Anybody read this review...?

[FreewheelinFrank]

The review is now available online:

http://www.computershopper.co.uk/labs/220/anti-virus-exposed/products.html

[alanrf]

Hmmm ... I dislike the AVG interface and compared with this forum the AVG forums might as well not exist (I cannot like forums that tell you the conditions on which you may be graciously permitted to post - and no, it was not like that when my sticky in their mail forum was reposted at their request).

However, if they are rated that highly (and at the same price point as avast) I suppose I should give their product another look.

[Vlk]

Alanrf, that was a joke, right?

I mean, do you really think this review is relevant? We now have their official reaction to our objections, and it makes me even more confident that the "test" is one of the worst conducted I've ever seen...

It turns out that avast missed 6 (six) samples from their collection, and that was enough to score worst in the test. I can only wonder how many samples in total there were in such a "collection". Twenty? Fifty?

[RejZoR]

Vlk, i bet there was just 6 samples lol

[alanrf]

Vlk,

you may have noticed that some us (including RejZoR) do sometimes look at what other products are doing and how they are looked at by the community.  The fact the we are still here in these forums speaks highly of the loyalty that your product has created in us, by its quality and the sustained efforts of your team in managing, maintaining and developing the product and your willingness to actively interface with us, your user community. 

OK, you are now waiting for the inevitable "but" that negates all I have just said.
There is none ... I just think that, as your users, it our job as much as yours to keep your team on its toes. 

If another product is faster than you with virus updates ... we should ask why you are lagging ... if another product can scan faster than yours we should ask why ... if another product can make it simple to terminate encrypted mail safely and scan it then we should ask why you do not.  So, it is up to us too to look at what the others are doing ... not just your folks. 

Besides ... some of us don't get to visit Redmond several times a year and attend  all the other major gatherings (any more in my case).  We just have the time to look at this stuff on the web ... the good analysis, the crap reports and the plain biased ones.

Would you really want a forum that that was not a pain in the rear end?   

     

[Vlk]

I have absolutely no objections about you (or anyone else) trying, OR using, any other AV product, of course... It's just that I'd find it a bit funny that someone (especially someone so proficient in the matter) would do anything after reading this particular review.

In reality, tell me a name of an arbirary AV, and I will be give you not six, but six thousand samples it does not detect.

[alanrf]

Thanks Vlk, you got my point and I get yours - it wasn't so much a case of believing that report (since I disbelieve most of them on sight) - it was one of nudging me that avast is getting to me like an old pair of slippers and I really should should be out there looking at what is new.

You know - I really think I am becoming an avast evangelist - something I promised myself I would never become.

[OrangeCrate]

We don't like the way the review was written, and for that reason, we have contacted its author and asked him to explain some of its points. Also, Eda (our CEO) will probably be meeting him during the next week (in London). Let's see what the results will be like...

Any specifics from this meeting that you can share with us? Particularly, anything from their "official reaction" besides the six samples nonsense you mentioned in your later post?

[Dwarden]

this just leads back to what i keep suggesting and awaiting for long time

different system of suspicious file to upload/analyze and faster response times
 (ie addition of "suspicious/riskware" detection sets)

it just feel strange that i have in archive sitting trojan spamming tool element
from active infection sent to avast 3 months ago ,
most others AV detect it in some form yet Avast! itself still not ...

and that's why answer on question what's best AV something in style
" KAV, NOD32, (sometimes Dr.Web) and THEN avast!".
IT really not matters on some details (KAV false positives, NOD32 hype or missing files)
noone of them can be called perfect and as standalone to protect enough.