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Just a heads up for what it's worth: PC World once published AV rankings with a huge Norton display ad running up the side of the page.
Don't you think if there was a better AV for protection and performance we would know about it?
SourceWorking in the Microsoft Malware Protection Center must be tough. Here your company is among the biggest in the world, yet a little (but well-regarded) antivirus testing lab in Germany says your antivirus software doesn't cut the mustard. Not just once but twice in the last few months, Microsoft failed to receive certification from AV-Test.
Joe Blackbird, Program Manager at the Center, explained in a blog post that failing this test does not mean Microsoft's user aren't protected.
Um, ok, so since their customers hadn't encountered these particular zero day exploits, they are actually well covered...good logic
A Guy
Just a heads up for what it's worth: PC World once published AV rankings with a huge Norton display ad running up the side of the page.
Don't you think if there was a better AV for protection and performance we would know about it?
Errr, that doesn't change the message. Not saying people are not well protected by MSE, although other products managed to do well on the tests. But the reasoning on why they didn't do well is still flawed. And we do know about other AVs that perform better?
A Guy
I'm the first to admit I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So if anyone can enlighten, please do. Also from the article:
And from a Techspot article that gave a bit more info about repair and avoiding false detections:The test gives equal weight to three elements of security: protection (keeping new malware from infesting a clean system), repair (clearing out malware that's already present), and usability (doing the job without slowing the system or falsely accusing valid programs). Microsoft did OK in the repair and usability areas but got just 1.5 of 6 possible points for repair.
Microsoft Security Essentials fails AV-Test certification... again - TechSpotSecurity Essentials did fare well in removing infections from critical system areas (12 percent higher than the industry average) and received a perfect score for avoiding false detections. The software also placed third for overall usability and performance.
Here's my confusion. How can MSE score 12% higher than industry average for removing infections if it can't detect them in the first place? And get only 1.5 out of 6 points in the AV-Testing?
Not sure you meant that as a question but which would they be though? I've only heard this on rare occasion about Eset.
I still can't understand why every other superior tool would rise to the top here but no AV has except MSE. We do know MS's flagship OS better than anyone else.
I guess we do probably have a bias towards performance. Causing OS problems is surely a deal killer here.
There you go again marsmimar thinking. You do that a lot. It's a very good question.
How does it remove a infection it can't find. Doesn't add up with my 3 brain cell either.
Yeah they gave comodo 2012 the same rating as mse, they recommend to use avg instead lol. I really dislike avg, and won't use that. I cleaned a system with windows defender offline which is from Microsoft last week and it removed some ransomware off a pc that had fake police alerts about having to pay a fine.I was able to clean out everything else so it does the job. My friend clean his girlfriends computer with mse also and has no issues with it and even did a scan with malwarebytes which reported it to be clean. I think there biased towards companies that have subscriptions to pay for there anti virus to give them bigger ratings so ppl will be scared away from the free alternatives and use the pay only softwares.
It was not a question. In these tests, many AV programs perform better then MSE. You are looking at it from a different view. You see problems created by AV programs, so you rule them out because of that. But many, many people use them with no issues. I use Avast for instance, and it has never given me any problems, and has no effect on performance.
I will use an analogy. I am a TV tech. When people ask me which brand I would get, I am not just looking at which has a better picture, or even which are more reliable, but also how hard they are to fix when they have a problem. The majority of people have never had a problem with their TV, but I work on 8 or 9 TVs every weekday for 20+ years. How many 100's of millions of TVs haven't I seen?
I understand you like MSE because you have few, if any issues caused by it, but it doesn't mean it is the best AV program. I suspect the majority of users don't need the very best either, because their habits do not put them in a position to need that level of protection. Thus MS's explanation that these zero day samples have never shown up in their telemetry (although them having all this telemetry from their users is also a bit scary, another discussion no doubt). But if an AV program that tests better then MSE, does not give the user any problems, then it is a good choice for them. To not use them because there is a possibility they might cause problems is not the path most would choose. If they had issues, they could always switch.
I am not anti MSE, my choice of AV is not the top rated either, but since it works for me, and with no issues, I continue to use it. But the fact remains that that particular test company failed the program. That may not mean it is still not sufficient, but it does mean compared to other choices, it scored lower. A Guy
Hi there
C'mon guys this stuff is TOTAL and UTTER BOVINE SCATOLOGY.
Any sort of post analysis report isn't even worth using as toilet paper as a NEW ATTACK can appear at any time whatsoever rendering all the old stuff 100% irrelevant. It's the American football equivalent of Monday Morning quarterbacking.
Any A/V effectiveness comparison report is by nature of the beast totally OUT OF DATE by the time it appears and in any case only REAL TIME PROTECTION is worth considering. -- If you run a background job that tells you your computer is infected --what do you do next -- You don't know EXACTLY when it became infected or what the virus / malware has done.
Since AV software can never be 100% effective how is it people seem to believe that the removal process will itself be 100% OK -- and if the OS is infected would you trust that OS to work properly -- no IMO only a clean backup image or total OS re-install would suffice.
For Windows 8 the AV software is built right into the kernel itself -- although confusingly called Windows Defender which in W7 is rather an insipid piece of fairly useless software in W8 it's actually a re-worked version of MSE and is very effective. Also Ms updates this almost daily - whereas 3rd party suppliers have to "reverse Engineer" M/S's code to find their solution to a new threat (takes time) or use published Windows API's which any even starting hacker can exploit without any problems at all - so for Windows 8 the need for home users to have any 3rd party AV software these days is NOT NECESSARY.
For W7 MSE is still about as good as it gets for home users as MSE is being developed and strengthened all the time --it's the basis for W8.
W8 security IS important because of the next generation of W8 tablets and phones coming on stream -- smart phones currently have almost ZERO security -- Android leaks like a sieve so be VERY CAREFUL if making financial transactions by mobile --especially if using those scanning type of squares with your camera when buying services.
So while this is a W7 forum and a lot of users have no intention of going to W8 or hate it you can at least be glad of Ms's concern with W8 for mobile devices so that that MSE will continue to be an extremely important and robust product - even though the fundamental nature of security in W7 is different to W8 and unfortunately inherently not as secure.
In any case the best security is always YOURSELF - I know people who have used computers for over 40 years with no security whatsoever and have never to this day encountered a virus of any kind (wouldn't recommend that approach though).
As I've often said --for HOME users --not Corporate Lans where different issues apply the day of 3rd party A/V suppliers IS WELL AND TRUELY OVER. Especially as people move over to W8 and beyond.
Cheers
jimbo