The study – sponsored by Absolute Software and carried out by YouGov – found that 85 and 87% of UK and French laptop owners respectively are using anti-virus protection.
However, researchers found that UK laptop owners are leaving themselves vulnerable to identity theft by not taking data security seriously.
The online study showed Germany, by contrast to the UK, had the least safe surfers with just 3% of laptop owners using anti-virus software. Germany, however, was the best when it came to data protection with 72% of all respondents using encryption.
Dave Everitt, Absolute Software's EMEA general manager, said that consumers are aware of viruses which is great, but that is no help when it comes to protecting personal data against identity theft.
"You wouldn't lock your car door and then leave the window open, so why leave your laptop wide open to thieves", he said.
The survey also found that just 1% of known laptop theft had resulted in the laptop being returned to its owner.
Everitt said that the loss of data is potentially the most costly of all threats.
"With such a tiny percentage of laptops being returned to their owners, it's safe to assume that when a laptop goes, the data on it is lost forever. Even encryption doesnt offer total security, as it can often leave things like saved passwords still on the computer", he said.
"With the amount of personal data that is now stored on computers, losing your laptops worse than losing your wallet, so its time for owners to take security seriously", he added.