An Interesting Time in the Internet Security Suite and Antivirus World

So, Intel announces that they are going to be putting more security on their chip with software supplied by wholly owned subsidiary McAfee. This has to be interesting to the EU. At the same time, McAfee failed the most recent test by AV-test.org. Look for DeepSafe later this year http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110914-708402.html

Microsoft has started writing about Windows 8 and how they plan to add more security to the software. Can you say Microsoft Security Essentials? Microsoft Security Essentials has acquired nice market share on the www.opswat.com market share reports, but they have not been receiving stellar reviews. I asked ESET employees about this at a recent security show. They didn’t have anything in particular to say.

PC Magazine has been busy for the last couple of months since consumer internet security vendors have been releasing their paid and free antivirus 2012 and internet security 2012 solutions.

You look at downloads on www.download.com and the number of downloads from the top free vendors has dropped by “a lot”. There are a number of reasons for this, including switching where the downloads are coming from, to different servers, fewer malware attacks, less product churn, more upgrades... AVG Technologies and Avast are within 56k downloads on this site for the week ending September 17.

It’s hard to tell how the internet security suite vendors feel about reviews from www.download .com. Doing a search on the first 10 under “Free Antivirus” based on downloads last week: Two 5 star reviews, PC Tools and Threatfire, four 4.5 stars, AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2012, Avast Free Antivirus, Avira Antivir Personal, and Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition are up there. Some paid versions seem to have worked their way in. You’ll have to read the extensive reviews to determine how one 4.5 star product is better than another. It's worth the effort.

Of course, you can’t tell a lot from an internet security provider’s fan page. The fans have never met a like button they could not hit.

It will probably be another month or two before av-comparatives.org will release a test involving the 2012 products.

Avast, F-Secure, McAfee, Sophos, and Webroot (alphabetical order) cannot be happy about how they finished in www.av-test.org ‘s Whole Product Dynamic Tests for the month of August. Trend Micro, on the other hand, has to be quite pleased.

Some of the antivirus and internet security vendors are respectfully not participating in some third party tests. I would conjecture on this in more detail in that they disagree with the test methodology but my humble budget does not include paying for a food tester.

UK publication PC Pro (www.pcpro.co.uk) hasn’t done a lot with 2012 internet security and antivirus products yet. Perhaps in a few months.

Over the past year, reviewers have started to incorporate more data from www.av-test.org, www.av-comparatives.org and www.virusbtn.org . Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This must be purely coincidental ;). Cross-tabs and combining results from multiple test organizations can be enlightening.

So what does the above mean, besides that there's a reason not to have had caffeinated coffee at Starbucks after 8pm? Time to spend some musings in other areas like virtual appliances, higher level strategies, why HP has hired Meg Whitman, the recent SecureWorld expo, and will Intel’s Dave Dewalt make an appearance at McAfee’s event in Vegas (you can probably take that one to the bank, baby!). Theatre reviews written recently won’t be ported to this blog.

October 12 - Editors Choice PC Magazine – The Wisdom of Crowds

Neil Rubenking from PC Magazine has named his Editors Choice awards for best Free Antivirus 2012, paid best Antivirus 2012 and best Internet Security Suites 2012 solutions.

• Free Antivirus – AVG Free Anti-Virus 2012, AVG Technologies
• Paid Antivirus – Norton Antivirus 2012, Symantec
• Paid Antivirus – Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus 2012
• Internet Security – Norton Internet Security 2012, Symantec

To see PC Magazine’s rankings of the Best Antivirus 2012 and Best Internet Security 2012 solutions, go to http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-antivirus-software-2012-pc.html and http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-internet-security-suites-2012-pc.html respectively . Additions will be made to these sites.

Go to http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392456,00.asp for the Norton Internet Security review.

Go to http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393678,00.asp for the Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus review.

An ouch for AVG Technologies is a false positive in the latest VB100 tests from Virus Bulletin. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/summary . Nice streak of 21 VB100 awards in a row prior to the August test, though.

Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki – You Have to Remember the Conditions

“The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations” is a great book written by James Surowiecki. In the book, he argues that “under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them."

This may work for crowds designing internet search engines, guessing the weight of a wild boar, or guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar. It may not work for selecting the best antivirus or internet security solution. There are four conditions from Surowiecki not mentioned by people for this to work. The “wise” crowds need:

(1) diversity of opinion
(2) independence of members from one another
(3) decentralization
(4) a good method for aggregating opinions

Fan pages on internet security solution providers don’t represent a diversity opinion in selecting a “best internet security solution” or "best antivirus solution". Gazillions of the fans have never met a like button they wouldn’t push. They’ve self selected onto a fan page. You could argue that they are decentralized. However, they are receiving constant reinforcement from their fellow Facebook friends on the wisdom of their decisions. Avoiding buyer’s remorse is another topic. Internet surveys on voting for the best solution are a popularity contest with people able to “dial in” multiple times.

In the end, should one need surgery, want advice on an automobile, or want advice on the best internet security, it may be best to rely on the wisdom of a relative few qualified pundits who are given free reign to express their opinions. Web sites that list “Top 10 Somethings” may not be the most objective if participation requires pay to play.

Another great book – “How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer.