Virus Bulletin's RAP testing

Teerex said:

This graph issued by Virus Bulletin confirms my long term suspicions - Microsoft has moved far ahead of everyone in proactive detection with the Forefront engine, while Symantec has kept pace with the reactive (specific signature based) detection, but SONAR (1 or 2) and Insight are not doing a good enough job. I'll be waiting for Symantec to get better for some time, but if it doesn't, I'm jumping ship. Microsoft seems to have a very good team in place.

Hi all

This Data is NO USE at all in Nov 2009 -- It's a bit like Economic data -- by the time its published it's HOPELESSLY OUT OF DATE and circumstances will totally have changed as new Viruses are found and detection against old ones found.

(Incidentally how can I trust that type of article when it doesn't match up with what I've found out in the REAL world. It doesn't even mention Malwarebytes which managed to find something MSE didn't - although MSE was OK).

This is a fast moving target -- last month's or even worse last quarters results are really totally meaningless as any decent AV provider will be updating their databases regularly and your magazine can only publish info against KNOWN viruses - a dubious statistic in any case as by the time the article has been published different viruses requiring other / newer detection methods will have appeared rendering the old data obsolete.

The only value is that at period TTTT we can compare X against Y - but that does not mean at new period WWWW the graph of X against Y will be anything like the same. For example I'd expect MS to be able to update MSE far far quicker and distribute updates than say a smaller company.

It's a bit like any government saying there are xxxx illegal immigrants --- if they are illegal a large number will of course be "hidden" in the community and therefore how are any "official" statistics meaningful. -- Not making a political point - just describing what a load of B/S some statistics are and people should always UNDERSTAND exactly what the data being measured is.

Finally computer infection will depend on what the end user does such as what sites they visit and what they download and install and in this case the "best" protection that the magazine finds might not be the best protection for a particular end user.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there
Technically you are probably right but "Protection is protection" whatever the technical name is.

Actually in any case I rather suspect that "Malware" is a rather bigger problem than Viruses - especially when you consider the type of "Drive by" infection possibilities

Here's a little article from Swiss e-banking (when it comes to Banks I would trust the Swiss ).

Drive-by infections

There's also a link to some SAFE tools to check web sites and look at source code for those interested.


Cheers
jimbo

hi !

jimbo45: "It doesn't even mention Malwarebytes"

how could it have done that ?

Malwarebytes was not tested by VB100...

i had a quick look at trustport, their A/V cost 25 EURO.
that´s cheap compared to some of the others, and if it´s also good protection...

hackerman1 said:

hi !

jimbo45: "It doesn't even mention Malwarebytes"

how could it have done that ?

Malwarebytes was not tested by VB100...

Hi there - not sure exactly what point you are making but a magazine puporting to be a leader in its field should use ACCURATE and COMPLETE data.

Even a scan of these boards would yield a decent selection of what typical real world users have installed on their computers as their AV software so collecting a proper source of data isn't that difficult.

Not including in the test applications used by large numbers of people just confirms my point that the magazine article was a waste of time or just geared towards corporations who often purchase software for totally other reasons than sensible technical ones.

Cheers
jimbo.

hi !

"...not sure exactly what point you are making..."

really ?

they have not tested MBAM, so how could they have mentioned MBAM ?

however, i would also like to see A2 & MBAM in VB100 & AV-comparatives etc.
yes, i know it´s Antimalware and not A/V´s, but it would be interesting anyway....