Virus database

[WuLFe]

just curious to know exactly how many signatures avast! has in its virus database as of late...

thanks in advance

[DavidR]

The total is a pretty meaningless figure as some of the signatures are generic and designed to detect multiple variants of some malware. The same is true of how other AVs count what is detected so there is no way to count and compare apples with oranges.

You can right click the avast icon, select Start avast! Antivirus, Menu, Virus Database, enter an * for the virus name and click search, which currently returns 85,709.

[Lisandro]

This was discussed a lot in the past...

1. There are a marketing issue involved. Companies estimate the number of viruses by high.
2. There are different counts possible: variants, etc.
3. There is not an international rule for virus naming, so same virus could be consider one or more by other company.
4. Scanning settings are very important.
5. Active viruses (ITW) are really more important then the whole number.
6. Generic signatures and heuristic detections cannot be really counted as 'virus detection'.

Well, etc. etc.
Trust avast!