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Microsoft OneCare Last in Antivirus Tests
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "PC World has a story reporting that Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare came in dead last out of a group of 17 antivirus programs tested against hundreds of thousands of pieces of malware. The report of an Austrian antivirus researcher was released at the AV Comparatives Web site this week. Several free AV products were included in the test as well." While the top dog was able to find 99.5% of the malicious code, OneCare clocked in at 82.4%. Of course, there's no metric for the severity of the malware in the 17% gap.
The OneCare team has access to the Windows source code, that's got to give them an edge.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I have always had a problem with these "stats".
If Microsoft know 50% (for example) of viruses are so old and won't run on 2000/XP, and they then decide not to search for them during AV tests... Does that mean the AV missed it - or quite rightly the code is so old that MS no longer considered a threat?
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"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.
Thats the danger with tests like this. Companies like MS see them and instead of thinking "how can we use this data to make our product better?" they are focused on just making it look better for the test. I'm not trying to single MS out here, video card manufacturers do this sort of thing all the time, hell it may be that the top performers on this test did it too.
Incidentally, why all the MS hate? Why focus on the company on the bottom, if it was any other company the headline would have been "Norton at top of antivirus heap in tests". The companies at the top are much bigger in this area and their software more widely deployed so I would think their performance would be more relevent regardless of who scored where.
The only people who give a crap about OneCare coming in "last" are idiots who have nothing better to do than bitch and moan and laugh at Microsoft.
A good news story would be about who came in *first* in these tests. You know, information that actually might be useful to people. But that wouldnt get nearly as many page hits, I suspect.
There's no mention of ClamAV's performance in these tests. Granted, it probably isn't designed to be as "complete" as some of the other packages noted, it'd be interesting to see how it fares for those of us who use it on mail gateways and servers.
Besides, it'd have to be better than Microsoft's OneCare!
$ man woman *
-bash:
The software has to detect 85% or more to be considered for the on-demand test. MS OneCare was only included for the first time most likely due to the reputation of the former RAV. OneCare will be dropped from the test if they don't improve to 85%.
I use McAfee v7.1 because the overhead compared to the newer versions is much lower.
If your businessplan relies on the failure of an other party you have no right to complain when said party finally manages to reduce their failures.
Here are the tests and the results for one care.
Windows viruses 95,02%
Macro viruses 99,30%
Script viruses/malware 67,55%
Worms 89,21%
Backdoors 82,18%
Trojans 78,71%
other malware 58,38%
OtherOS viruses/malware 55,02%
And a bit more
Detection of over 222000 dialers excellent
Detection of over 130000 PUP's mediocre
Detection of over 230000 DOS viruses very high
Detection of polymorphic viruses 4 of 12
I think it's the first point where you're off... Microsoft gets slammed for having a buggy OS and insecurity software that make virus propegation easy. Adding anti-virus software has never been a good solution... it's just a band-aid.
Kaspersky has always been rated highly and for those of you that don't know AOL, yes that AOL, has repackaged it for Free. I've personally been using it for a while and can whole heartedly recommend it without any hesitation.
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http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
You mean something like: "Kaspersky has a higher % on that chart, AND it doesn't screw up the system?"
Norton, when it goes bad, is a nightmare to remove. And that's your only option, as you can't just fix the installation once it gets that bad. If you've already gone through the pain to remove it, why not just recommend the better solution and be done with it?
Personally, I like AVG, but that chart doesn't say great things about it. I'm disappointed in its performance. I'm seriously considering seeking a better solution.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Yeah, I have serious trouble getting rid of Norton. It crashed half way through the uninstall, an them became impossible to delete. I had to go into Linux and manually remove it. Kaspersky seems better, but occasionally takes up 98%CPU, for no reason I can see.
It does not really matter whether the microsoft came in last because their product is still adequate enough to be used. We should not rely too much on the antivirus anyway. Sure they detect malware and stuff, but by the time that happens it just a little too late in term of security concern. If a user really concerns about security, then the first step to be taken should be getting to know the networks and systems vulnerabilities and how to prevent hackers and malware related from taking advantage of the vulnerabilities. For example, a stand alone machine should use a NAT box so that the IP address becomes a non-routable address and that would keep the malicious programs from getting into the system, therefore you dont really need an antivirus. But that does not mean you should dismiss antivirus altogether. The only way for a malicious program to get to that machine is by tricking the user into going to a website with such program, so here, the user has to be smart in deciding what to download and which sites to go. But just in case that if the user made a mistake by going to a malicious site, then what better to use than antivirus. But still, antivirus should not play the major role is keeping your machine free from malware if you really concern about security.
But MS are not fixing the actual problem, they are just selling their own bandaid addon like other companies have been doing for years, only theirs is inferior to the ones already available.
This can only be bad for the consumer... MS now have a conflict of interest between improving the security of windows, or leaving it poor to encourage sales of onecare... Their product will also end up widely used despite the lack of quality, it will sell just like every other MS product simply because it gets pushed along with sales of window/office. The sales reps will start offering discounts against windows/office if they take onecare too, and the customers will consider it pointless to have 2 antivirus products and won't bother buying a third party one anymore.
Once all the other AV vendors are out of business, and all windows users are running onecare or nothing, the malware will have a much easier time of it because malware authors will now have a single known target.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I agree that norton can be a pig both while running and to uninstall. But symantec does have a utility on their web site that will rip it out for you if the uninstall is jacked up. It makes it pretty easy if you just try the uninstall and it fails - go straight to their utility and Norton will be gone.
I'd like to know which of the highly rated products won't "Norton" the performance of my system... My ideal AV would be lean as well as mean. Who in their right mind wants a 99% sol'n that halves the performance of their system?