Free or paid for antivirus protection?

Knarf44

closed wrote: »

The results of those tests are heavily skewed

Please explain how and why you think this?

All I see is an organisation that subjects the offerings from a number of different companies to a series of its own designed comparative tests and then reports its findings in a clear and transparent way.

How is this different to what other security testing sites do? Is there a suggestion from you that companies whose products regularly do well somehow " influence" the Institute to rank their products highly?

closed

anti virus tests should really just report a percentage score of detections against realworld malware as the headline score, as that is the primary concern of the public - ie how effective is this software at protecting me against real viruses.

Most tests from whoever skew the results to favour their own definition of whats important, another well known one seems to think the gui is as important as the detection rate, which skews the scores and makes them meaningless. The mse guide is all about the price, not about how good they are.

When other things are added into the pot to make a homogenised score out of 5 or 10, it muddies the waters.

The 2 things tested appear to be zero day, and threats discovered in the last 4 weeks, what about the rest. AVG gets a better protection score than than avast, despite apparently detecting fewer real world infections, perhaps because of the added weight given to a very small sample of zero day tests

JasX

The business model is largely irrelevant as an indicator of how much 'protection' you will get.

The good free ones definitely outperform a good number of lesser paid for ones.

Look at a range of tests when assessing performance, if you are going the paid for route (usually because you should be paying if using the free ones for business purposes NOT protection related)

But if you must pay for whatever reasons do at least check your're not spending your money on a lemon.

Gillor

closed wrote: »

anti virus tests should really just report a percentage score of detections against realworld malware as the headline score, as that is the primary concern of the public - ie how effective is this software at protecting me against real viruses.

From AV-Comparatives site:

Currently, AV-Comparatives' Real-World Protection Test is the most comprehensive and complex test available when it comes to evaluating the real-life protection capabilities of antivirus software. Put simply, the test framework replicates the scenario of an everyday user in an everyday online environment – the typical situation that most of us experience when using a computer with an Internet connection.

.......so users have some valuable sources for security software tests and reviews without having to rely on “recommendations” of sales staff, marketing departments or opinions of unknown “advisors” on forums.

Together with the University of Innsbruck, AV‐Comparatives has developed a procedure for the systematic testing of antivirus software, which automatically simulates the actions of a computer user surfing the Internet...

Good enough for me

closed

Gillor wrote: »

From AV-Comparatives site:







Good enough for me

missing the point

Gillor

closed wrote: »

missing the point

Which is ?

closed

Already mentioned.

the scoring system is subjective

For example:

product A detects 97.0078% of what's thrown at it and gets a protection score 3.5/6

Product B detects a higher percentage 97.932% and gets a lower protection score of 3/6

Product C detects 79.9% and gets a score of 0/6 (MSE/microsoft defender users and writers of mse guides recommending MSE antivirus might wish to take note of that percentage)

joe134

Gillor wrote: »

From AV-Comparatives site:







Good enough for me

depends on your surfing habits.no 2 people surf the same.to me, the methodology of any test is what determines the result.apples and oranges.
like for like is the true test, plus a contolled test, same as all tests.
objective;

Gillor

closed wrote: »

Already mentioned.

the scoring system is subjective

For example:

product A detects 97.0078% of what's thrown at it and gets a protection score 3.5/6

Product B detects 97.932% and gets a lower protection score of 3/6

Can you point me to this AV-Comparatives test data - I seem to have missed it.

closed

Perhaps I missed your point, we are talking about different organisations, but similar issues apply to all testing and results