verdict

Evolution - 4/5
KMail - 3/5
Thunderbird - 4/5
Claws Mail - 2/5
Zimbra - 3/5

IMAP support

Most home users will want to hook up their email client with one of the popular webmail services. When configuring your account, you need the SMTP and IMAP settings, port numbers to connect to and whether or not to use SSL etc.

Of the five clients in our list, Evolution, Zimbra Desktop and Thunderbird can fetch settings from the IMAP server. This means you don't have to specify the port number or the SMTP settings to configure your account.

KMail can determine what authentication options are supported, but only after you point it to the IMAP server. Claws Mail has to be manually fed all of the server settings.

Good email clients should help you configure the account with minimum effort, but that's only half the picture. How well the clients interact with the webmail service is also important. You can compose messages offline with Zimbra, Evolution and Thunderbird, which will be sent automatically when you go online. Claws Mail however doesn't automatically send queued messages.

When importing messages, all clients connect to the webmail service to create a folder tree. You can then import messages into the folders. Claws Mail randomly sends old messages to the Inbox, creating duplicates when you import from an mbox file.

Evolution is best at creating folders and importing messages. KMail provides the most import options, and imports messages without errors, but it doesn't display the message body. Messages downloaded from the internet are displayed without fault.

Verdict

Evolution - 5/5
KMail - 2/5
Thunderbird - 5/5
Claws Mail - 1/5
Zimbra - 4/5

User experience

The purpose of an email client is rather simple: it fetches your emails, displays them in a neat interface, lets you easily compose and send messages and offers additional features such as search, labels etc.

The first email client, although nothing like what we have today, showed up almost a half century ago. Modern email clients, too, have existed for a few decades now and yet, despite the advancing years and changing email norms, most look almost exactly the same as their ancestors did.

Comparing email client interfaces is almost like comparing keyboard layouts on different laptops. The layout is pretty much the same, and yet some are better than others. Email clients, which are very similar in terms of feature sets and usefulness, are no different. Some, however, steal the show by offering a little bit extra.

Evolution - 3/5

A very typical three-panel view, which is standard for most clients. Since it's a PIM, you get to choose between Mail, Calendar or Tasks using buttons on the bottom-left. You get the threaded message view by default.

There's no visible difference between a threaded message and standalone messages, except for the + and - signs in the subject line to denote collapsed and expanded threads. Press Ctrl+T to turn off threaded view.

You can search for messages in the current folder, current account, or all configured accounts and create custom searches. It even lets you save searches, and create folders for them.

Attachments aren't displayed inline by default. Depending on the type, however, you can choose to view them inline or with the default associated application.

Thunderbird - 4/5

Thunderbird is rather bare, especially compared with Evolution or Zimbra Desktop. This is primarily because various options are either clubbed together into one button, or not located on the Mail toolbar at the top. For example, the Delete, Forward and Reply buttons show up in the bottom panel when reading a message.

Searching is one of the best features of Thunderbird and puts it miles ahead of the competition. Results show up in a new tab, with a year/month timeline and various additional filters to help you zero in on the message you want.

The threaded view is not the default, but can be enabled if you click View > Sort By > Threaded. You can also archive messages, but archived messages can't be searched and you must specify an archives folder when setting up your email account.

Claws Mail - 2/5

Although not too shabby, the interface could use some work. The left panel appears crowded when it displays read, unread, and total number of messages in each folder. Change this setting under View > Set Displayed Columns > In Folder List.

There are various built-in layouts to choose from. Click View > Layout and cycle through the five options to find one that suits you - the Wide Message and Three Columns layouts are ideal if you have a wide screen. There's no search bar in any of the layouts, and the toggle search button is so buried in the message list panel, it might as well be invisible.

You can right-click a message to create filter and process rules. Process rules mean defining actions such as move, copy, delete, forward etc.

KMail - 2/5

When you first launch KMail, it will terminate with a 'Failed to fetch the resource collection' error. KMail doesn't have a default incoming mail directory configured, which causes this error. The workaround involves using Akonadi to specify a maildir location for KMail.

To do this, launch the Akonadi Configuration tool and point the Local Folders to /.kde4/share/apps/kmail2/. The three-panel interface presents messages grouped by day/month/year, depending on the number of messages in the folder.

KMail does the threaded view better than the other tools, using line spacing to denote replies to messages in a thread. The search bar at the top can be used to search for messages, and you can use the drop-down list on its right to refine your search. For example, choose Has Attachment to limit your search to messages with attachments.

Zimbra Desktop - 3/5

Although Zimbra Desktop also provides a three-panel interface, it does things differently enough to impress us. It does a lot more than just email but despite its many features, the interface is neat and clean.

There are plenty of tabs at the top that let you move between Preferences, Mail, Calendar, Tasks and so on. The search bar produces near immediate results, searching in the subject, header, and message body.

The Advanced button to the right of the search bar coughs up even more useful options to help you narrow down the results and lets you search Spam and Trash.

Zimbra lets you save searches as well, a feature

it shares with Evolution. Zimbra also supports threaded view, but it's even worse at identifying threads than Evolution. To mark a message as spam, select it and click Spam - no configuration required.

Performance, security and add-ons

Performance

Mailboxes can grow to several GBs in size and so it's very important for email clients to handle a large number of messages with ease. Performing searches on thousands of messages may seem like a daunting job, but it's an everyday task for mail clients.

We tested the search and general performance of the clients using a 450MB mbox file. Evolution took about 15 minutes to import the file. When searching, it provides near instantaneous results.

Most clients let you compose messages while importing, but not Claws Mail, which is unusable. It took 30 minutes to import the same mbox file.

We're confident Thunderbird is untouchable where Search is considered. It displays the results in a separate tab with many additional filters such as Starred, From Me, and List of Contacts.

KMail fares so poorly because very little actually works as advertised. For one, it doesn't display the message body when importing messages from a file. This mostly defeats the point in importing messages or migrating to KMail from any other client.

Of all the clients in our list, Zimbra Desktop was the slowest in performing regular tasks such as switching mail folders, but only marginally. While it can import messages, it needs them in tgz format. This isn't a problem per se, but the additional step of converting exported messages into tgz is a nuisance.

Verdict

Evolution - 5/5
KMail - 1/5
Thunderbird - 5/5
Claws Mail - 3/5
Zimbra - 4/5

Besides email

The all-in-one nature of some of the clients in our collection deserves special mention. Not all users would want their email client to set up reminders and double up as a calendar, but if these are things that you use daily, it's probably best to use just the one tool, rather than several. Still, you don't have to necessarily go with one of the advertised overachievers. Most other tools offer the same functionality as PIMs via extensions and plugins.

Evolution, Gnome's official PIM, provides a calendar, address book and task list, which is different from your calendar appointments. On KDE, KMail is part of Kontact, KDE's PIM software suite. The other applications that make up the collection are KaddressBook, Akregator and KOrganizer.

Thunderbird is primarily for email but there are plugins for everything else. The vanilla Thunderbird installation is not a PIM but the Mozilla Lightning extension will add the functionality. Its built-in RSS/Atom reader means it can also be used as a simple news aggregator. Additional features are available via other extensions.

Claws is similarly a news and mail email. It has an address book and plugins for a calendar, RSS aggregator and more.

Apart from email, Zimbra does contact management and document handling, and has a calendar and task list. You can edit documents such as spreadsheets on the fly and include them in your emails.

Verdict

Evolution - 5/5
KMail - 3/5
Thunderbird - 4/5
Claws Mail - 2/5
Zimbra - 5/5

Security

Evolution lets you choose between SpamAssassin and Bogofilter as the spam filtering tool of choice. Of course, you need to make sure they're installed on your system before using them. If not, Evolution won't complain about missing packages, which is very odd.

You'll also need to install the relevant Evolution plugin. Finally, you need to configure your junk mail settings. These are under Edit > Preferences > Mail Accounts > Edit > Receiving Options. You should also look at Edit > Preferences > Mail Preferences > Junk.

Thunderbird has a very advanced junk mail filter, which learns and improves its filtering depending on what you mark as spam. All incoming messages pass through the filter, and you can get Thunderbird to warn you about potential phishing emails, and also when a link in a message is leading you to a website other than the one indicated in the URL.

Claws Mail, if you compile it yourself, provides several useful plugins in the core package. But, if you install it via your distribution's software repositories, you must install the plugins as well. Load them under Configuration > Plugins > Load. Next head to Configuration > Preferences > Plugins > SpamAssassin. Read the Claws Mail Plugins FAQ on the project's website, which covers the additional steps.

KMail fares better than Claws Mail in terms of security, at least at first glance. Click Anti-Spam to launch a wizard that will automatically detect if there's a tool, such as SpamAssassin, available and enable it. You only need to mark messages as Spam or Ham to train SpamAssassin, but when you flag a message, a popup dialog appears telling you to wait while the message is transferred.

Nothing happens and KMail is then unusable. An Anti-Virus wizard is also on offer, but good luck trying to get that to work - we didn't have that much joy with it. You can encrypt messages when sending emails but only if you already have encryption keys on your system.

None of the tools let you create keys from the interface itself, except for KMail, which can create keys when defining your identity. With the other clients, you must use the distribution's key management program, whether it's Kgpg or Seahorse, to create keys which you can then use to encrypt messages.

Verdict

Evolution - 4/5
KMail - 0/5
Thunderbird - 5/5
Claws Mail - 4/5
Zimbra - 5/5

Add-ons and plugins

As useful as the default feature set is, it's always good to know that additional features, even if you don't need them now, are available should the need ever arise. All clients release plugins officially, and these are a nice way to enhance functionality.

Thunderbird has the most extensive list. The add-ons page provides a categorised list of available extensions such as Contacts, Message Reading, Privacy and Security. You can also scroll through the Most Popular list on the left. Also available are dozens of themes that you can use to change the client's appearance.

Evolution's default installation already has several plugins installed and enabled. In fact, many of its basic email features, such as Mark All Messages As Read, are also a plugin.

Instead of Thunderbird's extensive add-ons database, KMail has Tools. Most aren't written by the KMail team, and some are too old to be of any use on recent releases.

Claws Mail is built on the premise that you will extend it with plugins as and when you need them. There are two categories - Standard are shipped with the package and will be installed if you manually compile Claws; Extra plugins can be downloaded from the website. If you install Claws via the software repositories of your distribution, you will have to separately install the plugins.

Zimbra Desktop's plugins are called Zimlets. The website offers a categorised list such as Contacts and Mail. Note that not all Zimlets work on all platforms.

Verdict

Evolution - 3/5
KMail - 2/5
Thunderbird - 5/5
Claws Mail - 5/5
Zimbra - 4/5

The verdict

There are hordes of email clients out there but we limited ourselves to the ones that would be useful for the most users. This is also why clients that work on the most number of platforms score higher that those that don't.

Cross-platform clients provide a consistent interface across operating systems, and make it easier for you to import/export email when switching platforms. Another important feature is the extensibility of the client and having a diverse range of plugins is useful when it comes to customisation.

A couple of years ago, a lightweight client would have made sense but with hardware prices on a constant downward spiral, we wouldn't trade features for a minor bump up in performance. We see no reason for recommending proprietary email clients either - in our experience they're dwarfed by their open source cousins.

After putting the clients through their paces, Mozilla's Thunderbird came out on top. You can run it on any desktop environment and, of all the clients in this roundup, it officially supports the highest number of operating systems.

Mozilla moans

We aren't overly impressed with Mozilla's 'release often' strategy but we really can't find any faults with the client itself. It must be noted, though, that although Thunderbird 5 was pretty zippy on our dual-core laptop, Graham wasn't impressed by its performance on an Atom-based netbook in his review in LXF149.

If you're running a Gnome-based distribution, you could stick with Evolution, mostly because of its integration within the desktop. The newer version's need for Gnome 3's libraries means it's getting trickier to run it on Ubuntu, though. Despite KMail's integration with KDE, we weren't impressed.

Neither are some developers of KDE-based distributions, such as Mandriva, which has replaced it with Thunderbird in the latest version of its distribution.

Claws, the lightweight and zippy email client, is best paired with slimline desktops such as Xfce.

1st: Thunderbird - 5/5
Web: www.mozilla.org
Licence: GPL and others
Version: 5.0

An improved import process will make other clients shut up shop.

2nd: Evolution - 4/5
Web: projects.gnome.org
Licence: GPL and others
Version: 3.0.2

It's not cross-platform, or it'd be the winner.

3rd: Zimbra - 3/5
Web: www.zimbra.com
Licence: Proprietary
Version: 7.1.1

It's good, but why use a proprietary client when you have alternatives?

4th: Claws Mail - 3/5
Web: www.claws-mail.org
Licence: GPL v3
Version: 3.7.9

Lightweight and fast but it needs to pull its socks up.

5th: KMail - 1/5
Web: userbase.kde.org/KMail
Licence: GPL v3
Version: 4.7.0

Avoid at all costs. What a nightmare.