Microsoft OneCare Last in Antivirus Tests

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "PC World has a story reporting that Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare came in dead last out of a group of 17 antivirus programs tested against hundreds of thousands of pieces of malware. The report of an Austrian antivirus researcher was released at the AV Comparatives Web site this week. Several free AV products were included in the test as well." While the top dog was able to find 99.5% of the malicious code, OneCare clocked in at 82.4%. Of course, there's no metric for the severity of the malware in the 17% gap.

OneCares Results

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are the tests and the results for one care.

Windows viruses 95,02%
Macro viruses 99,30%
Script viruses/malware 67,55%
Worms 89,21%
Backdoors 82,18%
Trojans 78,71%
other malware 58,38%
OtherOS viruses/malware 55,02%

And a bit more

Detection of over 222000 dialers excellent
Detection of over 130000 PUP's mediocre
Detection of over 230000 DOS viruses very high
Detection of polymorphic viruses 4 of 12

Re:It'll get better over time

[suman28]

You are doing nothing but put your parents "in a box". I repair computers around my neighbourhood and when people tell me they lost their Windows CD or it didn't come with CDs or whatever, I tell them they can spend an extra 150 for their "Genuine" copy of Windows or use Linux. I cannot tell you how many people choose Linux. I tell them to give it a try, since most of them are not using it for anything more than Web browsing and photo viewing. If they don't like it (and some don't), they come back to me and spend an extra 150 or whatever. I have a few Average Computer users that use Linux and are quite satisfied. Thank you.

Kaspersky for Free

[bogie]

Kaspersky has always been rated highly and for those of you that don't know AOL, yes that AOL, has repackaged it for Free. I've personally been using it for a while and can whole heartedly recommend it without any hesitation.

http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/ index.adp [activevirusshield.com]?

ermmmm...

[IT 073571]

It does not really matter whether the microsoft came in last because their product is still adequate enough to be used. We should not rely too much on the antivirus anyway. Sure they detect malware and stuff, but by the time that happens it just a little too late in term of security concern. If a user really concerns about security, then the first step to be taken should be getting to know the networks and systems vulnerabilities and how to prevent hackers and malware related from taking advantage of the vulnerabilities. For example, a stand alone machine should use a NAT box so that the IP address becomes a non-routable address and that would keep the malicious programs from getting into the system, therefore you dont really need an antivirus. But that does not mean you should dismiss antivirus altogether. The only way for a malicious program to get to that machine is by tricking the user into going to a website with such program, so here, the user has to be smart in deciding what to download and which sites to go. But just in case that if the user made a mistake by going to a malicious site, then what better to use than antivirus. But still, antivirus should not play the major role is keeping your machine free from malware if you really concern about security.

Re:High scores for Norton

[GIL_Dude]

I agree that norton can be a pig both while running and to uninstall. But symantec does have a utility on their web site that will rip it out for you if the uninstall is jacked up. It makes it pretty easy if you just try the uninstall and it fails - go straight to their utility and Norton will be gone.

Misidentification

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a bit disappointed when it identified craagle.exe as "cracking software" and deleted it for me. How am I supposed to search for xp keys without it?