AV-Comparatives Real World Protection Test – August to November 2015

Kaspersky and BitDefender topped twenty companies in AV-Comparatives Real World Protection Test, August to November 2015. These companies finished in the top two, receiving three stars. Both had only one compromised file. Six other companies received three stars over the test period.  Eight of the twenty companies in the test received two stars. Default settings were used for all products.

Trivia question – which North America based malware company received three stars?

Four companies merit the Hall of Shame award for the period, garnering one or zero stars. From the bottom up, ThreatTrack Vipre, Lavasoft, Quick Heat and BullGuard.   Banished to a timeout corner   for being in triple digits for wrongly blocked files – Mcafee, ThreatTrack, and Lavasoft.

An informative graphic in the report depicts the range of protection over the four-month period for each product. The top products were extremely consistent, which is what you would want in a security solution.  The bottom products, less so. 

Not all results are being provided because there is no charge for the report. It can be downloaded at http://www.av-comparatives.org/dynamic-tests/. You can also learn more about the test methodology in the fourteen-page report.  The products tested ranged from free antivirus to internet security suites.  Kudos to AV-Comparatives for detailing some of the statistics methodologies used in compiling their report. Your eyes won’t glaze over as you read about this.

As always, the top products may not be top in terms of number of “likes” they’ve received on their respective Facebook pages.  In  the denouement, should one give more weight to independent third party testing, or a fan club?

An interesting article to read by Adam Winn at San Francisco based OPSWAT,  (www.opswat.com) Sorry Symantec - Antivirus is Not Dead .  Today’s antivirus/malware protection utilizes more than just pattern files and heuristics.

Hall of Shame and timeout corners are not part of AV-Comparatives’ formal designations. You can learn about the organization at www.av-comparatives.org

The trivia question answer – none.  McAfee and Fortinet received two stars.