AV-Comparatives Testing – 2012 Mash-up

The table below combines results from four different tests from AV-Comparatives.  Through the wonders of Excel, I was able to calculate a simple average and sort the results, first by result, and by alphabetical order.  There was quite a range in the results.  Great consistency among the top finishers, though.  Test results used in  the table were from:

• Whole Product Dynamics Real World Protection Test, March through June 2012
• Antivirus Comparative -   On Demand Detection of Malicious Software, March 2012
• Antivirus Comparative - Retrospective/Proactive Test, July 2012
• Antiphishing Test, July 2012

Congrats to the top finishers!  Kaspersky finished no lower than third in any of the tests, BitDefender seventh, and F-Secure, fifth.  I’m intentionally not showing a table of the raw data.  Blogs about each test are available, and the complete tests are on the AV-comparatives (www.av-comparatives.org ) web site. 

AV-Comparatives named Kaspersky Product of the Year for 2011.  Other top rated products, in alphabetical order,  were from Avira, BitDefender, Eset, and F-Secure.  Based on testing to date, there may be some changes at the end of the year.

Vendor  in the table   (listed   for Google purposes) are: F-Secure, G Data, BullGuard, Avira, Panda, Avast, ESET,  QiHoo, Sophos, eScan, PC Tools, McAfee, AVG Technologies, Microsoft, Tencent, GFI, Trend Micro, Fortinet, Webroot, and AhnLab.

About AV-Comparatives www.av-comparatives.org

AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization, which provides independent antivirus software tests free to the public.  Go to the AV-comparatives website for complete details about the organization, the many tests they perform, and to download copies of test reports.

Avast Thursday Initial Public Offering Postponed

 From the Original Post - Updates at End of Blog

Antivirus software company Avast will have their Initial Public Offering (IPO) Thursday.  The ticker symbol will be AVST. The roadshow is about at an end! Palo Alto Networks' successful IPO Friday suggests that the IPO  market may be open again.

Avast plans to offer 9 million shares at between $9 and $11 each with this IPO. The price  may be tweaked on Wednesday. The lead underwriters for the IPO are UBS Investment Bank, Deutsche Bank Securities and Jefferies & Co.  Avast uses the freemium strategy for their antivirus software. Avast  develops anti-virus software, specializing in a free version of its product used by consumers. They then offer  upgrades that can be purchased.  Avast is number one in OPSWAT’s most recent world wide industry market share analysis for antivirus software. www.opswat.com

 

James Krapfel of Morningstar said Avast is going public at a time when “the company’s software is installed on 20% of the worldwide consumer and small business PCs.” Krapfel called Avast “a higher quality peer” to rival AVG Technologies AVG  with sales growing at twice AVG’s annual rate.

  

Below is a summary of some of their financial data, revenue, income, etc. Click on it to enlarge.

Avast’s freemium competitors include Avira, AVG Technologies, PC Tools, and Panda.  Microsoft offers a free version of antivirus but no paid versions.  The Avast current installed base in about 159 million. They most recently had 1.72 million downloads on www.download.cnet.com   last week.  

 July 29 updates - Avast was the most popular free  antivirus download on CNET  for the week ending July 29, with 1.69 million downloads.


Updates


 July 30 update - Avast was the most downloaded free AV product on download.com for the week ending July 29 with 1.69 million downloads.

July 25 update - Avast Software  postponed its IPO on Wednesday evening, citing poor conditions. 

AVG Technologies executive JR Smith told  the Financial Times on Thursday that the  IPO situation for CEE tech companies is likely to get worse before it gets any better. “We are a European software company and we are pretty close to what is going on here, and start-ups and those companies looking for additional capital investment will find it tougher for sure over the next 12 to 18 months.”

The Avast  S-1 filed with the SEC   can be viewed at the link below.   Informative reading.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1537133/000104746912007168/a2210121zf-1a.htm

 

For more information, go to

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/07/avast-files-for-90-million-initial.html

 

Avast Files for $90 Million Initial Public Offering (IPO)

After first talking about going public in December, Avast filed an updated S-1   with the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission)  on July  12.  They’ll be trading on Nasdaq   under AVST.  The IPO (Initial Public Offering) will be for $90 million.  Anticipated offering price of the IPO, $9 to $11 per share.  The information in the S-1 lists  their installed base at about 159 million users.  The 190 million figures will probably be disappearing from their web site.  The definition resulting in 190 million may be different, however. When going IPO, accuracy in these docs is kind of importan. Legal people like that. 

Avast  may have wanted to go public earlier in the year.  The Facebook debacle temporarily  sucked the wind out of  the industry’s IPO sails.   The $90 million figure is down 55% from the $200 million figure that was floated earlier this year.  The bookrunners on the deal are   UBS Investment Bank, Deutsche Bank Securities, and Jefferies & Co.   

According to Renaissance Capital, by offering 9.0 million shares at a price range of $9.00 to $11.00, and at the midpoint of the proposed range, Avast Software will command a market value of $850 million.  IMHO, this sounds high.  AVG Technologies’ revenue run rate is approximately $300 million and with a more diversified revenue stream, they went public with a market capitalization of around $700 million.  Annualizing 2012 first quarter revenue of $27 million, and using a 5x multiple, gives a market cap of $540 million.  This is a crude methodology (first link at the bottom of this blog for details). Look for the pricing to result in a positive “pop”.  Facebook lost quite a few friends following the plunge in their stock following opening day.  Negative pops - bad. Unlike.

The Avast  updated S-1 filed with the SEC   can be viewed at the link below.  There must be an unwritten rule that S-1 documents have to run about 160 pages,  before attachments.  The Avast S-1 is  approximately the same length as the S-1 filed by Palo Alto Networks.  The risk factors run about 25 pages.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1537133/000104746912007168/a2210121zf-1a.htm

Like their   Prague/Netherlands based competitor, AVG Technologies, Avast will officially be headquartered in the Netherlands.  “We are incorporated under the laws of the Netherlands and on this basis are subject to Dutch tax laws as a Dutch resident taxpayer.  We believe that we are resident solely in the Netherlands for tax purposes and that we, and in certain cases, the holders of our shares, can rely on this position for purposes of the application of tax treaties concluded by the Netherlands with other jurisdictions.  Read “Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich – Yummy Way For Corporations to Reduce Federal Taxes”.   http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/04/double-irish-with-dutch-sandwich-yummy.html

Additional verbiage, probably standard for non US based companies listing on Nasdaq – “As a foreign private issuer whose shares are listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, we have elected to follow certain home country corporate governance practices instead of certain NASDAQ requirements.” “We do not comply with all the provisions of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code.  This may affect your rights as a stockholder.”  These are explained in detail in the S-1.

According the June   2012 “OPSWAT Report on Worldwide Security Industry Market Share Analysis”, Avast is number one in worldwide antivirus market share.  Also in the top 5, Microsoft, Eset, Symantec, and AVG Technologies 

 http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-2012-opswat-report-on-worldwide.html .   

The Avast  free product received 3 stars (out of 3) and finished tenth out of twenty in the March “On-demand Detection of Malicious Software” test done by AV- Comparatives  www.av-comparatives.org .

Below is a snapshot of some of Avast’s financial data (revenue, income, etc.)  for the last several years (click on it to enlarge).  Like AVG, Avira, Microsoft, and PC Tools (somewhat quietly owned by Symantec),  Avast also uses a freemium model.

Avast has a corporate office just north of Silicon Valley in San Mateo, California.  A 20 mile hike to AT&T Ballpark,  for San Francisco Giants  baseball games.  AVG Technologies California employees?  They just have to walk across the street.  Very cool.

Don’t look for any of the Avast  officers or directors to be pictured wearing hoodies during the roadshow on the day they go  public.  The major stockholders are Eduard Kucera (30%), Pavel Baudis (30%), and Summit Partners (22.6%).  Let the public roadshow begin.  Hodně štěstí.  Pivo prosím.

For additional light reading:

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-would-avast-softwares-valuation-be.html

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/05/avast-gradually-moving-forward-with-ipo.html

 

 http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/12/avast-software-files-for-200-million.html
 

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/03/march-2012-opswat-report-on-worldwide.html

AV-Comparatives Malware Removal Test 2011

AV-Comparatives (www.av-comparatives.org) has released their Malware Removal Test December 2011. This test focused on the malware removal/cleaning capabilities of the products. Nothing to do with detection rates or protection capabilities. According to the organization, the report is aimed towards home users. Ten samples were used in the test with scoring done based on removal of the malware and how convenient it was to do the removal. Scales of A-D were used for this. In colloquial terms, how well is the malware (files, etc) cleaned up? Eighteen products were tested. The antivirus products were used.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/removal/avc_removal_2011.pdf

Four Companies Receive The Top Three Star Rating

Products from only four vendors received AV-Comparatives advanced 3 star rating. In order, these were - BitDefender, PC Tools, Kaspersky, and Symantec. BitDefender scored 92 points. Low score overall was 52 points.

BitDefender's business security product was named CRN's 2011 Product of the Year in a recent article.

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/channel-programs/232300166/the-best-products-of-2011.htm

Four vendors received two stars and ten vendors, one star. You’ll have to check out the report for the complete listing!

The report also contains a nice table providing links to some of the Free Removal-Tools for specific malware available from these vendors and whether a boot disk is available. Definitely worth checking out, and making copies as appropriate.

The vendors in the Malware Removal Test, alphabetically: Avast, Avg Technologies, Avira, BitDefender, Eset, F-Secure, G Data, K7, Kaspersky, Mcafee, Microsoft, Panda, PC Tools, Qihoo, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Webroot.

About AV-Comparatives

AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization, which provides independent Anti-Virus software tests free to the public.

Go to the AV-comparatives website for complete details about the organization, the many tests they perform, and to download copies of test reports.

www.av-comparatives.org

AV-Comparatives Retrospective Test (static detection of new/unknown malicious software) – May 2011

AV-Comparatives has released an update to their latest Retrospective Test (static detection of new/unknown malicious software) – May 2011. Twelve vendors are included in the report. Only two vendors achieved the Advanced Plus (three star rating). In order, they were Avira and Kaspersky.

The top four vendors for proactive detection of new malware were G Data, Eset, Avira, and Kaspersky.

Vendors declining to participate in this test were in alphabetical order, Avast, AVG Technologies, K7, McAfee, PC Tools, Symantec, Trend Micro and Web Root. Twelve is probably the lowest number of vendors tested recently by AV-Comparatives.

Av-Comparatives goes into great detail in their document as to why these vendors may have passed on participating on this particular test. Among the reasons: real life capabilities would not be adequately represented in the test due to the absence of (a) a live Internet connection or because URL blocking was not considered. There's always the "if you know you may not perform well in a specific test...." Go to page 4 of the report for additional details.

In order to get comparable results, AV-comparatives tested all products with the highest settings, unless there were advised otherwise by the vendors. In the cloud functionality, was not used during this test. To view the report, go to
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf

AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization, which provides independent Anti-Virus software tests free to the public. 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 (AMTSO), www.amtso.org

PC World, PC Magazine, and About.com Internet Security Suite 2011 Results in One Table

The table below consolidates the summary scores of PC World’s “Battle of the Security Superpowers”, PC Magazine’s "Best Security Suites for 2011”, and about.com’s Best Internet Security suites round-ups into a single table.

This table should be looked at in conjunction with the round-ups by the three publications .The PC Magazine "Best Security Suites for 2011" reviews also contain links to comprehensive malware blocking, malware removal, antispam, antiphishing, and performance (boot time, browsing, file move/copy Windows Installer, zip/unzip) charts. One of the below links for PC World shows a comprehensive table summarizing the scores for all the tests in their round up. Within the about.com article, there are a number of links to reports by www.av-test.org.

The first column is the ranking that PC World gave the internet security products. In almost all cases, PC World was more generous in their scoring than PC Magazine. The largest differential was 1.50 with PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2011. This may be because the reviewer found that PC Tools missed a number of phishing sites, the suite's firewall, its antispam capabilities, and that malware interfered with the installation on one system. PCW = PC World, PCM = PC Magazine. The last three columns are the rankings and scores from about.com. The scores are out of 6. Where shown, the final average table is the average from all three publications. In these cases, a perfect score would be 5.33.

This table doesn't include Kaspersky Pure Total Security which received 4 stars in a February 2 PC Magazine review by Neil Rubenking. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2378961,00.asp



Webroot Internet Security Essentials was ranked 8 by about.com with a score of 4.25

Links to Full Articles

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/12/pc-world-battle-of-security-superpowers.html

PCW http://www.pcworld.com/article/21461/battle_of_the_security_superpowers.html

PCW http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=214618&page=1&zoomIdx=1

PCM http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,1639159,00.asp

About.com http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/tp/Best-Internet-Security-Suites-For-2011.htm?nl=1

PC Advisor Consumer Internet Security Reviews - 2011

Below is a summary table giving the rankings of a number of consumer internet security 2011 and AV 2011 products. Where the product is free, it will be in boldface.

Unlike PC World and PC Magazine, PC Advisor utilized a more narrow range of the 1 to 5 stars. Thee provides star ratings on ease of use, features, value for money, and overall. The reviews were written over a period of several months with the oldest coming out in the September 2010 timeframe, and the most recent, January 2011. Note that the table has both Internet Security suites and AV. Within a particular score of 1 to 5, products are sorted z to a.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm?prodcatid=31

The 1 through 4 below among the first 5 suites is where PC World ranked the products. For a summary PC World/PC Magazine table go to http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/12/pc-world-battle-of-security-superpowers.html or go to the summary blogs for each publication.


4.5 - PC Tools Internet Security 4 (PC World)
4.5 - Norton Internet Security 1 (PC World)
4.5 - Norton AV
4.5 - Kaspersky Internet Security 2 (PC World)
4.5 - BitDefender Internet Security 3 (PC World)
4.5 - BitDefender AV Pro
4.5 - Avast AV Free 5
4.0 - Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security
4.0 - Panda Internet Security
4.0 - MSE
4.0 - Kaspersky AV
4.0 - G-Data Internet Security
4.0 - G-Data AV
4.0 - F-Secure Internet Security
4.0 - Avira Free AV
4.0 - Avast Pro AV
3.5 - Panda Cloud Free
3.5 - Norman Security Suite
3.5 - McAfee Internet Security
3.5 - Eset Smart Security
3.5 - Comodo Internet Security
3.5 - Avira Antiv Security Suite
3.5 - AVG Internet Security
3.0 - Webroot Internet Security

PC World Battle of the Security Superpowers and PC Magazine Best Security Suites for 2011 Combined

The table below consolidates the summary scores of PC World’s “Battle of the Security Superpowers” and a portion of PC Magazine’s "Best Security Suites for 2011” round-ups into a single table.

This table should be looked at in conjunction with the round-ups by the two publications. The PC Magazine "Best Security Suites for 2011" reviews also contain links to comprehensive malware blocking, malware removal, antispam, antiphishing, and performance (boot time, browsing, file move/copy Windows Installer, zip/unzip) charts. One of the below links for PC World shows a comprehensive table summarizing the scores for all the tests in their round-up.

The first column is the ranking that PC World gave the internet security products. In almost all cases, PC World was more generous in their scoring than PC Magazine. The largest differential was 1.50 with PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2011. This may be because the reviewer found that PC Tools missed a number of phishing sites, the suite's firewall, its antispam capabilities, and that malware interfered with the installation on one system. PCW = PC World, PCM = PC Magazine.

Both publications gave Norton Internet Security Suite 2011 their top ranking at the time the products were tested. PC Magazine's review of Norton Internet Security 2011 was one of the publication's top 10 reviews for 2010, according to their readers. The link below takes you to the article, the slide show and links to each of the 10 reviews:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374759,00.asp












Additional internet security suites tested by PC Magazine during the latter half of 2010 not in the table above include, in no particular order: TrustPort Total Protection 2011, BullGuard Internet Security Suite 10, eScan Internet Security Suite 11, AVG Internet Security 2011, Webroot Internet Security Complete 2011, and Ad-Aware Total Security 1.0. More than one of these suites received 2.5 stars, or less. Internet security suites tested and reviewed by PC Magazine during the first half of 2010 but aren't included in the list above. None of these companies went through an initial public offering (IPO) during 2010.

The PC Magazine reviews also discuss functionality such as firewalls, network management, privacy, parental controls, online back-up, data theft protection, full disk encryption, sandbox, and other features that vary by suite.

PC World Battle of the Security Superpowers and PC Magazine Best Security Suites of 2011

These links take you to the full articles.

PCW http://www.pcworld.com/article/21461/battle_of_the_security_superpowers.html
PCW http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=214618&page=1&zoomIdx=1
PCM http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,1639159,00.asp

Addendum - Information Security Magazine - Best Antimalware Security Products, September 2010

Information Security Magazine surveyed readers in a number of different security categories for their Readers' Choice Awards. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/magazineFeature/0,296894,sid14_gci1519600_mem1,00.html

In the Antimalware category, Kaspersky Open Space Security, Cisco Security Agent, and Symantec Endpoint Protection were awarded Gold, Silver, and Bronze, respectively.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/magazineFeature/0,296894,sid14_gci1519605_mem1,00.html