Evaluation of antivirus products

It is quite confusing trying to choose an antivirus program based on the various published tests. The VB100 would suggest one thing, & the recently published virus.gr test another. I would appreciate some opinions regarding the value of these test for testing antivirus products in "the real world", as it would seem that some products (ie Etrust EZ Antivirus) has good "real world" protection, but does poorly in detecting "zoo virus collections", most of which I suspect never see the light of day.
Which testing is of relevence for the average home user?

 

Take all of these tests with a pinch of salt. They are all either laboratory tests, or flawed in some respect, or both, rather than perfect 'real world' results. They can be indicative of an A/V's overall strength in a general sense, so it may be useful to consider the test results to determine, say, the top half dozen performers.

Beyond that, there are a number of factors you should consider, such as resource usage (both CPU and memory and, on Win9x, 'system resources'), compatibility with your other software, how it fits with your other security software, your internet usage habits, your budget, and the general 'feel' of the product. Having narrowed down a choice to a few candidates (this is where the online tests will help), try them each in turn for a week or two using the free trial periods offered by the respective manufacturers. That's exactly why they offer trials.

When you do, make sure you fully uninstall one before testing another. Indeed, before testing a given product scour the manufacturer's web sites/knowledge bases/security forums for information on how to perform an effective and complete uninstallation. This will help make sure your tests of each are valid.

 

People will disagree with my sentiments I'm sure, but IMHO you should get good protection from any of the "top-tier" name brand products: Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, NOD32, Trend Micro, etc. Personally I think "staying clean" from infection {of viruses, worms, trojans, and spyware} depends more on user habits and safe computing, than on the brand of AntiVirus chosen. Hope that helps get you started here ..

 

QFT!!!

 

I will agree with Randy except that I would add norton antivirus ver. 2005/2006 also, these av's will all do a good job of helping you to stay malware free. but good surfing habits do count for quite a bit also.