This week’s race
McAfee leads; Bitdefender climbs 2 spots.
Power ranking
Who leads this sub.
This week?
McAfee holds the top spot in Privacy & Security while two major names lose ground. NordVPN and Private Internet Access both dropped fourteen places, with NordVPN falling from fourth to eighteenth. Avira climbed twelve spots to reach twelfth, and Trend Micro jumped eleven places to seventh. Nord Security and Proton AG entered the rankings this week at eleventh and fifteenth respectively, signaling new competition in a category that shifted hard from last week's standings.
The questions?
These rankings answer 3 buyer questions. Open any one for the head-to-head.
The subcategory score is an aggregate. Each question has its own AI ranking, reviewer check and weekly movement — that's where the picks actually come from.
Act one
Where the machines rank them.
Three AI models rank every brand in this sub — who just arrived, the full board, the lineups each fields, and who owns each trait.
Newcomers
Just arrived.
new · Jun 2026
#78
new · Jun 2026
#76
new · Jun 2026
#82
new · Jun 2026
#58 · in best vpns
new · Jun 2026
#96
new · Jun 2026
#100
new · Jun 2026
#91 · in best antivirus software
new · Jun 2026
#70 · in best password managers
new · Jun 2026
#98
Full ranking
Every brand ranked.
as of June 15 · vs June 16 · 3 intents?
Brand portfolios
What each brand fields here.
Act three
How the models think.
Where each brand actually competes across the buyer questions, and the running ledger of what just moved in this sub.
Intent dominance
Where each brand actually competes.
as of June 15 · 3 intents?
Ledger?
What just moved in this sub.
- ▼ fall#26 → #54
- ▼ fall#3 → #29
- ▼ fall#19 → #45
- ▼ fall#10 → #35
- ▼ fall#24 → #48
- ✦ debutdebut at #10
- ▼ fall#12 → #30
- ▼ fall#18 → #36
- ✦ debutdebut at #13
- ▲ climb#21 → #6
- ▼ fall#28 → #43
- ✦ debutdebut at #16
- ▼ fall#13 → #27
- ✦ debutdebut at #17
- ▲ climb#16 → #4
- ▼ fall#22 → #33
- ▼ fall#27 → #38
- ▼ fall#5 → #15
- ✦ debutdebut at #20
- ▲ climb#11 → #2
about privacy & security
Pick by what you need
- buying intents · in products →
- Best VPNs
- Best Password Managers
- Best Antivirus Software
interesting facts from privacy & security
The brands here run different races. Norton and McAfee built their names on antivirus for the mass market. Kaspersky competes on detection rates. Apple pitches privacy as a feature of the system itself. Proton puts encryption at the center. 1Password and Bitwarden handle passwords. Each one holds different ground.
A buyer needs to know what problem matters most. Some people want protection from malware. Others want their data locked from everyone, even the company selling the tool. The choice splits there.
The brand rail stops here. For the individual products inside this sub, switch to the product view.