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.

Re:It'll get better over time

[Gothmolly]

How many times have we heard this from Microsoft? Why do people still reward this sort of behavior with continued purchases? If its going to kind of suck out of the box, and get better over time, and you can get support, why not use RedHat Linux or Solaris ?

Old Viruses

[Subbynet]

I have always had a problem with these "stats".

If Microsoft know 50% (for example) of viruses are so old and won't run on 2000/XP, and they then decide not to search for them during AV tests... Does that mean the AV missed it - or quite rightly the code is so old that MS no longer considered a threat?

Re:Old Viruses

[Subbynet]

True...

But this is Microsoft, with a product made for Windows XP / Vista. Tell me why they should care about Macs and Linux?

There is that old saying - always look after yourself, and its one I adhere to with regards to Anti-Virus... Just because it was checked at the mail server does not mean I won't check it again.

So using that premise, why should OneCare look or care about Viruses which won't run on the platform?

No love for open source, ClamAV

[HTMLSpinnr]

There's no mention of ClamAV's performance in these tests. Granted, it probably isn't designed to be as "complete" as some of the other packages noted, it'd be interesting to see how it fares for those of us who use it on mail gateways and servers.

Besides, it'd have to be better than Microsoft's OneCare!

It actually wasn't "good enough"

[RootWind]

The software has to detect 85% or more to be considered for the on-demand test. MS OneCare was only included for the first time most likely due to the reputation of the former RAV. OneCare will be dropped from the test if they don't improve to 85%.

Re:No love for open source, ClamAV

[Southpaw018]

To back up what RootWind said, here's the official reply (on ClamWin, which is pretty much a Win32 compile + gui for ClamAV):

ClamWin better than Norton? No, you can not look at number of signatures to know who detects more. If you look on how ClamAV performs in independent tests (e.g. AV-Test.de) you see that it score around 49%, while Norton 99% (I would get very similar results). ClamAV is good to use e.g. at mail servers, but I would not suggets to use for other places, as there are better options available.

link [av-comparatives.org]

How about tests on older versions?

[schwit1]

I'm curious if older AV versions with current signatures are less capable.

I use McAfee v7.1 because the overhead compared to the newer versions is much lower.

Re:High scores for Norton

[Aladrin]

You mean something like: "Kaspersky has a higher % on that chart, AND it doesn't screw up the system?"

Norton, when it goes bad, is a nightmare to remove. And that's your only option, as you can't just fix the installation once it gets that bad. If you've already gone through the pain to remove it, why not just recommend the better solution and be done with it?

Personally, I like AVG, but that chart doesn't say great things about it. I'm disappointed in its performance. I'm seriously considering seeking a better solution.

Re:How about some constructive news?

[JebusIsLord]

I installed OneCare myself during the beta period, and was impressed with how well it integrated into Windowsm and didn't try to sell me anything else once in there (Are you listening, McAfee??) Resource usage was also much better than Norton.

I'm disappointed that it performed so poorly. However, I'm not running it anymore anyhow, since I switched to Vista 64-bit and OneCare doesn't work on 64-bit platforms :|

Re:High scores for Norton

[Lord_Sintra]

Yeah, I have serious trouble getting rid of Norton. It crashed half way through the uninstall, an them became impossible to delete. I had to go into Linux and manually remove it. Kaspersky seems better, but occasionally takes up 98%CPU, for no reason I can see.

Re:It'll get better over time

[jorghis]

Everyone keeps saying this and I dont understand the logic behind it.

Even if it were true that they had access to windows source, how would this help them? Everyone has claimed that it does, but noone has explained how.

Re:It'll get better over time

[nakkenakuttaja]

My father is 76 years old and has only used computer for the last 5 years or so. His first PC had Windows 98, but last year I updated his computer with new motherboard, harddisc etc. + I installed Kubuntu on it. He has been very satisfied with it using Linux. I don't think Linux is more difficult to use than Windows. OK, my father probably would not be able to install Kubuntu, but he probably he could not install Windows either.

Re:It'll get better over time

[mastershake_phd]

If it is an OEM type of machine (like from Dell) the key is on the side of the box. There is no need to spend $150 on a new OS, just find the CD elsewhere. I am sure someone doing PC repairs has a Windows XP CD lying around or knows where to find one.
 
Yes, but certain keys work with certain CDs. They unfortunately arent interchangeable. One PC I have wouldnt reboot after using the auto-upgrade feature to download SP2. So I got a SP2 CD, but it didnt like my old (legal) CD key. So I found a working key on the web, now I got that damn Windows Genuine Advantage thing popping up.

What are you supposed to do?