Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: Javelin on June 06, 2005, 11:38:27 AM
-
Is avast really as bad as stated in this test? ???
http://www.av-comparatives.org
I use avast home and I am satisfied with it.
-
Please see my post here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=4979.msg36041#msg36041
-
The result for avast! is good! It catches 91% of viruses.
Kaspersky catches more (99%) but a lot of these will be rare viruses you're unlikely to come across, or might now be included in the avast! definitions. (Especially as the avast! team are now working on speed and adding defintions two or three times a day!)
I've been using avast! for a year and it hasn't let me down. Don't worry: the protection is good.
I've seen criticism on the forum along the lines that these viruses were provided by Kaspersky and McAfee etc, so their scanners are bound to have a better detection rate. This may be true, but I can confirm from cleaning some infected computers recently that Kaspersky cleaned up some things avast! couldn't touch.
The good news is that you can have the same sort of detection rate as Kaspersky by combining avast! with a free Trojan detector like Ewido.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/free-vs-paid-av-part2.htm
This seems to be confirmed by other users of the forum who have said it was useful to clean up a few Trojans that avast! missed.
Of course this situation may change with the next review that comes out because the Alwil team are working so hard! avast! gets better all the time.
avast! provides excellent protection, so don't worry: as long as you use a bit of common sense as well. If you download every malware infested email attachment, instant messenger and peer-to-peer file or crack file on the net, eventually you will download a nasty that avast! will miss. But this is equally true of any antivirus program.
-
Hello FreewheelinFrank,
you are right, Avast detects approx 91% (Feb. 2005 test), which is a good result, but the top 3 AV detect more than 98%. I think it is a quite great gap.
And at least the detection rate of viruses without DOS & other OS scares :o me. Most people use Windows (like me) and the detection is only 82,4%, that are 17 basis points behind Kaspersky.
@ Vlk
I read most of the other thread. You wrote
/quote/
OK I can tell you as well: what these tests actually do is scan a database of new viruses with a scanner with old virus database. This shows how the scanner performs if you fail to update it.
/unquote/
I understood, that the Feb. 2005 test used new virus definition database. ?!?
-
Hi Javelin,
Sometimes a new virus is omitted by your scan, or it was so new the next update has it. We call that the vulnerability window. New worms occur on the net within a time-span of some 36 hours after launch time. To close the gap, you rescan your whole system biweekly for these viruses.
greets,
polonus
-
avast! detects 91% of viruses in this test, but the ones it didn't detect may never be encountered in real life.
In the latest test against 'in the wild' viruses (viruses you are very likely to come across,) avast! detected 100%.
Do a double check with Ewido of any files you download and you will have 99% protection too.
Even without doing this, avast! provides a excellent level of protection: exercise some common sense and you will be safe.
Bear in mind what Polonus said: if you have a suspect file, leave it for a few days to be sure that avast! has the latest virus definitions.
Also bear in mind that the avast! team are working hard on definitions so avast!'s score can only go up...
But if you have an out of date operating system, no firewall and no anti-virus program on your computer, you may pick up a virus avast! alone can't clean. This is true for any program, even those which scored 99%.
That's not to say that Kaspersky is not worth the money: it's effective, simple to use and well designed. It's also rather expensive, but you pay your money and you take your choice. Or if you have no money like me, you use avast! Home. ::)
-
So I'm feeling safe, as I already have Ewido on my pc. ;D
-
Avast is excellent; there's no question in my mind about that.
However, I believe in a layered approach. I also use two free anti-trojans, Ewido (http://www.ewido.net/en/download/), which FreewheelinFrank mentioned, and a-squared. (http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/download/) (The free versions of the latter don't have resident protection/background guard; you can get that with the paid versions. They do have excellent scanners.)
Another thread here discussed how it is possible to install a second, back-up antivirus if the second one doesn't have any resident protection enabled, such as BitDefender.
-
My secondary antivirus is Anti Vir, I got rid of a-squared when I realize that if I run that along with another program, then every program will take more RAMX2. :-\
-
So I'm feeling safe, as I already have Ewido on my pc. ;D
For me, Ewido has a very slow scanning... very slow, comparing to Microsoft Antispyware, a-squared, Ad-aware and, for sure, the weak SpyBot... :'(
But not only this, the scanning show a lot of false positives with avast install files (setup.exe) and scripts that I did myself with AutoIt and I'm sure they're clean and innofensive.
Other disavantage: the scanning results are parcial, stoping (pausing) the scanning and asking for the user interaction. Ok, you can use 'do always the same action' but, in fact, I want to decide at the end like the others :P
-
Haven't had any problems with Ewido (or a-squared). Scanning may not be all that fast, but I don't find it painfully slow, either. In any case, the protection is worth the time spent scanning -- although, they rarely find anything.
As for Spybot S&D, why "weak"? Because of scanning speed? I'm under the impression that it's one of the best anti-spyware programs out there, especially after the debacle with Ad-Aware. I guess scanning speed isn't that much of a priority with me.
-
Spybot 1.4 have shown alot of improvements for speed, but the updates are just too blasted long. It's averaging about one update per month or maybe longer. :-\
I choose to keep Anti Vir as my only secondary virus scanner. Avast! will always be my resident shield of course.
-
Never had problems with Ewido too.... ??? slow, but it's working...
-
I'm sure Ewido is good, alot of people said it's a nice program to have, but I always enjoy Anti Vir before I got avast! when I threw out AVG. Now I enjoy both of these antivirus programs. ;D
-
Ewido's speed is more comparable with an anti-virus program as it scans for Trojans and not just spyware: it seems to take about as long as avast!
Of course if you do an on-demand scan as a double check when you download a file it only takes a few seconds!
Thanks for the tip about AntiVir free: I'm trying it now with on-access scanning disabled. The web site has broken links everywhere but I eventually found an old version on Major Geeks. It seems to be a bit slow updating: I think new life forms in other galaxies will have crawled out of the primeval swamp, evolved into sentient life forms, invented the internet and killed themselves by global warming by the time it's finished... >:(
I have also used ClamWin as a double check anti-virus, but after the last update it threw a wobbly and only a system restore would remove it.
Trend Micro Sysclean is another good program to use as a double check.
Although I've scanned with a2, Ewido, ClamWin, Sysclean and several online scanners, I've never found anything that avast! missed. :D
I probably have my ISP partially to thank for this: whatever anti-virus they use to scan, it seems to catch every virus infested attachment that I get sent even before avast! has a chance to look a it.
Oh, by the way, meanwhile AntiVir update has crashed...
-
I'd always heard AntiVir was good; I think it was one of the main two or three I was considering before switching to avast about a year ago. Maybe I'll try it one day. For now, I think I'll stick with BitDefender as my backup a-v. It seems to be doing okay, so far.
I do consider my anti-trojan software as critical, though. FreewheelinFrank, you're right, Ewido's scans, in terms of time, do approximate an a-v scan. I guess I just accept that as normal; and, as I said, I don't mind the extra time it takes. An Ewido scan is available from the right-click context menu in explorer, so that makes it easy to do a quick check on downloaded files.
It's very rare that either Ewido or a-squared find anything. But, since they're free and also don't cause any problems for me, and are specifically designed to detect trojans, I feel they're valuable tools (along with anti-spyware, etc) in my security toolkit. Maybe I'm kind of paranoid, but I'd rather be paranoid than infected! ;D
-
Yes, indeed! Amen to that.
But AntiVir Free's servers are really rubbish: I haven't been able to get an update. They make AVG Free's servers look good!
I guess I got used to avast!'s updates coming in a flash!
-
Ewido's speed is more comparable with an anti-virus program as it scans for Trojans and not just spyware: it seems to take about as long as avast!
Yeah... the two speeds could be almost the same...
I have also used ClamWin as a double check anti-virus, but after the last update it threw a wobbly and only a system restore would remove it.
Have trouble with it email scanner if avast is used in the same computer. The MS Office pluggin cannot be 'removed' as well (or I can't find a way to do it).
Oh, by the way, meanwhile AntiVir update has crashed...
Works well for me, not that trouble. Unfortunatelly, the updates are not incremental: too long, too big :P
Also, a lot of macro false positives.
Scanning may not be all that fast, but I don't find it painfully slow, either. In any case, the protection is worth the time spent scanning -- although, they rarely find anything.
Ok, I just comparing and not blaming agains a freeware application.
As for Spybot S&D, why "weak"? Because of scanning speed? I'm under the impression that it's one of the best anti-spyware programs out there, especially after the debacle with Ad-Aware. I guess scanning speed isn't that much of a priority with me.
Yes, for me it does not detect as much as the others... The updates and the signatures are rare and weak compared with others, imho.
Spybot 1.4 have shown alot of improvements for speed, but the updates are just too blasted long. It's averaging about one update per month or maybe longer. :-\
Yes, that's the problem...