Microsoft OneCare Last in Antivirus Tests 144
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.
Re:Old Viruses (Score:5, Insightful)
Encouraging companies to overemphasize tests (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats the danger with tests like this. Companies like MS see them and instead of thinking "how can we use this data to make our product better?" they are focused on just making it look better for the test. I'm not trying to single MS out here, video card manufacturers do this sort of thing all the time, hell it may be that the top performers on this test did it too.
Incidentally, why all the MS hate? Why focus on the company on the bottom, if it was any other company the headline would have been "Norton at top of antivirus heap in tests". The companies at the top are much bigger in this area and their software more widely deployed so I would think their performance would be more relevent regardless of who scored where.
How about some constructive news? (Score:5, Insightful)
A good news story would be about who came in *first* in these tests. You know, information that actually might be useful to people. But that wouldnt get nearly as many page hits, I suspect.
Re:Old Viruses (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasons are the same that Mac antivirus programs strip out windows viruses, and viruses from as far back as OS 6. Just because it cannot infect this system, does not mean it is not a threat in general.
Besides, what evidence do you have that what they missed were older viruses? While I admit this is a valid hypothesis, I see no evidence for it one way or another.
Re:It'll get better over time (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't give me this BS that Dell offers Linux because if it isn't here [dell.com], it doesn't exist.
I'm about as anti-MS as one can get but I also reailze their importance in the marketplace.
MS is obviously crippling 3rd party malware protection yet their own package fails to make the mark even though they have the advantage.
I've consistently said that MS has crappy programmers and this proves it. That comment is not an attack on the employees but a dig at the finished product which is a reflection on the programmers.
The individuals who program may have talent but when it comes to the committee that puts it all together, it's a mish mash of crap.
I setup an OEM Vista installation last week which was my first exposure to Vista.
Is it better than XP SP2? Didn't seem so to me.
Visually appealing theme wise? I think so. Much better than the default XP theme.
I didn't get all those annoying permission popups when trying to create and delete files that was reported earlier. The popups I did get I didn't feel like it was an intrusion as I didn't get too many unless I was trying to install something.
With 2Gigs of ram, it did seem to perform slower than XP SP2 with 512MB of ram. Wow. That's the perception that matters to the end user too.
What's wrong with Vista is that it's too wordy.
The security center is too confusing for the end user and too wordy.
The popups are too wordy and not intuitively selectable. You get 2 or so choices on popups that don't appear to be decision making selections yet it is asking a question and awaiting an answer.
The other thing that really never bothered me before but Vista does it wrong (on my first impression) is the left-mouse/right-mouse selections.
I don't remember exactly but I was trying to look at network properties or something like that and double left click was different than right click > properties. Much different than XP and before.
What I remember was that what I wanted didn't happen when I selected it making me to have to remember how to get the proper properties of a particular object.
At that moment I finally realized why the Mac had only 1 button on their mouse.
Re:Encouraging companies to overemphasize tests (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Pretty much all these viruses/malware target Microsoft's own software
2) Microsoft has more resources than all the other companies combined.
3) People are going with Microsoft's solution assuming that it is the best one
So basically, Microsoft's half-assed software made antivirus software a requirement in the first place. Instead of using their vast resources to fix the underlying problems, they build more half-assed software as part of their big money grab.
Re:It'll get better over time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Coherence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about some constructive news? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is just another indictment of the corporate culture of Microsoft...money first, customers somewhere near the bottom. Microsoft includes a bunch of half-assed, half finished apps so they can put on the packaging that Windows has it. The sad thing is OneCare is just another "check-the-block" feature, and average Joe won't know how awful it is or even care. They'll see it has security software bundled in and think that's all they need.
Re:High scores for Norton (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Old Viruses (Score:3, Insightful)
We hear every day about MS dropping support from old OS's (something I would stand for, as long as those systems weren't as fucking widely used as W2K is); infecting them and not Vista/XP/Whatever makes the latter look more secure (and as Windows users go, they only way to move).
Feel free to bash me anyway you want, I was only playing Devil's advocate here.
Re:How about tests on older versions? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you just use them to scan executables/emails before opening anything, for that an older one with up to date signatures should do fine.
But the old engines tend to lack defenses against 0wnage of the system via different holes. Major reason why new AV clients are so heavy on the system is because they actively try to stop any 'nasty' stuff from happening to the system - even against unknown threats using heuristics.
Older AV software also does not usually do anything against spyware and other crapware.
I've worked in PC repair, and its highly common to see systems with outdated AV software throughly owned by some spyware/adware, disabling the AV software (it would still fetch updates and claim all was well, but it would not do anything in reality), and it's not uncommon to find bunch of viruses in such cases as well.
If your system can't run a modern AV software (I recommend F-Secure, it's pretty lightweight for what it does), either upgrade your system, pull the network cable, or stop using Windows.
Re:Coherence (Score:3, Insightful)
This can only be bad for the consumer... MS now have a conflict of interest between improving the security of windows, or leaving it poor to encourage sales of onecare... Their product will also end up widely used despite the lack of quality, it will sell just like every other MS product simply because it gets pushed along with sales of window/office. The sales reps will start offering discounts against windows/office if they take onecare too, and the customers will consider it pointless to have 2 antivirus products and won't bother buying a third party one anymore.
Once all the other AV vendors are out of business, and all windows users are running onecare or nothing, the malware will have a much easier time of it because malware authors will now have a single known target.
Re:How about some constructive news? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How about some constructive news? (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. Certainly, it is important to note which package came in at the top, as advice on what users should use. However, since OneCare is Microsoft's own service, and may be more accessible and better marketed to PC users, I would argue that it is in fact more important to note how badly it scored so that users know what not to use.
If all of the products being evaluated were equally marketed and accessible, then I would back your argument. However, because I don't believe that to be the situation, I disagree.
Re:It'll get better over time (Score:3, Insightful)
As OS tasks shift to the Web (and I think that will happen), we'll see a shift to the more stable Linux OS because the casual user won't have to figure out why their computer "has roots" (or whatever...)
At what cost performance? (Score:2, Insightful)