The evaluation was put out by Andreas Clementi, who runs Innsbruck, Austria-based AV Comparatives, a Web site that posts the results of independent antivirus software testing.
Clementi's February report evaluated 17 products, ranging from BitDefender's Anti-Virus 10 Professional Plus to Fortinet's FortiClient 3.0.308 to McAfee VirusScan 11.1.124 and Symantec Norton AntiVirus 14.0.0.89. In his report, Clementi says all the products were updated on Feb. 2 and set to use the best possible settings. More than 1 million virus samples were used in the test.
When it came to total detection rates, G Data Security's AVK product caught 99.45% of the malicious code thrown at it. The TrustPort Antivirus Workstation 2.5.0.957 came in second, catching 99.36%; Avira's Antivir Personal Edition Premium 7.03.01.34 came in third with 98.85%; F-Secure Anti-Virus 2007 7.01.128 came in fourth with 97.91%, and Kaspersky's Anti-Virus was fifth with 97.89%
Antivirus powerhouse Symantec came in sixth with 96.83%. Fortinet came in 10th with 93.99%, and McAfee came in 14th with 91.63%. Microsoft captured 82.40% of the malicious code.
Clementi said in an e-mail to InformationWeek that he wasn't surprised by the results. "Another independent tester months ago got similar results, and as I look every week on what [antivirus] vendors add, I could quite expect most of the results," he wrote. He also noted that Symantec did very well, reliably detecting all polymorphic viruses.
The tester said in his e-mail and in his report that they generally only test products that can detect 85% of the malware thrown at them. "So I expected and hoped that OneCare would meet those criteria -- but it did not," he wrote. Since it didn't hit the minimum requirement for participation in the test, Clementi says its inclusion in future tests will have to be re-evaluated.
He also cautioned that people should try antivirus products on their own systems before making a purchase decision based on his tests. "There are also many other program features and important factors (e.g., compatibility, graphical user interface, language, price, update frequency, ease of management) to consider," he wrote in his report.
"Although extremely important, the detection rate of a product is only one aspect of a complete anti-virus product -- research other independent test results."
Via Yahoo
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