Virus Bulletin VB100 Awards – August 2012

Virus Bulletin has released their latest VB100 awards results for August.  Fifty-one participants were tested.  The test was done on Windows 7.  This could be the last time the test is done on this platform?  The previous  test was done on Windows Server 2008.   Given the timing of this test, products used were essentially 2012 versions.As has been the case for several years, Symantec and Trend Micro were not part of the test. PC Tools, owned by Symantec, was.

About a third of the products tested failed to receive a VB100 award this time.   A cone of shame to the following - Agnitum, Central Command, CMC Internet Security, Comodo (interesting), Defenx, eEYE, ESTsoft, Filselab, GFI VIPRE, Ikarus, iolo, Lavasoft (Ad-Aware, the free antivirus version is typically a  CNET download Top 20  favorite), Optent, Quick Heal ,Roboscan,  and VirusBuster.  AVG Technologies, Commtouch, and TrustPort redeemed themselves from the last test.  

A summary of the results is at the link below.  You can   buy the full test results or subscribe to Virus Bulletin for the full results, as well.

 https://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/test?recent=1

 

Results from this should be looked at in conjunction with tests from other test groups such as www.av-test.org   and www.av-comparatives.org .  Also,   it’s not how the company has performed on the VB100 test over years.  It’s only the last couple of years that are relevant.  Though ESET’s record of 74 and 2 is quite impressive.

VB100 Test Methodology

The purpose of the VB100 comparative is to provide insight into the relative performance of the solutions taking part in the tests, covering as wide a range of areas as possible within the limitations of time and available resources.  More details are available at

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/about/methodology.xml

UK based Virus Bulletin  started in 1989.  They provide  PC users with a regular source of intelligence about computer viruses, their prevention, detection, and removal, and how to recover programs and data following an attack.  The Virus Bulletin website is at www.virusbtn.com

  

Internet Security Tag Line Quiz –Second Edition

This is the second edition of  the Match the AV, Internet Security Company to the Tag Line" quiz.  Match the company name in the second column with the tagline in the third column.  Several leading vendors aren’t included in the quiz.  Their tag lines didn’t jump out at me.  Demerits to their marketing teams. Test your tag line acumen.  Win bar bets.  Impress your Linked In friends.  It’s IPO,  meaning -  it’s partially original.  Light reading.  Make a slide deck and test your peers.  Note, these are as of September 10.  One rule of thumb for tag lines is that the tag line should be no more than seven words.  Most of these qualify.

In the quiz - Ad Aware, Avast, Avg Technologies, BitDefender, Comodo, F-Secure, G Data, Kaspersky, McAfee, Panda,  Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro,  and TrustPort.You can click on the grid to enlarge it.

As with last year’s quiz, there’s no guarantee that this will cure your insomnia.  One thing this quiz will demonstrate is how interchangeable (or indistinguishable) tag lines are. This isn’t a good thing.  So, you folks in charge of these, get with the program.  For example – which company has “The Ultimate Driving Machine”?  Be memorable! In playing around on the internet (though not with the above), it's surprising how often multiple companies appear to have trade marked or think they have trade marked, tag lines.  The United States Patent and Trademark Office (within North America, anyway), should be your friend.

  

Answers

Ad Aware – Leaner. Meaner, Faster; Avast – Be free; Avg Technologies – Ultimate protection; BitDefender – Ultimate silent security; Comodo – Creating trust online; F-Secure – Best protection in the world; G Data – Comprehensive instant protection; Kaspersky – Safeguarding me; McAfee – All your devices. All your stuff. All protected; Panda – The cloud security company; Sophos – Protecting every part of your business; Symantec – Advanced internet and antivirus protection; Trend Micro – Securing your journey to the cloud; TrustPort – Keep IT Secure

Best Antivirus Software - Readers Choice Awards 2011 – Antivirus.about.com

Mary Landesman and About.com have announced their Readers Choice Awards for Antivirus, Internet Security Suites, and Free Antivirus. The complete text and link to the article is below. These are popularity contests and don’t reflect the ability of the software to actually stop anything (though one would think that that’s what readers are interested in). For example, Rubenking of PC World tends to like Norton for their internet security suite. Comodo did win a www.download.com popularity context. The folks at Avira have to be pleased with the results below. No details on the number of participants, whether people could vote more than once, etc.

http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/ss/Best-Antivirus-Software-Winners_2.htm

Best Windows Antivirus for 2011

• GFI VIPRE Antivirus: 44%
• Avira AntiVir Premium: 28%
• ESET NOD32 Antivirus: 18%
• ZoneAlarm Antivirus: 6%
• Norton AntiVirus: 3%

Best Internet Security Suite for 2011

Some surprises in this table.

• Comodo Internet Security: 42%
• Panda Global Protection: 26%
• ESET Smart Security: 25%
• Kaspersky Internet Security: 4%
• Norton Internet Security: 3%

Best Free Antivirus

• Avira AntiVir Personal: 62%
• Avast! antivirus: 13%
• Microsoft Security Essentials: 10% (how did they do this?)
• AVG Free: 9%
• Panda Cloud Antivirus: 6%

People looking at the above, may want to look go to www.virusbtn.com , www.av-test.org, and www.av-comparatives.org prior to making a purchase decision or downloading. Alternatively, look at relevant blogs on this site! Go to www.kensek.blogspot.com to view results from these blogs, including tables showing the rankings of the antivirus and internet security suite products for 2012 that PC World has tested and reviewed, cross tabbed against some of the test organization's results. It is well worth reading Rubenking's reviews after looking at the rankings. http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-internet-security-suites-2012-pc.html . There are also reviews on www.download.com by Rosenblatt.

Interop Las Vegas 2011, Best of Interop – IV

Traffic was good but not packed, at Interop Las Vegas on Wednesday. The Gigamon presentation was well attended over the course of the day. Their big giveaway was an Apple Airtouch.

“Virtual” seems to be the second work bubbling up at Interop Las Vegas, after the word “cloud”. It seems to be an unwritten requirement at the show.

Sound bites from some of the internet security vendors. ESET pushed their consecutive number of VB100 awards (and got testy when asked if awards and results more than three years old really made a difference). Test results they were showing were 1+ years old. Comodo was pleased with their survey results. GFI and Comodo both talked about how user interfaces were as important as “capture rates”. Trend Micro had their presence in the Cisco booth, talking about the Cisco ASA 5500 and their own content security software.

Watchguard mentioned their 2-year relationship with AVG Technologies and having AVG technology under the hood for their security appliances. Watchguard uses a different vendor for email gateway security.

The name of the game among a number of vendors was WAN acceleration. Secure web gateways were being shown on the floor as were NGFW’s, next generation firewalls.

On Wednesday, the energy level picked at 3 o’clock for the pub-crawl. Sizable amounts of alcohol seemed to be consumed.

The “vendor” party was held Wednesday evening. It had a sort of 80’s theme, and was held in Haze, one of the clubs at the new Aria Casino. It got crowded after 10. Some of the cocktail servers were channeling Devo with red flowerpots on their heads. Madonna songs played frequently.

The Best of Interop 2011

InformationWeek Analytics had 135 finalists for the Best of Interop awards. Below is a listing of the winners. For the complete article, a list of the finalists, and more information, go to http://www.bestofinterop.com/winners/

• Best of Interop (Overall) and Cloud Computing Category Winner - VMware - VMware vCenter Operations Standard 1.0
• Collaboration - Vidyo Inc. - VidyoMobile
• Data Center & Storage - Alcatel-Lucent – Alcatel-Lucent Data Center Switching Solution Blueprint
• Infrastructure - NEC Corporation – NEC ProgrammableFlow Switch
• Network Management, Monitoring and Testing - BreakingPoint Systems, Inc. - BreakingPoint FireStorm CTM
• Performance Optimization - Talari Networks - Mercury T750 APN Appliance
• Security - Barracuda Networks, Inc. - Barracuda Flex
• Wireless & Mobility - Citrix Systems - Citrix Receiver for the iPhone
• Best Start-Up - Ciphertex Data Security

You would have to say that traffic was overall, okay. Perhaps akin to that of people strolling along Claude Debussylaan. The lunches are probably better at Bolenius than inside the exhibition hall at Interop Las Vegas.

Interop Las Vegas 2011 – III

It was a low-key day at Interop Las Vegas the first day the exhibition hall was open. One thinks that that this year’s Interop may be a bit slow when they have drawings for iPads at the keynote. The giveaway du jour at this year’s event is remains the iPad, similar to RSA San Francisco, several months ago.

Traffic on Interop Las Vegas exhibition floor seemed okay, though not stupendous. Rows began with 500, rather than 100. Interesting… Best tchotchke? A car giveaway is going on. The iPad giveaway seems to be fairly common. Shirts are not as prevalent as they once were.

McAfee put out a press release about their cloud security platform but were referring people to their parent company, Intel, to learn about it. Perhaps it was discussed during the presentations. Riverbed Technology and Akamai announced a partnership. Results of this partnership will not be seen until 2012. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/10/akamai_riverbed_cloud_optimizer/ . Trend Micro? No booth but they were talking about their cloud offering in the Cisco booth and will be giving a session on “The Evil Hack in the Sky, Cloud Security”, on Wednesday. Blue Coat Systems is leading three sessions, “The New Age of Wan Optimization” (Thursday), “Breakthrough Wan Technologies” (Wednesday), and “Cloud, Video and Internet: Redefining the Requirements for WAN Optimization” (Wednesday). Blue Coat also had a pair of press releases on Tuesday, “Blue Coat breaks the Barrier for Public Cloud Optimization” and “Blue Coat Defines Next Generation WAN Optimization”.

Workouts people could have at the show for prizes? Virtual boxing, putting, riding a mechanical bull, and racing miniature racecars.

Internet Security vendors ESET, Comodo, McAfee, and G Data were all within close proximity of one another on the floor. No barbs were being thrown. ESET had the largest booth and tallest employee. Comodo seemed to be talking partnerships.

If you had to pick one booth for having the hired booth staff that most epitomized Las Vegas? Securence.

Wednesday should be the busiest day on the show floor in the afternoon with the 3:00 to 5:00pm pub-crawl.

They keynote panel on Wednesday “How to Avoid Post Cloud Traumatic Stress Disorder”. Representatives from Citrix, Terremark Worldwide, and Rackspace Hosting will be on the panel. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php

Interop Las Vegas 2011 - II

Attendees and vendors have started to flow in to Las Vegas for Interop Las Vegas 2011. Should have placed “something” on the Mavericks. Monday is the big set-up day for exhibitors. The exhibition part of Interop is Tuesday through part of Thursday with Thursday afternoon being when the “trading of the tchtotchkes” among vendors will occur. For those who haven’t tired of that yet.

In perusing titles of presentations to see what the key topics will be, “cloud” does appear to be one of them. Of course, having its own track does give cloud an advantage. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/cloud-computing.php .

The first keynote at Interop Las Vegas on Tuesday also points in the direct of cloud, cloud computing, and cloud security being hot topics. “Change the Rules of Networking to Enable the Cloud” is the topic by Hewlett Packard’s Dave Donatelli. Microsoft’s Zane Adams will be speaking on “Public Cloud: The Transformational Opportunities Ahead" on Tuesday. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php .

Correction to previous blog. Symantec does not have a formal booth presence at Interop Las Vegas. Under Huawei Symantec, yes. http://www.huaweisymantec.com/en/ . Comodo, voted the top free Internet Security Suites in a decidedly unscientific poll by download.com will be present in booth 757. That’s 2/3 of a very popular number in Las Vegas. http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/03/comodo-internet-security-suite-tops.htm . The Czech Trade Promotion Agency has a booth presence at Interop Las Vegas to promote international trade and cooperation between Czech and foreign companies. Booth 1965-D.

No IPO (initial public offering) sharks seen today. The only visible sharks were the ones in the Mandalay Bay Shark Exhibit. The first Interop Las Vegas package arrived under the door Sunday evening. There will be more.

Free vs. Fee: Free and Paid Antivirus Programs Compared – PC World Antivirus Review

PC World has published their Top 5 lists of free and paid antivirus products for 2011. The article is available both online and in the January issue of PC World.

Among the criteria used to rate the products were: antivirus detection, infection cleanup, scan speed, and design. For more extensive details, comprehensive test results, and links to reviews of the products tested, people should go to:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/210589/free_vs_fee_free_and_paid_antivirus_programs_compared.html

Ratings of Free Antivirus Tested

4.5 – Avast Free Antivirus 5
4.0 - Avira AntiVir Personal Free AntiVirus 10
4.0 - Microsoft Security Essentials
3.5 – Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 (version 1.3 is now available)
3.5 – Comodo Internet Security Premium 5.0

Ratings of Paid Antivirus Tested

4.5 – Norton Antivirus 2011
4.5 – BitDefender Antivirus Pro 2011
4.0 – Avast Pro Antivirus 5
4.0 – G Data AntiVirus 2011
4.0 – Kaspersky Lab Anti-Virus 2011

For the testing, PC World teamed up with AV-test.org. AV-test.org is a member of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization www.amtso.org

The article didn't make clear how the products were selected for testing. For example, not included in the above - AVG Technologies, McAfee, Trend Micro, and Webroot, to name just a few.

Individuals evaluating products should look at the reviews of the individual products in conjunction with reviews published from other publications, as well.