Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: garrett on June 08, 2010, 01:06:42 PM
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Hi everybody,
The Retrospective/Proactive Comparative test May 2010 is on line.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144&Itemid=152
I think Avast should significantly improve its heuristic and behaviour detecton..
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Why avast free %29 ???
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avast always does very bad in proactive detection :'(
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I do now believe that MSE is getting better and better.
I think MSE will surpass all AV's in the future.
Very asshamed for AVAST that i rely on Pro Active Defence. Very BAD!!!
Most pros advice MSE, ESET, Avira and Norton.
I think MSE will win because its free and good result.
They test avira premium which is paid.
I think avira free lack of pro active protection.
So ill vote for MSE.
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avast always does very bad in proactive detection :'(
I hoped that avast 5, with its new behaviour shield and heuristic, would have done better, but
looks like that behaviour shield is pretty useless in the current state :(
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avast always does very bad in proactive detection :'(
I hoped that avast 5, with its new behaviour shield and heuristic, would have done better, but
looks like that behaviour shield is pretty useless in the current state :(
I think this test is NOT related to behavior shield... because this test was carried out WITHOUT executing malwares: tested only heurisic/generic detection, not behavioral detection.
BTW, I hope avast improve heuristic/generic ability.
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no surprise - the tested version was one of the first stable v5 and it did not contain much more heur/gen detections than v4 yet...
btw: no antivirus performed very well, considering the scores near 80% in previous tests and ~60% now..
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There will be always an excuse ::)
When we pass it good. We're the best!
When we fail. The test is not so good ;D
Keep improving.
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There will be always an excuse ::)
When we pass it good. We're the best!
When we fail. The test is not so good ;D
Keep improving.
+1
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There will be always an excuse ::)
When we pass it good. We're the best!
When we fail. The test is not so good ;D
Keep improving.
I agree 100%. It is easier to make excuses than to improve.
Avast 5 is an excellent AV overall, but it does need improvement in this area.
Regards,
Jerry
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I think Avast focusing on Program Version which fixing plenty of bugs and adding languages which they forgot to focus on Very basic function of AV's? Detecting, Removing and Blocking.
Im very sad to see the result.
Avast beaten by AVG which is crap!!!
The ugliest result ive ever seen!
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I think avira free lack of pro active protection.
False, Avira Free has the same scan engines then paid versions.
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It is easier to make excuses than to improve.
And with your statement, you don't think AVAST Software don't want to improve their software? 8) Of course they will improve the software, and for me, Maxx_originals post was not an excuse, but it was just facts :)
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I think avira free lack of pro active protection.
False, Avira Free has the same scan engines then paid versions.
Were talking here on Pro-active Protection
Please read this
http://www.free-av.de/en/products/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html
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Bluesman: exactly.. not an excuse, just some facts about the testing... we're aware of the room for improvements and some steps have already been done (SuspBehav detections - ~3 weeks ago - they were not included in the tested version, dynamic translation used to detect new Sality - ~ a week ago, new winexec unpacker - ~2 weeks ago), more steps will follow.. btw: as kubecj already wrote - when someone detects 40% of new daily feed from virustotal e.g. then he's a "master of the clan", that's a reality.. Clementi's set must be somehow filtered, otherwise it would be impossible to achieve a detection of 60%, 80% etc..
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I'm sure Avast is improving, but you must admit that some other products have already achieved a detection close to 60% (with few false positives). So it's not an impossible goal to reach.
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I think avira free lack of pro active protection.
False, Avira Free has the same scan engines then paid versions.
Were talking here on Pro-active Protection
Please read this
http://www.free-av.de/en/products/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html
"AntiVirProActiv detects unknown viruses by behavior" Behavior and heuristics are 2 different thing. Free and paid versions have the same detection rates.
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Where is the center of analysis, research and development of the Alwil ?
Avast will once again lose market share if not better.
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It is easier to make excuses than to improve.
And with your statement, you don't think AVAST Software don't want to improve their software? 8) Of course they will improve the software, and for me, Maxx_originals post was not an excuse, but it was just facts :)
I am very sure that Avast does desire to improve. However, in many cases companies find reasons why the tests are flawed instead of their product. While I have not noticed it in this thread, I use what I think gives the best security, and will change to a better one if I decide to.
Avast has performed well in the other AVC tests, but it failed this one, as far as I am concerned, and when I can get an AV that is tops in all areas that is what I seek to do.
I am not a fan boy of any AV, and am interested in results that indicate top protection and not reasons why the test is flawed or an AV did not get a fair test. Again I have not seen this from Avast, but I don't want to either. Accept that it was a poor showing and improve it. I am surprised that MSE, a freebie, did so well.
Regards,
Jerry
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remember that a common scenario is to have an up-to-date antivirus.. i absolutely don't know why we should lose market share in relation to these test results... it only showed that the very early version 5 provided no significant (detection) addition to v4, that's all... and yes, we could find some flaws there (e.g. the low number of script/pdf/flash malware in the set even when a majority of infections comes from web)
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remember that a common scenario is to have an up-to-date antivirus.. i absolutely don't know why we should lose market share in relation to these test results... it only showed that the very early version 5 provided no significant (detection) addition to v4, that's all... and yes, we could find some flaws there (e.g. the low number of script/pdf/flash malware in the set even when a majority of infections comes from web)
So then prefering accommodation ...
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This is Av-Comparative Retrospective/Proactive Test February 2010, published in June 2010. Or am I missing something ???
Greetz, Red.
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So then prefering accommodation ...
Henrique, better is avoid criticism in my opinion.
Everyone recognizes (avast team either) that there are room for improvements.
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This is Av-Comparative Retrospective/Proactive Test February 2010, published in June 2010. Or am I missing something ???
Greetz, Red.
The previous Retro test was in Nov 09. The Feb 2010 test was an on-demand test. This June test is a new Retro test.
Of all the AVC tests I believe that the Dynamic tests are the most likely to reflect "real world" conditions.
Avast was tied for third, along with MSE, in that last Dynamic test. The June test mentioned today would not cause me to dump Avast in view of previous on-demand and dynamic tests. It remains an excellent AV.
I think that Microsoft has a real winner in MSE. Avast Free and MSE knocked the socks off most of the paid AVs.
I am not sure if there is a clear choice between those two freebies.
Regards,
Jerry
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i also am dissapointed in these results. however in my daily use of avast i see it detect a lot of things especially drive by's and scripts etc. i have seen WAY more pop ups and blocked items then i ever did with nortons with its pretty over sensitive sonar detection which suprises me. but all in all these tests do sadden me and i sure hope they improve very soon. in the last tests avast did overall very well imo they failed this test for me as well as what jerrym said. i really like avast and so much so i bought a number of lic's just hope it doesnt go downhill from here.
please keep improving the software and forget about things like the ads and stuff till the program performs the best it can imo..
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C'mon... let's not start to talk about an ad that is not an ad...
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some of us feel it is.. but thats besides the point. work on the overall detection and program BEFORE trying to start other things like that is what im trying to say. get avast back to the top spots and then worry about the other things later
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some of us feel it is.. but thats besides the point. work on the overall detection and program BEFORE trying to start other things like that is what im trying to say. get avast back to the top spots and then worry about the other things later
if its beside the point, dont mention it to begin with... ::)
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This thread is in need of something positive. Avast's SuspBehav detection is working, avast was one of the few to detect this nasty dropper:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/09ff417954bb3996fb5d7737f3286eee2eb5e0a97aa7c6ebec2e55edc3df9d8c-1275672649
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Guys don't get too much embarrassed. Avast always performed good. See for example the Retrospective/Proactive Test test of Nov 2009 (53%) and May 2009 (42%). All these tests are carried out only with a small subset of the vast malwares. Avast has always been consistent performer. So, one should not be too much upset with this result.
For those who are praising about MSE should know that it failed in the last VB100 award for in-the-wild detection.
And also do not give excuses about the early stages of v5 or so, because all the products were tested at the same point. It's just a coincident. Just tell me how many thread are there in this forum that bash avast for not protecting against virus infection?
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It is just as important for an AV to keep up with new malware by updating it's signatures as it is to detect new things. They say in the test that they used the same signature base from February that they used back then for the other test. Also notice that the version of Avast! used is not the latest one and they admit that behavior analysis was not used. The second fact pretty much nullifies the test results for me. If they tested the latest version with the latest signatures, I'm sure every sample would have been detected. Even the latest version with the February signatures would probably do better. I don't think we can give these results much credibility when they used a version of Avast! that is at least two updates behind.
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It is just as important for an AV to keep up with new malware by updating it's signatures as it is to detect new things. They say in the test that they used the same signature base from February that they used back then for the other test. Also notice that the version of Avast! used is not the latest one and they admit that behavior analysis was not used. The second fact pretty much nullifies the test results for me. If they tested the latest version with the latest signatures, I'm sure every sample would have been detected. Even the latest version with the February signatures would probably do better. I don't think we can give these results much credibility when they used a version of Avast! that is at least two updates behind.
Please I think you guys are not understanding the problem. If they had to test with the latest engines of Avast, they will have to make all the viruses their own. Otherwise there will be no significance of this test.
These test shows how avast and all other AVs proactive defense were at Feb2010, not now. Also in these 3 months all the AVs have improved.
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Does anybody noticed in the Retrospective/Proactive Test May 2010 they were using the old Avast version 5.0.396 ???
I'll bet ;) the latest Avast v5.0.545 might have improved the Retrospective/Proactive result we have to understand that not all AV testers out their keep the software up to date before the test result start, I have no problems Avast will keep getting better each day Vlk may release the next Avast version soon that may cover the problem who knows ???.
The real question is for everybody in here Who do you TRUST!
My vote is Avast ;) ;D
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I think Avast focusing on Program Version which fixing plenty of bugs and adding languages which they forgot to focus on Very basic function of AV's? Detecting, Removing and Blocking.
Im very sad to see the result.
Avast beaten by AVG which is crap!!!
Says who? the results do not say so!!!!!!!!!!! unfortunately Avast did bad but that is not the end of the world. We should not bash other product because avast did bad. grow up people stop murmuring.
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Sorry for my English skills but I need write my opinion.
Avast is good antivirus but one big problem for me is avast support is very slowly. I send often about one virus sample per day to avast lab but research durative about 1-2 days its too long. All samples I sent to virus@avast.com. Avast support must be quickly half day to release update on this sample. Avast has big problems with pdfka detections and fakeav detection. In nowadays very much infiltrations are focus on fake av products and pdfka / trojans. Avast must be more proactive. I am waiting on changes.
Good job for microsoft developers
Microsoft essentials is good free alternative product.
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The testing is getting more and more problematic. And on each AV conference there are multiple papers about how to do proper testing (not that I think that all of them make sense 8))
I have objections against all AV-Comparatives tests performed, also the Av-Test, but those are less 'documented', so it's hard to tell where the deficiencies lie.
The usual points about static testing are:
a) the tests are carried long after the real infection took place, so it's kind of useless from today's point of view
b) the tests are carried without any context state information. Such information - if there is file named "document.doc .exe" in email, this is enough to ban the execution
c) the tests are carried only with the signature engines - they don't test the other generic protection engines the products may have
d) the tests don't know anything about the relationship of the samples. If you detect the dropper, you don't have to detect the dropped binary.
e) the tests are too binary-centric and have only small amount of script/pdf/flash malware, althought these are one of the main vectors of getting thru to your computer.
f) there is little of no info on how the testbeds are created. All these 99.1% and such scores are complete nonsense from my point of view. The overlap of the product's detections is not as great as clementi/marx tests suggest.
This is not an excuse, that's an explanation what your really should read from the static tests. Yep, it's nice to be on the first places, but the world does not end if you're not there.
Regarding the pro-active test, this is the most flawed test of them all. It does _NOT_ test the ability of the product to protect you from the unknown malware. It tests the ability of the signature engines to detect the samples Av-Comparatives got in the test's timeframe. For example, what if the engine authors already had the samples and wrote the detections and Av-Comparatives added them later? We're back again in the 'testedbed construction' problem.
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coper: pdfka samples should be well covered, regarding our internal stats... fake av detections need to improve, that's right (but they're difficult to detect proactively - Mystic compresor e.g. - used to wrap some rogues - brings new anti-emu tricks in each generation)..
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I think Its about solidarity human who want help avast community with virus sample.
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Coper, regarding the pdf detections... I dug out all pdf samples we got from beginning of january.
It was 10104 unique samples. Scanned with the latest signatures of command line scanners.
If we assume, that there are no false alarms, and we can say that 1 detection of any AV means the file is real malware (I know this is oversimplification), then 9226 files are detected.
| AV | Detections | Percentage |
| Avast | 8441 | 91.5% |
| Kaspersky | 6908 | 74.9% |
| Bitdefender | 6340 | 68.7% |
| NOD32 | 4772 | 51.7% |
| Symantec | 4136 | 44.8% |
| Microsoft | 4044 | 43.8% |
| Avira | 2946 | 31.9% |
| AVG | 2167 | 23.5% |
Now tell me, where is your comment based on our pdfka problems based on?
And this is completely 'honest' without any deliberate messing with the testbed and using the latest signatures. Again - there is nonzero possibility that AVs with bad scores may have some generic anti-exploit protection techniques in their full fledged scanners and are able to protect their customer even contrary to the fact that they had 'bad score' in my 'test'.
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I always read about Avast and Avira.
Avast is good on Pro-active protection not excellent on demand scan. I mean not very good on detection rates.
Avira is good on demand scanning but not good on Pro Active Protection which cause plenty of FP.
I hope next Pro Active Test Avast would came Top 5 for Av comparative.
I know Avast is not good on Detection rates so i always back up and anti malware software.
I always use Avast and MBAM.
Avast for protection.
MBAM for detecting and removing malware which avast missed it.
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Its not only on based pdfka files
Holding fingers to the futures
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All the results I read about say Avira has a slightly higher detection rate than Avast! but with far more FP's. I'll take the very slightly lower detection rate without the FP's any day.
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No more sending samples to Alwil.
The samples are underutilized and even ignored.
I'm tired.
:(
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One thing for sure not sending them at all will ensure there is zero possibility of anything being done at all.
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One thing for sure not sending them at all will ensure there is zero possibility of anything being done at all.
+1
Henrique, don't give up, please. I'm also interested in avast protection - as a lot of other Brazilians - and we're seeing that Avira is forward compared to avast. But, I still have hope...
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Reality is hard but I believe this tests more than the ones that
show the same applications scoring 98.5% or whatever. I like
Avast so I am not going anywhere but to be almost 100% safe
we need to combine Avast with some other layer of security. I
personally like virtualization/policy sandboxing or HIPS.
In my opinion if you only use a AV and Firewall then its just a
matter of time before you get infected again.
Bo
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I suggest you read kubecj's posts again, starting on reply #35 http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=60554.msg511199#msg511199 (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=60554.msg511199#msg511199) as the on-demand scans don't reflect real life use as heuristic, generic and behavioural scanning won't be running as they are in the real-time on=access scanners.
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It does not help that the samples be sent to Alwill and it not take advantage.
Brazilian Hackers create new trojans every day (and many repeated and similar) and Avast detects nothing while Avira detects almost everyone.
Sent also other types of trojans and adware and Alwill arrives to ignore them.
Other malware will take days to be detected by Avast though it already has sent.
Very tiring task of this "malware hunter" and almost fruitless.
Alwill needs to improve its automated methods of analysis (sandbox analysis?).
AVG (Grisoft) is in the same situation.
I'm not a workaholic.
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Hi Davidr, I hope kubecj is right because I need Avast real time
more than as a scanner. The scanner dont do nothing for me other
than for scanning files I download to my hard drive. I am very happy
using Avast so please don't get me wrong but I dont believe at all
the tests were the applications(all antivirus) score above 80%. I am
sure Avast is better than it shows here and I wish that not only
Avast but all AV get better.
Bo
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No more sending samples to Alwil.
The samples are underutilized and even ignored.
I'm tired.
:(
Please don,t give up. ;)
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No more sending samples to Alwil.
The samples are underutilized and even ignored.
I'm tired.
:(
Please don,t give up. ;)
I agree, Don't give up. On one of the other forums I go to someone posted their "Malware collection" which was over 65MB and over 400 files. I sent this to MSE,Avast and several others. The point is, This isn't a game, I don't care who's got the best this or that. It's about KEEPING PEOPLE SAFE no matter which A/V they use.
If your going to be a "Malware Fighter", Fight for everyone.
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One thing for sure not sending them at all will ensure there is zero possibility of anything being done at all.
+1
Henrique, don't give up, please. I'm also interested in avast protection - as a lot of other Brazilians - and we're seeing that Avira is forward compared to avast. But, I still have hope...
+1
If your going to be a "Malware Fighter", Fight for everyone.
+1
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I'm hoping maxx will make more "SuspBehav" rules. The dynamic translation emulation engine seems to be very promising since it's really fast and flexible. It just needs more rules so it will cover more stuff. It might take some time for them to make these rules guess.
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There will be always an excuse ::)
When we pass it good. We're the best!
When we fail. The test is not so good ;D
Keep improving.
+1
+10
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Totally agree. I can't beat +10 ;).
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Go avast team!!!
Next time you're going to make the result unbelievable to the max :)
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Now that is optimism. ;D
Avast is a good company, and the product will improve. I continue to think that the whole product dynamic tests are the most meaningful. In the last one, Avast tied for third over some well respected AVs.
I think this retro test is the least useful to me.
Regards,
Jerry
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Now that is optimism. ;D
Avast is a good company, and the product will improve. I continue to think that the whole product dynamic tests are the most meaningful. In the last one, Avast tied for third over some well respected AVs.
I think this retro test is the least useful to me.
Regards,
Jerry
I agree, the retro test is bad because it doesn't include all of the weapons that the products use against new malware. Such as the Behavior Shield which has been improved since the version of Avast! that they tested with.
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It is just as important for an AV to keep up with new malware by updating it's signatures as it is to detect new things. They say in the test that they used the same signature base from February that they used back then for the other test. Also notice that the version of Avast! used is not the latest one and they admit that behavior analysis was not used. The second fact pretty much nullifies the test results for me. If they tested the latest version with the latest signatures, I'm sure every sample would have been detected. Even the latest version with the February signatures would probably do better. I don't think we can give these results much credibility when they used a version of Avast! that is at least two updates behind.
This is the problem. Today, you can not rely only on the signatures a day. Since there are too many threats that are created daily. It is therefore not to use the signatures for direct detection. Make more use of heuristics in order to detect any threat that relates to any of the thousands of signatures. An antivirus software usually has 90-97% detection of a signature database. This is why we must abandon the direct comparison with signatures. Therefore, MSE had a higher rate than avast. Because realtime-protection is based on behavior & heuristic and not in direct comparison.
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All the results I read about say Avira has a slightly higher detection rate than Avast! but with far more FP's. I'll take the very slightly lower detection rate without the FP's any day.
If, after complaining about AV lab tests, anyone is interested in years of real-world experience:
I have been using the free version of Avira for years, variously on 1 to 3 machines, except for a few months trying to use Avast, and a few VERY short tests of other AVs. In all of those many years, Avira has produced about 4 or 5 false positives. All were connected with websites, and none have been in the past year or so. I mostly use Avira with its default scan settings + pre-scan rootkit detection.
If you want to complain about FPs:
I addition to using Avira for background monitoring and daily full disk scans, I also use the free emsisoft (formerly asquared) command-line scanner for daily scans, because of Avira's known weaknesses in detecting more sophisticated non-virus infestations. Emsisoft produces several FPs a week, usually identifying well known old programs which have been unchanged on my systems for years as trojans. No sooner do they correct one - sometimes after several days - than it will identify some other unchanged old program as a trojan.
Good luck.
C.
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It's about KEEPING PEOPLE SAFE no matter which A/V they use.
If your going to be a "Malware Fighter", Fight for everyone.
I deeply thank you for this comment...!! :)
And 100% agree with you..!
asyn
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I do now believe that MSE is getting better and better.
I think MSE will surpass all AV's in the future.
Very asshamed for AVAST that i rely on Pro Active Defence. Very BAD!!!
Most pros advice MSE, ESET, Avira and Norton.
I think MSE will win because its free and good result.
They test avira premium which is paid.
I think avira free lack of pro active protection.
So ill vote for MSE.
No, Avast! is all-roun ded whild MSE is only equipped with file system shield.
And ESET is QUITE POOR at self-protection!!!It's always the first to be killed by viruses....
After using NOD32 and being infected with virus one year ago.....I had never cast a look at it
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@ziucqea
If your frequent reader on virus and malware removal like bleeping computer, sevenforums and malwarebytes forums.
You will noticed that they always use MSE, ESET, Avira and Norton.
For paid most people choose Norton.
For free MSE, Avira.
For online scanning ESET and Kaspersky.
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One thing that MSE does that helps against new threats is that if it flags something as suspicious that is not in your currently installed database it will check with Microsoft's servers for newer definitions that you may not have received yet and scan the file with those. It also checks for reports from Microsoft's security related features like Smart Screen and others. MSE looks deceptively simple but is a lot more complex than you realize. This is most likely the reason why MSE scored higher against new threats than Avast! did. (Along with the fact that they used an outdated version of Avast!) In the real time tests, Avast! beat MSE.
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ESET in my school wasn't well updated and it was the version 3 I think..
Poof I've asked permission to enter as administrator instead being a student..
I totally removed ESET and put avast there ^^
Wow at first installation the computer was totally infected alert coming one after one..
Then I disabled avast shields..
Configured the boot scan a restarted..
At my surprise after the scan..the computer got about 60 viruses..
Poof students these days brings only infected pendrive/flash drives..really..
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similar to my experiences with eset over the years. i would always end up infected with it. i then went to kaspersky and it worked great but caused to much drag, norton also kept me clean and so far avast as well. i always had some kind of issue with ess though i got tired of no responses and not much help from their tech also... just me experiences. so far avast sales and direct tech support for tickets have been far better overall. i think only norton responded faster for me.
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Sorry for my English skills but I need write my opinion.
Avast is good antivirus but one big problem for me is avast support is very slowly. I send often about one virus sample per day to avast lab but research durative about 1-2 days its too long. All samples I sent to virus@avast.com. Avast support must be quickly half day to release update on this sample. Avast has big problems with pdfka detections and fakeav detection. In nowadays very much infiltrations are focus on fake av products and pdfka / trojans. Avast must be more proactive. I am waiting on changes.
Good job for microsoft developers
Microsoft essentials is good free alternative product.
Precisely. Avast! takes so long a time to analyse samples and update its definations that I wonder what the programmers are doing(And according to Avast!, all the samples actually undergo an auto analyse and the definations will be updated 'quickly')
You can refer to the update history to find how many definations they are acually renewing in one package, sometimes 4 new definations for the whole day!
http://www.avast.com/zh-cn/virus-update-history
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@ziucqea
If your frequent reader on virus and malware removal like bleeping computer, sevenforums and malwarebytes forums.
You will noticed that they always use MSE, ESET, Avira and Norton.
For paid most people choose Norton.
For free MSE, Avira.
For online scanning ESET and Kaspersky.
So what's the point?