Anti-virus researcher Andreas Cleminti, owner of Innsbruck, Austria-based AV Comparatives Web site posts quarterly results of tests that compare the top anti-virus products against a dynamic list of nearly half a million individual pieces of malware. In his February 2007 on-demand comparative, Cleminti tested 17 anti-virus programs and found Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare claimed last place after detecting 82.4% of the threats. G Data Security's AntiVirusKit (AVK), scored the best score: 99.5%. Following close behind were: AEC's TrustPort AV WS (99.4%), Avira's AntiVir PE Premium (98.9%), MicroWorld's eScan Anti-Virus (97.9%), F-Secure's Anti-Virus (97.9%) and Kaspersky Labs' AV (97.9%).
Cleminti also tested the 17 products against polymorphic viruses, those which produce sometimes vast numbers of variants as they try to sneak by scanners. "The results of the polymorphic test are of importance because they how flexible an anti-virus scan engine is and how good the detection quality of complex viruses is," said Cleminti in his write-up. Only Symantec's Norton AntiVirus and ESET's NOD32 Anti-Virus caught every variant of the 12 polymorphic families, he said. In that test, OneCare placed 15th, detecting every version of only two families, and missing seven of the polymorphic families completely.
"We are looking closely at the methodology and results of the test to ensure that Windows Live OneCare performs better in future tests," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
Link: AV Comparatives | Forum Discussion (Thanks macstorm)
View: February 2007 On-demand Comparative
News source: ComputerWorld
32 Comments - Add comment