av-comparative.org Retrospective / Proactive Test May 2007

The report (in .pdf format) is worth reading:
http://www.av-comparatives.org//seiten/ergebnisse/report14.pdf

 

I can't help but notice that AVG has lost its certification, due to a low detection rate and a high false positive rate. I've had reservations about AVG for some time now. For those wanting a good free AV, I still recommend Alwil's Avast or AntiVir's Avira. 

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Gmanson wrote:
Does this mean that AVG Free is not worth recommending and having/getting?

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Bear in mind that the version of AVG tested by av-comparatives was their AVG Anti-malware, not AVG-Free. So I'm extrapolating from the paid version to the Free, in my assesment (and I'm assuming both versions use the same detection methods).

 

I abandoned AVG Free some time back, mainly on the advice of experts I trust, in favor of Avast, and subsequently AntiVir PE Classic.Then I ran across the following evaluation of the free AVs, from a respected site, that only re-inforced my opinion that AVG was not perhaps the best free AV available:
http://wiki.castlecops.com/AntiVirus_Comparison

 

But to answer your question, I would say that I can no longer recommend AVG Free. Not when independent tests consistently rate it below the other free AVs. This latest comparison from av-comparatives is the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.

 

Just my 2 cents, of course.

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Gmanson wrote:
AVG does have boot scanning but doesnt it use the most less of resources than AVast and the other one on that page? I might switch to Avast Free because it keeps repeatly picking up ntoskrnl.exe and user32.dll on lots of other pcs and my friends have reported it on the forums but all it does is constantly changes it. Why should it even be picked up only by doing a defrag/cleanup or a restart?

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I'm sorry, but I don't understand anything you said above.

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stan_1936 wrote:

Yes!!! ESET NOD32 is number 1.........

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Joe,

 

I think we may be comparing some "apples and oranges" here:

 

The February test, Anti-Virus Comparative, seems to be searching for all forms of virus/malware... with almost 500,000 items in the test's database.

The May test, Proactive Detection of "NEW" samples, unless I'm misinterpreting it, is essentially a test of only heuristic-type methods, and has a much smaller database of just over 20,000 items.

 

In fact, using AVG as an example, please note that the Feb.  and the May tests both use the same program version 7.5.441 and update version 268.17.20 / 664....

( the current [8 June '07] versions are 7.5.472 and 269.8.11 / 838 respectively, at least for the A-V)

yet AVG was rated "ADVANCED" in Feb, while the same version "FAILED" in May.  

 

In other words, rather than concluding that AVG has declined over the past few months, my understanding is that two completely different aspects were being tested here.

Your points are well-taken, David, and underscore the need to examine exactly what is tested, and how. AV-comparatives always alternates its tests between the "on-demand" and the "Retrospective/proactive", which are completely different animals.

 

My intention was not to imply that AVG had deteriorated with time, but to compare certification levels achieved over time, which gives one a better picture than a single test, and a better way to compare AV products, at least as far as detection levels go.

 

AVG has been tested on 10 occasions by AV-Comparatives, since Feb/05. It failed the 'on-demand' test only once (Feb/05), but failed retrospective/proactive tests on 4/5 subsequent tests. All successful certifications for AVG over this time period were at the "Standard" level until  it achieved "Advanced" in Feb/07 for on-demand testing. You can view the summary for all AV products tested over time since 2004 here:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/overview.html

 

From this I conclude that AVG has actually improved its on-demand scanner, yet remains a poor proactive scanner, which Grisoft has not addressed/improved over a 2 year period. In the May/07 proactive test, AVG failed because of its low detection rate, and high rate of false positives.

 

If you religiously keep your AVG updated, I'm not sure of the significance of this. The retrospective/proactive test gives an idea of how much an on-demand scanner that has not been updated detects new viruses that appeared over a 3 month period. It tests both heuristic and generic detection capabilities. Those interested can read more about the methodology used here:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse/methodology.pdf

 

Nonetheless, to even be included in these tests requires meeting high standards; these are all good products. I used AVG for about 5 years without any virus infections, and only switched because of my perception there were better AVs out there that met my particular needs.

 

AV-comparatives itself states that AVs achieving a Standard or lower certification are suitable if they frequently achieve a  Virus Bulletin 100% award, which AVG Professional almost always does. (Although I note it failed the latest VB100 in June/07). By comparison, the avast! Professional version has achieved a VB100 every time since Nov/04 (14 tests), and Avira's AntiVir for XP has never failed.

 

 

 

 

Another point:

 

While Avira's AntiVir absolutely "killed" its free competition (Avast! and AVG, in descending order here) in terms of both proactive detection rate, as well as the speed of its scanning... making it highly desirable... it did so while generating even more false positives than AVG.  Consequently, rather than being awarded the Advanced+ (or at least the Advanced) rating that its detection rate/speed  warranted, it instead was rated only Standard ("as users can not rely on a heuristic that causes too many false alarms" ).

 

Yet Avast!, despite its much lower proactive detection rate, and its slower speed, earned an Advanced rating in this test.

 

Of course AVG failed.

 

In other words, despite all the many good points I'm seeing about Avira, one can't claim it's a clear-cut "victory".