Av-comparatives: Most Antivirus Programs Are 'Trivial'

This updated guide examines Av-comparatives: Most Antivirus Programs Are 'Trivial' and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

The independent organization that evaluates the AV-Comparatives antivirus program (Austria) has just released a report on the results of the evaluation, testing the 16 most popular antivirus software in the world such as Avast Professional Edition 4.8, AVG Anti-Virus 8.5, AVIRA AntiVir Premium 9.0, Defender Anti-Virus 2010, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010, Kingsoft AntiVirus 9, McAfee VirusScan Plus 2009, Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0, Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010.

Tests and evaluations focus on the ability to detect, kill the infected code and clean the computer system after infection, but the main goal is still the ability to kill the malicious code, viruses of the this program.

Based on the transcripts and test results of the experts, the first conclusion that AV-Comparatives made is that no antivirus program is rated as ' very good ' on the two main criteria of elimination. Virus and then clean up the ruins that it leaves.

More sadly, only 3 programs of eScan, Symantec and Microsoft firms are rated 'good' on both criteria above. " Some programs do not" clean up "the sequela that the virus leaves in the Windows registry system. For end users, this is not very important and may not affect them directly but with Security experts, it is very important because cleaning up the traces of the virus left in the registry will help prevent the infection from coming back to those viruses ', wrote AV-Comparatives report..

And yet, some software cannot detect the parameters in the registry has been changed or not and the change is due to viruses or user or third party software impact.

Below is an overall rating of 16 software based on 2 criteria: removing the malicious code and cleaning the system ( good : good; average : poor : weak)

See the full AV-Comparatives report here. (PDF)