New round of figures compare products to Microsoft baselines.
Independent test organization
AV-Test
has released its latest bimonthly report, covering 26 consumer products and nine business solutions. As in the
last report
,
Microsoft
solutions were considered a baseline level, although at least one product which scored lower than
Microsoft
was still awarded certification.
As usual, products were rated on a number of metrics, divided into three main categories covering ‘Protection’ (detection rates in a number of different malware-spotting tests), ‘Performance’ (speed measures) and ‘Usability’ (false positive measures). Up to six points were awarded for each part, for a possible total of 18, and in order to achieve certification 10 points were needed – with at least one in each section.
Removal and clean-up tests, formerly part of
AV-Test
‘s overall rating scheme, have been moved out to a separate, standalone test. The testing covered in this report took place through March and April 2013, on the
Windows XP
platform.
In the consumer set, top dogs were
Bitdefender
with 17 out of a possible 18 points.
Symantec
‘s
Norton
was not far behind with 16, while
Avast
‘s free solution and offerings from
F-Secure
and
Kaspersky
were also singled out for praise with 15.5 each.
AVG
‘s free edition and products from
Tencent
and
Webroot
scored 15, just ahead of
AVG
‘s
Internet Security
suite,
BullGuard
,
G Data
,
Panda
and
Qihoo
on 14.5.
A little off the pace were
Microworld
‘s
eScan
, the
now defunct
PC Tools Internet Security
, and
Trend Micro
‘s
Titanium Maximum Security
, all down on 14 points,
ESET
and
Norman
on 13, and
Avira
,
Check Point
‘s
Zone Alarm
,
Comodo
,
VIPRE
from
ThreatTrack Security
(formerly
GFI
),
Kingsoft
and
McAfee
were all looking rather shabby on 12.5.
Microsoft
‘s
Security Essentials
, considered the baseline for the test, scored 11.5, and lowly
AhnLab
trailed in well behind the competition on 10.5, just enough to scrape past the certification pass mark.
In the corporate part of the test,
F-Secure
came top with its
Client Security
taking 16.5 points, narrowly ahead of
Symantec
‘s
Endpoint Protection
which mangaed 16.
Webroot
‘s
SecureAnywhere
scored a creditable 15, with
Fortinet
and
Kaspersky Lab
both on 14.5 and
McAfee
and
Sophos
not far behind on 14.
Trend Micro
‘s
Office Scan
put in a rather disappointing showing with 12 points, just ahead of
Microsoft
‘s
System Center Endpoint Protection
which managed 11.5.
Full details of the test can be found at the AV-Test.org website
here
.
AV product testing in general tends to be a topic that sparks heated discussion and debate within the industry – several presentations at this year’s VB conference will cover various aspects of testing – including
a meta-analysis of recent malware tests
(presented by Richard Ford and Liam Mayron, FIT), and
the good, the bad, and the ugly of real-world testing
(Aditya Kapoor and Craig Schmugar,
McAfee
).
The VB2013 conference runs from 2-4 October, in Berlin, Germany. The full programme is
here
. Registration is
open now
.
Posted on 29 May 2013 by
John Hawes
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