AV-Comparatives releases latest retrospective figures

Half of products rated top-class in proactive detection testing.

Independent testing lab AV-Comparatives has released its latest set of results, the semi-annual retrospective test which follows on from its major detection test published in September.

Some 16 products featured in the test, the same selection reported on in the September figures, but this time products were kept un-updated for some time while new samples were gathered. The testing team then set the products to scan over 23,000 samples gathered in a single week in August, to measure their ability to spot unknown attacks using heuristic and generic scanning techniques.

Of the 16 products, eight achieved the highest ranking, 'Advanced+'. These included Alwil's avast!, BitDefender, ESET's NOD32, eScan, solutions from F-Secure, GDATA and Kaspersky, and Microsoft's new free-for-home-use offering Security Essentials.

Avira's AntiVir scored the highest for overall detection, but was marked down for high levels of false positives, and was joined in the 'Advanced' category by AVG and Symantec.

The 'Standard' grade was granted to products from Kingsoft, McAfee, Norman, Sophos and Trustport, all of which scored highly enough in detection to merit the 'Advanced' grade but were marked down for higher than acceptable levels of false positives.

Full details of the test, including methodology and detailed breakdowns of detection rates, can be found on the AV-Comparatives website, here.

30 November 2009

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