New Prevx Initiative

and this log will stay privately with the user and not being communicated in any form to the Prevx server(s)?

you very well should be, but that tool cannot tell whether this actually happened or not, it can can hypothetically indicate it.
why would end users run compromised systems today? greed, lack of money to buy legit software/music/videos, buy backup hardware, lack of education, lack of time, ignorance? basically mainly socially engineered.

will that tool be free of charge since open source?

from my of view I do not see much of the social environment changing soon and hence highly doubt that his feature will benefit the learning curve of the average end user.

 

Yes, but it's probably worth keeping on topic for the initiative as posted to prevent confusion

Yes, as the article says, it will be a free tool.

 

It is correct however, it just the absolute number of threats missed by other AV's on a PC where Prevx is also installed. So Avast misses the most samples in this graph but if 50% of the Prevx community uses Avast then it would relatively miss far less then the others. Because this graph isn't in relative numbers or percentages it is easily misinterpreted and I don't really like it either to be honest.

 

Showing the chart in relative numbers would lead to misinterpretation The chart is raw data and stands as it is because it is completely uninterpreted. The only conclusion that can be drawn from it is that every AV, Prevx included, misses threats. This may seem obvious to users here but the average user actually does not understand this. They think they can go to their local computer store, pick up a box off of the shelf and install the product and they'll be secured against all viruses and need not do anything further.

The "explain this chart" link shows the following text:

We've spent dozens of pages discussing the chart to death and it's really not worth hashing through it again in my opinion. The chart is provided for informational/research purposes and frankly has no marketing value - if we wanted to use it for marketing, we would be releasing monthly reports about threats and having press releases describing what we're finding. That is not the goal and never has been.

 

Hmmm...I'm not at all fussed on that table (actually, it irritates me)- it doesn't contain any really useful information (other than no AV is perfect), and because of that I ask myself 'what then is the point'...and so I can then see that it may come across as hard sell. I've always thought that if it were properly implemented it could be a really good marketting tool, without the accompanied suspicion.

However it is only showing what prevx claims is factual information (I'm presuming it is factual, but I don't take that for granted), and being factual, it doesn't meet your claim of 'degrading' other software (and again, I presume you mean there is some element of deception or maliciousness in 'degrade').

For Prevx's information - the Prevx website explains that table only has relevance when you know how many computers have AV <name> on them - which figure prevx does not provide...which gives rise to the suspicion of 'why won't you tell us that'. The table would actually be interesting if it contained a ratio/percentage (as well as the number of infections)

 

I think that the chart makes problem when you start to think too much of the chart. Then you probably draw the similar conclusion to yours and others on the forum.
However look at it differently. I dare to say that majority of visitors on Prevx web take the chart in a simple way, i.e. wo Prevx caught more malwares than the rest of AV companies, so Prevx is worth of my money and I buy or consider its buying at least. The chart serves to increase confidence in Prevx and thus to justify users their purchase. This marketing approach is nothing special and vastly employed presently. Look at other AV sites. Personally I don't have a problem with the chart nor how Prevx explains it.
Just my two cents.

 

Hi Pegas,

Excuse me for being unclear, but that is one of the problems with it. That table only shows that layering is useful, but does nothing to educate the potential user about how good Prevx is compared to other layered approaches, or even how prevx compares to other AV's. As such, it's only 'useful' (and I use that term loosely) to those that don't have a clue about security, and therefore may be scared or mislead into purchasing Prevx - don't get me wrong, I've used Prevx since it was first launched as Prevxhome, and I rate the company very highly - I just don't rate that chart (it certainly wouldn't be hard for Prevx to turn it into something useful...though I guess they may be trying to avoid vexatious law suits from AV companies that don't like the results)

 

We shouldn't and therefore don't try to rate ourselves against the competition as it would be terribly biased. We also can't subjectively say that we're better than vendor X but I do believe that we are the only vendor that fully guarantees its malware cleanup and that in itself should speak volumes about the strength that we know that our products have

 

Who gives a dam about about a graph on a web page. If people don't do some research before purchasing any product then they are potentially asking for problems, every AV/Antimalware vendor places something on their Web pages saying why their program is better than their competitor. And if a person is not computer literate then that is more reason you should do research. Every electronics company has marketing strategies that suggest their product is better than their competitor so what, in some cases it has nothing to do with whether one says it is better than the other it usually comes down to price, hence the large uptake of free products.

nessy