various av's update frequency

being constantly looking for better protection ive decided update frequency is really important to me, as is trojan detection. i cant really check all the avs myself so if someone can help me and fill in the blanks id be very happy. being a drweb and kav user ive alraedy filled them in, with my views (10 best, 0 worst)

name---update freq---trojan detection---overall det.---speed
---------------------------------------------------------------------
kav-----1-3 hours---------10--------------10------------5
drweb----30m - 6h---------8---------------7------------10
nod32
arcavir
f-prot
bitdefender

these are the ones im curerntly considering....your views would be very helpful, especially the update frequency

 

This is not a " direct " answer but , a round about one . I suggest a good AV . Good at Virus protection . There are a few good ones . AND an AT program . Problem solved . If you get an AT as well , it makes choosing an AV a little easier . Good luck

 

Frequency of updates might vary - as with NOD. I like the way they do it - if there's nothing to update then they don't. On the other hand, it is 9:26 at my house and NOD has updated twice today since noon. They truly seem to update as needed if ya ask me - and that's what is most important to me. If the updates are scheduled and always are at the same time/day - that's obviously no good and the same goes for useless updates to keep them frequent.

 

I have Kav 5 set to update every hour with the extended bases and it does update almost every hour. I like knowing that new virus,trojan,dialer,malicious programs, worms and more sigs. are being kept up to date.

bigc

 

ArcaVir updates once a day as far as I can tell.
That's daily Monday thru Friday.
I run the update module manually once daily.

 

My expectation of what I'd like an AV to do is:

• Typically updates once a day or so (could be more/could be less)
• Allow me to set an automated update check frequency as often as every few hours
• Goes to hourly checks if servers unavailable
• Has some way of smoothing server traffic load spikes - i.e. hourly checks but I can't set the exact time, that's done internally by the program using some objective approach - maybe it's based on the license key.
• Allows an easy manual update on demand.

Most AV's are fine by my list and although I like things like hourly status checks, I really don't get too excited as long as my updates are basically on something approaching a daily basis.

The ones on you short list that I know about (KAV/NOD32/Arcavir), all are fine by me.

Blue

 

That is an assumption. Possibly true, but an assumption nonetheless. Multiple updates daily -- as with DrWeb & KAV -- leave nothing to assume. They are THERE. Did someone say that updates aren't always needed that often? Possibly true. But which would you rather have -- unnecessary high frequency of updates... or assumptions?

 

A friend of mine made a "joke" the other day:

Q: "Why does KAV update every 3 hours?"
A: "Because it has to."

 

A friend of mine told me "a true story" the other day:

Q: "Why does Nod use Avanced heuristics?"
A: "Because they do not have enough signatures"

 

Good one, Don

Now go into that corner and wash your mouth out!

 

Yes, headmaster, i promise not to do it again .........................................

 

Oh and I forgot. Definitely no Easter eggs for you

 

Or maybe a egg with a virus.

 

It really is not an assumption. While this would be an assumption were I sitting by the sidelines blindly believing it to be fact, I keep up very well with current threats and what else is going on - if there is a new undetected valid threat you can expect an update from NOD. Personally, I would find useless updates to be a form of dishonesty. I am not saying any of these AVs practice this as I admittedly have paid most of my attention to NOD for the past couple yeasrs after my selection process.

edited to change "thread" to "threat" - oops! Detox

 

thanks for the replies so far, both on and off topic

about updating only when needed, of course i agree with that, no point in releasing empty updates if there are no new discovered treaths.

however, when i trialled nod32 there were no new updates from friday to monday, while kav released around 40 new updates during the same persiod of time, probably covering 100s of new malwares. so that must mean that either
a) all the malwares for which kav released definitions during those 3 days were covered by nod32's friday database
b)nod knew about the new viruses but for soem reason didnt provide definitions for them
c) nod didnt know about the new viruses that appeared that weekend

and i doubt that its a)

oh and f-prot updates about how often please ??

 

Now lets clear something. KAV provided defs before friday for majority of those added to NOD32 database later on friday. And sometimes only 1 day can make a big difference.

 

Take a look here for the respond times..

Part 1:

 

Part 2:

 

my usage pattern means about 50% of the viruses i encounter are new/unknown viruses. what i do when that happens is to send it to kaspersky. 1, max 2 hours later the remedy is on my machine.

 

I have a KAV AV on two machines, NOD on one machine and one of the free AVs on a forth machine.

Looking at http://virusscan.jotti.org/ for the past few days it doesn't seem to me that KAV, even with providing quicker and more frequent definition updates then any other AV, is always ahead of the other AVs in providing
definitions.

I thinks KAV is great but just because they provide definitions every hour
doesn't mean they always have a definition before other AVs.


-------

Last piece of malware found was W32/StartPage-tr in geoe.dll, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir X
Avast Win32:StartPage-080
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender X
ClamAV Trojan.Startpage-215
Dr.Web Trojan.StartPage.581
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet W32/StartPage-tr
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir X
NOD32 X
Norman Virus Control X


-----

Last piece of malware found was probably unknown NewHeur_PE in document.htm.pi_, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir X
Avast X
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender Win32.Mydoom.1.Gen@mm
ClamAV X
Dr.Web X
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir Win32.4
NOD32 probably unknown NewHeur_PE
Norman Virus Control X


---------


Last piece of malware found was W32/Bagle.Gen!Rar in Encrypted.rar, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir Heuristic/PwdRAR
Avast RarPSW
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender Win32.Bagle.M (RAR)
ClamAV Worm.Bagle.Gen-rarpwd
Dr.Web Win32.HLLM.Beagle.pswzip
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir X
NOD32 Win32/Bagle.gen.rar
Norman Virus Control W32/Bagle.Gen!Rar


-----------

Last piece of malware found was Win32/DSNX.05 in 999.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir X
Avast X
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender X
ClamAV X
Dr.Web X
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir X
NOD32 Win32/DSNX.05
Norman Virus Control Sandbox: W32/Malware


--------


Last piece of malware found was Trojan.Littlewitch.61.Aa in Pena ;(.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir Heuristic/Trojan.PwdStealer
Avast X
AVG Antivirus BackDoor.LittleWitch.DD
BitDefender Backdoor.LittleWitch.6.1.V
ClamAV X
Dr.Web BackDoor.LWitch.61
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir Trojan.Littlewitch.61.Aa
NOD32 X
Norman Virus Control X


------------

Last piece of malware found was BackDoor.Seed.11 in pic1.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir BDS/Seed.11.A
Avast X
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender X
ClamAV Trojan.Seed-1
Dr.Web BackDoor.Seed.11
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir X
NOD32 X
Norman Virus Control X


------

Last piece of malware found was W32/PWSteal-tr in IFinst25.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir X
Avast X
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender Backdoor.IzRam.1.7
ClamAV X
Dr.Web X
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet W32/PWSteal-tr
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir X
NOD32 X
Norman Virus Control X


--------

Last piece of malware found was Trojan.Downloader.Delf.Jy in cartao.scr, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir X
Avast X
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender Trojan.Downloader.Delf.JI
ClamAV X
Dr.Web X
F-Prot Antivirus X
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir Trojan.Downloader.Delf.Jy
NOD32 X
Norman Virus Control X


----------------------
Last piece of malware found was BehavesLike:Trojan.Downloader in ifc.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir X
Avast X
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender BehavesLike:Trojan.Downloader
ClamAV X
Dr.Web X
F-Prot Antivirus unknown virus
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir X
NOD32 probably unknown NewHeur_PE
Norman Virus Control Sandbox: W32/Downloader


---------

Last piece of malware found was Dropped:Win32.Worm.Kiph.A in main.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name
AntiVir X
Avast X
AVG Antivirus X
BitDefender Dropped:Win32.Worm.Kiph.A
ClamAV X
Dr.Web X
F-Prot Antivirus unknown virus
Fortinet X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X
mks_vir Win32
NOD32 probably unknown NewHeur_PE
Norman Virus Control Sandbox: W32/P2PWorm


-----------

Last piece of malware found was W32/SDBot.CWI in rfc.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name Time taken
AntiVir Worm/SdBot-43744 0.39 seconds
Avast Win32:SdBot-1245 1.53 seconds
AVG Antivirus IRC/BackDoor.SdBot.154.AT 0.54 seconds
BitDefender X 0.53 seconds
ClamAV X 0.61 seconds
Dr.Web X 0.91 seconds
F-Prot Antivirus X 0.13 seconds
Fortinet X 0.45 seconds
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X 1.03 seconds
mks_vir Win32 0.23 seconds
NOD32 X 0.49 seconds
Norman Virus Control W32/SDBot.CWI 0.23 seconds


-----------------

Last piece of malware found was Dropped:Trojan.Agent.DN in m2.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name Time taken
AntiVir X 0.42 seconds
Avast X 1.53 seconds
AVG Antivirus X 0.56 seconds
BitDefender Dropped:Trojan.Agent.DN 0.60 seconds
ClamAV Trojan.Dropper.Purityscan.F 0.66 seconds
Dr.Web X 0.94 seconds
F-Prot Antivirus X 0.18 seconds
Fortinet X 0.49 seconds
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X 1.07 seconds
mks_vir X 0.47 seconds
NOD32 Win32/TrojanDropper.PurityScan.G.gen 0.60 seconds
Norman Virus Control Sandbox: W32/Malware 22.03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last piece of malware found was probably unknown NewHeur_PE in hmzz.exe, detected by:

Scanner Malware name Time taken
AntiVir BDS/Optix.Pro.13.28 0.81 seconds
Avast Win32:Optix-J 3.08 seconds
AVG Antivirus X 1.12 seconds
BitDefender Backdoor.OptixPro.1.Gen 1.16 seconds
ClamAV Trojan.PWS.Wexd 1.54 seconds
Dr.Web X 1.71 seconds
F-Prot Antivirus X 0.19 seconds
Fortinet X 0.88 seconds
Kaspersky Anti-Virus X 2.12 seconds
mks_vir Trojan.Optix.Pro.13 0.43 seconds
NOD32 probably unknown NewHeur_PE 1.07 seconds
Norman Virus Control X 0.64 seconds

 

Me too. That leaves "b" or "c". What would truly be disturbing is if an AV outfit had new signatures but did not release them under the theory, "They *probably* won't need these yet."

Recently F-Prot has updated about 4 times weekly.

A useless update would be an empty update. Updates issued by DrWeb are not empty. Neither, I would presume, are KAV's.

"Dishonesty" would be to hold back on signatures so as to have some for every update. I really really really doubt that KAV & DrWeb are doing that. However, that is what the NOD apologists are infering, whether or not they do so intentionally.

 

F-Prot updates several times a week, and sometimes several times per day if necessary. During a major outbreak, they are often one of the first to update. In these cases, an improved detection with removal support will usually be released later that same day.

 

I can agree with this, F-Prot is very fast to update when there're big new threats...

 

In Nov 2004 I paid for a 1-year license to use F-Prot for Windows. Since then I have used the update process at least twice daily. I get updates an average 4X/week. That is my experience since Nov 2004. Evidently there have been no "major outbreaks" during that period.

Please check posts 82 & 94 on THIS lengthy thread on F-Prot. Also check THIS thread about FP's slow updates. In other words I am not the only one with this experience. 4X/week isn't the best, but it's not terrible either. I believe those other posters are stating facts about F-Prot's updates. I KNOW that I am stating facts. Why should I do otherwise?

 

It seems F-Prot's fast when the REALLY bad outbreaks occur...but they're slow at other times.