AV-Comparatives Malware Protection Test - Sep 2021

Full Article:

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/malware-protection-test-september-2021/

Chart:

https://www.av-comparatives.org/comparison/?usertype=consumer&chart_chart=chart9&chart_year=2021&chart_month=9&chart_sort=1&chart_zoom=2

 

well done, ms.
thanks, @Spartan.

 

Formerly MS was blamed for high FPs.
Have a look now.
MS outperformed all, that have similar high protection.

 

yeah, exactly. blew the competition (paid alternatives) out of the water.

 

The haters will still say that Microsoft Defender is so heavy and bla bla bla meanwhile in real scenario usage it is pretty light, non conflict prone, a truly no hassle solution.

 

Well, I'm not a hater and I'm actually quite content with Win Defender eventhough it's not perfect. But I do think it's disturbing at how bad it is in detecting malware without the cloud. Do you have any idea why this is?

 

no fsecure?

 

Does anybody have any idea why f-secure is not tested?

 

To save some cash, AV tests arent cheap for security vendors and maybe just maybe F-Secure wasnt too happy about the results (false positive rate).

 

Or maybe they are too confident about their product and dont think they need to be tested at all

 

uh-huh, yeah right.

 

If f-secure has loyal customers who trust the product, then it is possible that this is the reason. But f-secure sells its product to large online providers with hundreds of thousands of customers who then get f-secure, and these customers rarely buy another antivirus program.

 

simple as that: ask microsoft

defender ftw!

 

It could have to do with how often it updates the local database. Defender updates less frequently than other AVs that I have tested.

 

In the case of Norton the local definitions are a small subset of the common current malware while the cloud has a much larger set of definitions. This means Norton will look up malware in its local database first for new files and if the other components of Norton haven't flagged it as malware (or deemed it safe) it will then be compared to the online database.

All this means the local machine doesn't have to store a huge database of signatures that are not commonly infecting machines. The very latest signatures are always current on the 'cloud' servers. The downside of this approach is that while Norton is pretty good at stopping malware while the machine is connected to the internet, it is not so great while it is off-line. The reasoning behind this is that most machines are connected online most of the time while new files are introduced.

I suspect there is similar reasoning for Microsoft and Defender.

 

OK I see, but this also probably means that Win Defender has a weak heuristics system. So without the cloud it can't spot as many malware, at least not with generating false positives. What if your internet connection is down because of ISP problems and you had just downloaded a couple of apps? Also, why does M$ give the option to disable cloud scanning in the first place, if offline detection is so bad? It's weird to say the least.

Why didn't I think of that, after all I have a direct hotline to M$.

 

I share your concern over that. You can beef up your Defender protection by enabling ASR rules, and by extending the time of cloud analysis, hoping your internet connection will kick in again. Or you can just switch to ESET...

 

I can't speak for MD. Just relating from memory Norton's approach.

 

At some point users will decide that there is no need to pay for any AV. I determined that and I cannot be more pleased with no-hassle performance it provides and is simply integrated in the OS.

 

agreed.

 

Great results for MS Defender disproving once again the idiom 'you get what you pay for'...

 

Well no, not really. You paid for Windows one way or the other so technically you paid for MD as it is included with the OS.

 

well, that's another way to look at it; and for sure, one that you can't argue with.

 

Splitting hairs Krusty?