New PCMagazine Antivirus Test/Review

Funny!

http://www.virusbtn.com/magazine/archives/index.xml



Technodrome

 

Like I mentioned in a previous post the details aren't available to the public unless they are subscribers.

If you go solely by being awarded the VB100 award which means there are NO misses on ITW viruses and NO false positives then Norton is every bit as good as NOD.

I'm not talking about ease of use, personal experience, cost, support, information available on their site, speed, resources used, or anything like that.

I'm talking only about the award which seems to be one of Eset's biggest PR things - touting how many times they have won the award which is okay.

I mean just from a common sense stand point if product A wins the award and so does product B then you have to say that they are both okay IF you trust the review, testing methodology, independence, etc.

Sure there are plenty of other reasons to choose one product over another including some that I listed above.

It seems to me, though, that according to many of the posts here that no other testing matters besides that done by Virus Bulletin. They are all wrong with skewed results, non-expert testers, rubbish, etc. It's those OTHER tests that seem to consistently have something negative to say about NOD.

If tests #1, #2, #3, and #4 all choose product A over NOD they are wrong according to many here. But when test #5 (Virus Bulletin) awards both products their 100% detection award apparently that's rubbish as well at least when it comes to product A.

I am NOT anti-NOD or anti-anything even though it may seem like it.

I'll compare it to college football (USA) before there was overtime in case of a tie.

If team A and team B each have 14 points at the end of the fourth quarter that means for that game taking into account the ONLY criteria that matters (the final score) they were EQUAL. But the fans of Team A, after the fact, will say that team B cheated, had too many fast players, it was raining, or whatever they can say to make it seem unequal. But the fact is that for that game, they were equal. Period.

So if our goal is 100% ITW virus detection and repair then according to the Virus Bulletin awards NOD and Norton are equal and Norton has "won" more times since 9/99 than NOD has.

 

Yes, they are available. The only thing you need to do is to click that link I gave you. You can read archived issues of VB Magazine.


Technodrome

 

Technodrome,

I've been there before and yesterday and just now. The comparative reviews in detail are not available to the public. Some of the other articles are but not the indepth reviews.

For example: http://www.virusbtn.com/magazine/archives/200206/ there is no active link to the reviews. They are all that way.

 

LOL!
Scroll down till you see this...

 

Been there, done that and kept getting a 403 Forbidden message.

Just figured out that 9/2002 and after aren't available because you get that message. But I'm downloading some other issues prior to that now.

Thanks Technodrome!

 

No Problem!

Currently October and September issues are unavailable. They were on line like a few days ago.


Technodrome

 

Technodrome,

This is great! I'm reading the first full issue now. I see what you mean about the details - they are helpful - will know more once I read a whole bunch.

I feel like an idiot because I've been trying to figure out how to pay for a subscription so that I could see those details for months now and it was all right there under my nose.

Even though I don't agree with everything I've seen you say this was SO helpful in pointing me in the right direction to find those details that I gave out my very first cookie or whatever they are called to you.

Again thanks!

 

Very good reading indeed.

Hey man, I was hungry so thanks for the cookie!


Take care!


Technodrome

 

NOD32 users make me laugh. Doesn't matter how many 'other' test sites NOD does average at, it always comes back to how you do in the 'virus bulletin' test. Virus Bulletin is the ONLY test site it performs well at. Think about that comment for a second, its the ONLY test site it does well at. Try opening your eyes for once and see the bigger picture. Combine all the test results from say 4 or 5 of the main test sites and NOD32 is good, but just not one of the top 5.

Now the top AV's overall when you combine the results from the different test sites seem to be F-Secure, AVK, McAfee, KAV, NAV(in no particular order). All these perform at the very highest level in all of the main tests.

I'll say one thing, I don't disagree that NOD is a quality AV, i've used it and its very very good. But what rattles my cage is that the NOD users can't string 5 words together without virus bulletin being mentioned. You are all obsessed with it! Lets hope VB doesn't shut down because your one and only shining star will go out...

muf

 

I'll just add that is amazing how many viruses NOD32 is able to detected by heuristic! Many people don't pay attention to heuristic power.

I have a large collection of viruses and it’s amazing how many viruses NOD32 will label as unknown or suspicious. That is a BIG PLUS in my book. NOD32 has HEURISTIC engine the way it should be. Props to ESET Team.

No Muf you haven’t use NOD32 long enough. Otherwise you'd know!


Only improvement that ESET should do is to add more Trojan\Backdoor sings (they are already doing this) so my mom (an average user) don't have to worry about TDS configuration.


Technodrome

 

As i said, i like NOD32 and think its a great AV. Just the users constantly mentioning VB test record thats bugging me. I think you will find that the AV using community know that NOD32 is a great product. But i think you'll find that like me, they are getting a little tired of hearing about its record on the VB test site. Ok how about this - It's the greatest AV in the world, and its not designed to detect in the zoo viruses, and its not designed to catch trojans, and it scans faster than anything else, and it takes up hardly any resource. There, happy now...

muf

 

Very, thanks

 

Very wise words of a wise man

IMO strong heuristic power is the most important part of an AV, and indeed many people don't realize the real importance of strong heuristics

 

NAV user points to cnet or PC Magazine

F-Secure, KAV user points to VTC or Magdeburg. etc

Nothing is wrong here.

Every AV product that doesn’t miss a single virus should be praised and respected.

No, the AV user community does not getting tired of it. If they were they would not pay attention to VB awards. They only get tired if their product fails. It works just like your football or basketball team. Better team wins, loser goes home.

NOD32 it’s designed to detect zoo viruses, but does not detect all of them. Today, by using a virus generator I can make a hundred different viruses and never released them. ZOO viruses are NOT a real threat to users. Once zoo virus is released it will become an ITW viruses and AV company should add it.

NOD32 could be improved in regards of Trojan detection and author acknowledges this. It will be improved.



Technodrome

 

Thank you Smokey!

I wish there were more people to realized this.



Technodrome

 

You all might want to check your systems for Virus laying around now. The last PCmag article about the review of anti-spyware programs contained a lot of spyware.......

Quoted from securitynewsportal.com:


Ziff Davis and PC Magazine are Spyware Hypocrits - Do as we say - not as we do
Web site plants spyware on users reading anti-spyware articles
04-09-2003 2:38:21 PM CST -- from a furious guy in the third cubicle on the left


There are some days where things happen that leave you scratching your head in amazement. Today is one of those days. Earlier I posted up an article and links that highlighted three quite interesting articles posted at the PC Magazine's web site. The articles involved spyware and anti-spyware solutions, titled PC Mag does an Indepth look at Spyware and anti-spyware solutions. It turns out that PC Magazine is either hypocritical or totally unaware of how their advertisers are planting spyware all over their viewers computers.

I received no less then fifty complaints from users who had detected spyware being planted on their computers while visiting Ziff Davis's PC Magazine web site. Not one spyware, not two spyware... but up to THIRTY advertisers spywares... This may go a long way to explaining why the intrepid Ziff Davis writer appeared rather shocked when he tested his own computer and found a slew of spywares on it - he probably had just finished surfing around the PC Magazine web site prior to testing the anti-spyware software. Possibly PC Magazine and Ziff Davis should not bother to write any future articles on the topic of advertiser's spyware when it turns out that they appear to be a veritable hotbed for the planting of spyware on their visitors computers. All in all, it is rather disturbing and will probably come as quite a surprise to the folks who trust PC Magazine and Ziff Davis. Let us all be thankful they were not writing an 'anti-trojan' article. Goodness only knows what they may have planted on their visitors if this anti-spyware hypocrisy is any indication




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attached below are the results of one users 'spyware alert logs' after visiting PC Magazine to read those anti-spyware articles
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

04/09/2003 20:09:44 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@atdmt[2].txt
04/09/2003 20:09:45 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@mediaplex[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:09:45 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:09:46 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@atdmt[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:10:01 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@mediaplex[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:10:01 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:12:05 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@mediaplex[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:12:06 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:13:40 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@mediaplex[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:13:40 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:13:47 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:13:57 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:14:49 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@mediaplex[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:14:50 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:14:56 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:15:47 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@mediaplex[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:15:48 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt
04/09/2003 20:16:03 ~ [action:deleted ] found spyware cookie ******@questionmarket[1].txt


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another user provided the following information about his visit to the Ziff Davis - PC Magazine Web Site after viewing those articles : " I went for "The Ziff Davis" read on the PC Mag site, and I read the whole article...; the result was over a hundred of the so called "tracking cookies" of mixed brands, blocked by both my firewall and CookieWall. A nice score for an article like that... In the comment you didn't mention the number of aggressive "pop-ups" (20 during my session) and webbugs (countless) they drop on a "victim's" system. How good the information they give may be, IMO we should be very careful in directing people to their site! "

 

This was the main reason I chose NOD32. A lot of AV programs along with NOD32 do well in ITW tests, but NOD32 has not only strong heuristics, but proven strong heuristics (I've posted in other threads how many notorious viruses it has detected by heuristics). This counts for a lot in my book. Just my 2 cents.