could you please correct your data about Threats missed by other security vendors

shown here

http://www.prevx.com/avgraph/12/Eset.html

as according to Eset Moderator:

in this post # 68

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=270288&page=3

trusting publishing ridiculous numbers does not elevate Prevx's reputation... ...but wait, maybe it is because it does not make them look so good

 

There's nothing to correct here.

 

maybe it is a bit cheeky to ask why not - care to elaborate, it is your statement vs. Eset's moderator? latter working for a AV vendor

 

If you look at the real word situation, this information is pretty accurate. Maybe 80-90%. Like it or not, I personally feel ESET (and a lot of other AV products) have slipped immensely over the years.

Thats my opinion, I won't add anything further to prevent starting an argument.

 

no argument here, is already going on in the eset forum, but seems eset is not so much concurring with you and users of their product. might be the reason their forum moderator call the Prevx data ridiculous, just guessing

 

@Vtol

Not trying to be rude here. But you joined Wilders in April 2010, so you probably don't know that this has been discussed here many many times before.

And if you search you will probably find more threads discussing about these Prevx statistics, and some answers too

But i'm sure Joe is around the corner and will soon give you some answers anyway.

 

there is nothing wrong with the graph, people just mis-read it and compare each vendor to each other in the graph, this is a false mis-interpretation.

if only 1 pc is checked with MSE and 5,000 with NOD32, NOD32 would be very likely to have many more infections on their customers computers.


the problem that people see in the graph is people compare each vendor to each other:

Nod32 yesterday leaked in 6408 according to Prevx, while customers using Panda only leaked in 497, this is a false comparision & does not make Panda (although it could still be) better.

The graph DOES NOT tell people how many files/computers/customers were checked to each vendor, so there is zero comparision between each vendor. (this is exactly the thing alot of people do, and then complain about)




--- the graph shows simply how many infections have been caught on X-amount of computers using that particular antivirus.

--- but what the graph DOES show, is that prevx is finding infections on all computers regardless of what Antivirus they are using.




Hope that helps.

 

I think it is safe to say that, some of those AVs may have also detected something Prevx may not have. That is why Joe talks so much about how they compliment each other. The reality is, a good AV and Prevx will give you just about all the horsepower you need out of a engine.

 

let me try to digest it with my simple brain of the number's causality.

the lesser of number of users of any particular av solution the less protection is assumed? or 5 computers getting infected with 10 viruses is less good then 5,000 computers getting infected with the same 10 viruses?

if understood right the Prevx data does not count the number of computers but the number of things getting by each listed AV. Certainly the kind of infections will differ but the data gives an abstract of the number of infection passing by, which I see as comparative, since no AV shall judged by the number of user but by the number of infections getting by.

appreciating clarification if wrong

 

that is well is understood and appreciated, but is not the point of the Prevx data published at their website

 

no offence taken, like any sort of input/reply.

though admitting being a newbie on this forum, which might not be the way one should be judged by, I am not a newbie to forums at all, neither to computers nor to AV.

I did a bit digging prior posting, just did not help me with the comment of the Eset moderator, calling that Prevx data ridiculous. And since Eset believes in the stupid user I thought to give them support.

Perhaps I should have made the ironic tone a bit more clear.

 

If it is hard data and it looks like it then no need to change anything. Only shows that not 1 AV, nor 1 security software, can be the only defence (for majority of users as there are some who don't need an AV).
It would be interesting see the breakdown by AV/version but that is just me

 

now I understand the goal of the data, to make people aware that there is no such thing as 100% protection, but that might not be achieved even with a layered approach, except for users being vigilant on top of anything else.

having said that, those numbers could be randomly chosen by Prevx, which though I would like to believe are real world statistics. And thus providing a comparison to the curious eye.

in which case showing Eset, not only there, say here too http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/413777/review/smart_security_4.html, performing badly, something disliked by the staff over at Eset and therefore dismissing any of those, calling it ridiculous...

 

it could be this and could be that but it needs to bear the scrutiny if challenged. Prevx has everything to lose and nothing to gain from not being able to support the publicised data. To me, it is what it is and all AV are in each others good company.

 

for me it actually matters how good an AV performs, not whether the company or its employees are good.

 

However, that's not what the current debate is about. The comparison is on Eset alone in this instance.

I agree people shouldn't compare vendor by vendor as the detected samples in each graph may not be present on the system protected by an alternative product.

Considering the current discussion, to a casual observer, the statistics for X vendor implies that yesterday computers with X vendor installed collectively missed (n) infections that were detected by Prevx.

If this is the wrong way to look at it, the phraseology needs to be changed, but that is how it comes across when first looking at the information.

 

Yes tony, that's what the graph is saying, yesterday prevx found that amount of infections from users using nod32.

It does not however, tell you how many computers using prevx and nod32 there are.

 

It won't happen as every AV or AM company has there own way of marketing on there website! As said above by SweX this subject has been mentioned so many times before! It's best to see it on there main page here: http://www.prevx.com/ Just scroll down!

TH

 

This is why I said "collectively". We don't know how many NOD32+Prevx installations there were yesterday, but the graph implies NOD32 missed over 6,000 infections on all those machines it was on, bearing in mind each machine won't have the same detections as another. It is obviously quite complex.

 

below only an opinion/guess:
example:
product X is listed as having 341 missed infections
eset is listed as having 6408 missed infections
you do not know how many users/PC's are behind the numbers. Maybe Prevx found the 341 infection on 300 different PC's, and e.g. 290 is the number of users which have Prevx and product X running (which would mean product X failed for almost every user). While e.g. the 6408 infections were found e.g. on 4000 different PC's, while the number of users running ESET and prevx may be much higher, e.g. 50000 (esp. considering that ESET and prevx are hosted on same forum - wilders, ESET may be more represented, as well as the free AV's avast and AVG). even if prevx says that the numbers should not be compared and are meaningsless, users see a graph which suggest a comparison and indirectly also that prevx detects more than the other products, although it does not say that other products may detect much more than prevx if tested the way around (as everyone is detecting something that some other one may miss) and also does not say anything about false alarms (which also prevx has and affect the results) or "disarmed" samples (renamed/quarantined files and leftovers).
it would not hurt to give the information about how many users are behind each number (should be not difficult to provide and also give more details to the readers). while its true that all vendors miss threats, maybe the additional information would give an insight which would no longer fit with the intended scope when displaying this kind of chart.

 

Sorry, it's hard to type and I'm bad at english. Just read what people will say here.
If there's something that needs to be changed, it is that ESET's moderator comment.
P.S. Sorry again for giving another statement without elaborating.
Please wait for Joe and see how a good moderator should answer.


@IBK
+1

Konata Izumi

 

if that true than the numbers are indeed misguiding, in particular as the table just below the chart refers to 'the top files from all groups that bypassed Eset security products', singled out by specific filenames. Which sorts of leads to the impression that numbers shown are related to a specific threat but not to the number of systems, whereas also duplicate detections would count and thus blowing up the numbers unrelated to the number of threat specific infections.

Yep, so in that case the chart might be altered accordingly, which though may not have the desired marketing effect anymore, or if the numbers are thread specific Eset is just a bad performer and its moderator somebody in denial.

 

This is exactly correct and we post this on the chart itself saying that more popular vendors will logically miss more detections.

We're gladly open to seeing the charts from other vendors as well

Assuming a catastrophically high false positive rate of 1%, the numbers don't really change at all.

Prevx only focuses on active infections so these types of quarantined or disabled samples won't be detected.

We have considered this in the past but have no intentions of doing so because it would turn us into a testing organization. We are merely trying to prove the point that no products detects 100% of threats - while many users consider that to be obvious, misleading product names like "Total Protection" hide the point and back users into a corner making them think that their single layered solution is sufficient when no vendor is perfect.

Again, we aren't trying to compare vendors here - the chart is raw data and explains exactly what it should. From our "Explain this Chart" area:

 

Well said. I'm lovin' Joe
...I mean PrevX ...okay, Joe too

 

Its just a graph which can be easily be misinterpreted. And even if it wasn't, Eset would be a hypocrite, look what's on their site:

http://www.eset.com/home/compare-eset-to-competition