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Antivirus suites are only as good as their latest tests. And in AV-test.orgs latest roundup for July and August, the usual suspectsBitDefender, Kaspersky, McAfee, and Symanteccame out on top.

The same holds true for the free options. If youre a cheapskate, you can download Panda Securitys free cloud antivirusand have a good chance that it will catch everything that the shadowy corners of the Web can throw at itas it did in AV-tests own proving ground.

AV-test.orgs rankings of the various antimalware suites for July and August. Weve highlighted the free options in red, and Microsofts built in Windows Defender in yellow.

But if you think that Microsofts own Windows Defender (or Microsoft Security Essentials in Windows 7) antimalware solution will do the job, youre almost entirely wrong. Microsoft caught less than 80 percent of both the known malware that AV-test.org threw at it, as well as the unknown or so-called zero-day malware that it was tested against. Its like saying your roof will catch 80 percent of the raineventually, theres going to be a leak.

Why this matters: It's a good idea to re-evaluate your antivirus solution regularly. Is it up-to-date? Getting the job done? If there are any lessons at all,it's that the big names in the antivirus industry have earned their reputations. Check to see if yours is among them.

There are two major test houses that periodically evaluate major antivirus suites and Internet security services: AV-test and AV-comparatives.org. AV-comparatives.org, which recently published its own August rankings, also treats Microsoft as the baseline, claiming that it caught only85.5 percent of the antimalware samples it was tested against.

The victor? Panda again, which caughtevery malware sample that AV-comparatives tested against. (Note the high number of false positives, however, meaning that safe files were incorrectly flagged as malware.)The only other suite to do the same was Avira, although its not clear whether AV-comparatives used the paid Internet Security suite, as AV-test.org did, or the free, standalone antivirus version.

AV-comparatives.orgs own August tests. The antivirus suites with the best ranking had the most green in their evaluation bars.

AV-test.org also ranked paid antivirus solutions for businesses. Each and every oneBitDefender, F-Secure, and Symanteccaught 100 percent of the tested malware. Microsoft, again, came in dead last, managing onlyto catch between 74 and 79 percent.

Theres absolutely no guarantee that any of the antivirus products that have historically performed well will continue to do soor will snag the next piece of malware your PC encounters. However, one trend is positive: In a recent, prolonged test by AV-test.org, the traditional antivirus powerhouses continued to do well.

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Free is good: No-cost Panda Software tops AV-Test's rankings of antivirus software