AV Comparatives’ November Test Results For Anti-Virus Software (Proactive/Retrospective Test)

In December, testing organization AV Comparatives published their latest Proactive/Retrospective test report. This was for the on-demand detection of viruses/malware. This is one of a number of tests they perform throughout the year. The report constitutes the second part of the August 2010 test.

For the proactive detection of new malware, the top 6 performers overall (combination of proactive detection of new malware and false positives) were:

1. G DATA – 62%
2. Panda – 61%
3. Avira - 59%
3. Kaspersky – 59%
5. TrustPort – 58%
5. Sophos - 58%

G DATA, Panda, Kaspersky, and TrustPort were all in the top 5 in the previous report. Sophos jumped up 10 spots.

Companies receiving “Advanced+ Certification” (3 stars) for their products in the Retrospect/Proactive Test were – G DATA, Avira, Sophos, ESET, F-Secure, BitDefender, eScan, Microsoft, and Symantec.

There are many reasons a firm may select not to participate. These could include:

1. Don’t feel the test reflects real world
2. Methodology (in the retrospective test, there were no live internet connections, for example)
3. Results in previous test
4. New release coming out before test report is issued (though some products weren’t “2011” releases such as TrustPort)

Companies in the August report that do not appear in the latest report, for whatever reason (revision December 6), in alphabetical order are – AVG Technologies, Kingsoft, McAfee, Norman and Trend Micro.

People should go to the AV Comparatives website and download the complete report for comprehensive test results and test details. For each test, it’s important to note what is and isn’t included. Many of the products tested utilize additional protection features (such as behavior blockers) to protect against new/unknown malware. AV Comparatives’ test evaluated the offline heuristic/generic detection capabilities of the products against unknown /new malware, without executing it or submitting anything online. www.av-comparatives.org

Note that there are other testing organizations as well. Individuals and companies evaluating AV and Internet Security SW should also look at the others, at reviews, round-ups, and group tests performed by reputable testing organizations, and technology publications. For information on testing best practices, people can go to the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization website, www.amtso.org