See if your antivirus software REALLY works

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: OrganizedChaos
nav 2004 pro with latest defs only caught 5 of 7

My NAV 2004 Professional Defs dated 2/17/2004 caught 6 out of 7 upon manual right click scan.


It failed to catch Backdoor.ServU.B.exe


I disable all automatic scanning on my machine and only use manual periodic scans since I hate the resource usage of "auto -protect." Despite disabling auto-protect, NAV still runs like 20 programs in the background and I am really getting sick of it. Does anyone else share my philsophy on AV scanners? If so have you found a AV program that resource conscious?

 

[MDesigner]

avast is a poor performer. I added one more virus to my collection (I now have 8). avast caught two out of the eight.

 

[MDesigner]

sxr, a lot of other antivirus apps have autoprotects that are not resource intensive. Most of them probably, except Norton

 

[sxr7171]

So sorry about these m-posts.

 

[sxr7171]

So sorry about these m-posts.

 

[sxr7171]

So sorry about these m-posts.

 

[sxr7171]

Sorry about the m-posts.

Stupid wireless provider in this coffee shop absolutely sucks. I need to keep refreshing to get anywhere.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: MDesigner
sxr, a lot of other antivirus apps have autoprotects that are not resource intensive. Most of them probably, except Norton

Do you have one in particular in mind or do you think that anything but Norton would fit the bill (and hence the best performing AV as determined by this very useful thread).

 

[zimu]

my norton 2004 didn't catch the serv-u backdoor one.

everything else was removed.

 

[MDesigner]

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: MDesigner
sxr, a lot of other antivirus apps have autoprotects that are not resource intensive. Most of them probably, except Norton

Do you have one in particular in mind or do you think that anything but Norton would fit the bill (and hence the best performing AV as determined by this very useful thread).

Well, Bitdefender and Panda Titanium Antivirus 2004 are coming out as the two best.

 

[MDesigner]

GOOD NEWS. The Panda update (2/17) caught the one virus it missed earlier. So Panda is pretty much as effective as Bitdefender. I still don't like the way Panda's heuristic mode is a little bit too paranoid..

I have a new archive you can download that has one extra virus (BAT.Delete). It's really stupid, nothing but a script that does del \windows\*.* or something like that. Bitdefender caught it, Panda didn't...but that's not really a huge deal.

 

[ViciouS]

scarry thing when the biggest names in AV software couldnt catch a cold let alone a virus. How easy it is to get trojans makes you wonder whos controlling it all.............................. You should hear what i think about JFK. Muhahahaah

 

Originally posted by: MDesigner
Man, this thread is about to appear on the Hot Topics list! We just need like 5 or so more replies

I still have not purchased Bitdefender yet. Someone told me in this thread that Panda Titanium 2004 caught all seven viruses.. I don't really believe that, personally, since I tried it and it missed one. I was using a trial version, but it DID have the latest updates.

Can someone else with Titanium Antivirus 2004 do a scan??

Thanks for calling me a liar, I really appreciate that. I was going to spread the gospel of Panda Platinum 8 and how wells it picks up RATS over all the other Trogan scanners but why waste my time now.

 

[ViciouS]

I still dont know how avast did... I mean you said poorly but what kind of results are those?

 

[MDesigner]

Ricky,

Sorry, apparently you had some brand new update that had just been released (mine was pretty up to date). I was just asking for more input from other people. Obviously many people on this thread have Norton but are getting VERY different results. I wanted to see how many other Panda owners got the same or different results than you, that's all.. sorry if I offended you!

I reread my post... it was pretty rude. Sorry about that. I should've been clearer & said I wanted more input from other Panda owners.

 

[MDesigner]

Originally posted by: ViciouS
I still dont know how avast did... I mean you said poorly but what kind of results are those?

Poorly = 2 out of 8 viruses detected. 25% success rate in this case.

 

Originally posted by: MDesigner
Ricky,

Sorry, apparently you had some brand new update that had just been released (mine was pretty up to date). I was just asking for more input from other people. Obviously many people on this thread have Norton but are getting VERY different results. I wanted to see how many other Panda owners got the same or different results than you, that's all.. sorry if I offended you!

I reread my post... it was pretty rude. Sorry about that. I should've been clearer & said I wanted more input from other Panda owners.

Apology accepted. Those interested in full protection might want to check out Panda Platinum 8. It finds RATS ,Trogans, Spyware stuff really well. The firewall is rules based. Platinum 8 kicks ass all over Norton Internet Security 04 and no I dont work for Panda. I just been using there stuff for years because its works

 

[mechBgon]

This thread is kind of like the threads where the owners of 20 different motherboards with eight different CPUs and twelve different heatsinks start comparing temperatures as if all factors were equal Posters, please add as much detail as reasonable about your configurations, because an out-of-the-box installation typically leaves some of the software's capabilities disabled or halfway-disabled (heuristics, for example, and scanning within compressed files).

Here is a template, quote it and fill it in:

• What software & version you've got
• What version of virus definitions it's armed with (give the version number or the date that you updated)
• What version of scan engine it's armed with (yes, they get updated too, not just the virus defs)
• Are heuristics enabled, and if so, are they maxed out?
• Are all file types and all file locations being scanned?
• Have you configured the right-click-scan properties to use the settings you intend it to use, or are you assuming that the settings for your real-time and scheduled scans are carried over to the right-click-scan too? On some software it may need to be separately configured.

Interesting thread MDesigner, I'll be following along to see what people report

 

[NEVERwinter]

err... I just realized something strange. My bitdefender doesn't integrate into right-click....
well I can drag the file to the file zone/net zone to check, but still.. it's strange. Is there an option to enable the right click manual scan?

 

[mechBgon]

I ran the test and found that the two Kifer files escaped unscathed.

mechBgon: ~ Scums!

So I bundled them up, and emailed them off to the antivirus vendor at 9:47PM Pacific time, and guess what they sent back a few minutes later? A provisional virus-definition file that will add protection in the interim until the next regular update is available. Now, how cool is that. And it works, too. I'm now batting 1.000 here.

Our company's license agreement doesn't allow me to discuss benchmarks of the software's detection performance without prior consent by the software company, unfortunately, so I am not able to tell you what particular software this is. But it shows the importance of someone getting off their rears and sending in the suspicious file for analysis, doesn't it?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
I ran the test and found that the two Kifer files escaped unscathed.

mechBgon: ~ Scums!

So I bundled them up, and emailed them off to the antivirus vendor at 9:47PM Pacific time, and guess what they sent back a few minutes later? A provisional virus-definition file that will add protection in the interim until the next regular update is available. Now, how cool is that. And it works, too. I'm now batting 1.000 here.

Our company's license agreement doesn't allow me to discuss benchmarks of the software's detection performance without prior consent by the software company, unfortunately, so I am not able to tell you what particular software this is. But it shows the importance of someone getting off their rears and sending in the suspicious file for analysis, doesn't it?

By the way, I think this incident also underlines that this type of test has to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't get too carried away with carving your findings into stone... my initial result was invalidated in about an hour, due to an updated set of virus definitions, and all I had to do was ask

 

[neilm]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
By the way, I think this incident also underlines that this type of test has to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't get too carried away with carving your findings into stone... my initial result was invalidated in about an hour, due to an updated set of virus definitions, and all I had to do was ask

Yea, but getting a better success rate than other can be down to reporting it to the AV company, then they send out an updated definition file (so this is probably the reason some are getting different results than others).

Although, I don't think it is just okay to send a report to them. It should be catching it first time, because how would you know what file is a virus and what is not. Only in this test you know for certain, otherwise it could be just sitting there for months undetected.

 

[sandorski]

Nav2k4 all Updates caught all but 2 automatically after download. After manual scan only Backdoor.ServU.B.exe was left.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: neilm

Originally posted by: mechBgon
By the way, I think this incident also underlines that this type of test has to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't get too carried away with carving your findings into stone... my initial result was invalidated in about an hour, due to an updated set of virus definitions, and all I had to do was ask

Yea, but getting a better success rate than other can be down to reporting it to the AV company, then they send out an updated definition file (so this is probably the reason some are getting different results than others).

Although, I don't think it is just okay to send a report to them. It should be catching it first time, because how would you know what file is a virus and what is not. Only in this test you know for certain, otherwise it could be just sitting there for months undetected.

I'm sure the company that comes up with a surefire method of detecting all unknown viruses will be soon be rich beyond their wildest dreams. Heuristics can help in some cases.

 

[MDesigner]

Hmm, Bitdefender 7.2 is acting funny. After some period of time, the resident auto protect (Virus Shield) just seems to stop working. It still says it's enabled, but I can tell it's no longer scanning when I go through my folders and open up files. What's going on?? This makes it lose some serious points. Even if my machine is bogged down with software and I haven't reformatted in 6 months, that's still no reason for the antivirus software to just QUIT.

This puts Panda in the lead I think.. especially since their most recent update caught that one virus that it missed.

PS: To the Bitdefender owner who asked about shell integration... it works for me. I right click on a file or folder and there's a Bitdefender Scan option.