How effective is your Anti-Virus software ?
You buy anti-virus software to protect your computers/data which is the sensible thing to do but how effective is it ? Following is a table of test results from an independent tester (Virus Bulletin) widely recognised as the anti-virus industry "bible". This table is based on the number of times these products have been tested periodically on various operating systems by them (since May 1998, when nod32 made its debut) for detection of all viruses "in the wild" or otherwise. It makes very interesting reading ! :
| Anti Virus Software Brand/Product |
Times Tested Since May '98 |
Tests Failed |
Tests Passed |
Success Ratio % |
| NOD32 from ESET |
32 |
2 |
30 |
93.75% |
| Norton/Symantec Antivirus |
30 |
3 |
27 |
90.00% |
| Trend PC-Cillin/SvrPro |
15 |
4 |
11 |
73.33% |
| CA Vet |
30 |
8 |
22 |
73.33% |
| Sophos |
35 |
10 |
25 |
71.42% |
| Norman Virus Control |
34 |
10 |
24 |
70.58% |
| Kaspersky AVP |
35 |
11 |
24 |
68.57% |
| CA InnoculateIT/eTrust |
27 |
9 |
18 |
66.66% |
| Frisk F-Prot |
19 |
7 |
12 |
63.15% |
| F-Secure FSAV |
27 |
12 |
15 |
55.55% |
| VirusBuster |
23 |
11 |
12 |
52.17% |
| Dr Web32/Dialogue Science |
33 |
16 |
17 |
51.51% |
| McAfee/Network Ass |
33 |
16 |
17 |
51.51% |
| Command/Authentium |
28 |
14 |
14 |
50.00% |
| GDATA |
14 |
8 |
6 |
42.85% |
| Softwin AVX/BitDefender |
12 |
7 |
5 |
41.66% |
| Alwil Avast32 |
27 |
16 |
11 |
40.74% |
| H+BEDV |
10 |
6 |
4 |
40.00% |
| GeCAD RAV |
24 |
17 |
7 |
29.16% |
| Grisoft AVG |
25 |
18 |
7 |
28.00% |
| Panda |
4 |
3 |
1 |
25.00% |
| Hauri ViRobot |
7 |
6 |
1 |
14.28% |
NOD32 from ESET Software is not as well known yet in the UK as some of the big "brand names" although as you can see from the test results*, it is far more effective. It is also the only anti-virus software in the world that has not missed a single "in the wild" virus in this testing since May 1998. Many of the other products in this comparison chart cannot make that claim for even the last 12 months.
Norton/Symantec are running second in this table although in the same testing, nod32 scanning times are considerably faster, despite the fact nod32 has a much smaller system footprint and uses far less system resource. Incidentally, Norton/Symantec also failed the 3 Virus Bulletin tests prior to nod32 making it's debut. That brings their overall success ratio down to 81.81%
Our Engineers found NOD32 whilst looking for a solution to a particular virus problem which none of the better known brands could deal with at the time. Having then discovered it's full capabilities, together with ease of installation, use and update, it became our anti-virus software of choice, since when a large number of UK and indeed Global customers have already made the transition to NOD32. In some cases it was both interesting and worrying to find that on installation of NOD32, it was detecting viruses that had been missed by the existing and/or previous anti-virus software.
Where anti-virus software is concerned, consistency is the key to successful virus protection !
* (Figures correct as at February 2005 E&OE).
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