Author Topic: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!  (Read 14926 times)

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Offline !Donovan

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Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« on: June 06, 2009, 01:52:48 AM »
List results for first page when you search antivirus on google:
1st: AVG - free.avg.com
2nd: AVG - free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
3rd: Mcafee - www.mcafee.com/
4th: Norton - www.symantec.com/norton/antivirus
5th: Avast! - www.avast.com/
6th: Kaspersky - www.kaspersky.com/
7th: Trend Micro - us.trendmicro.com/us/home/index.html
8th: ESET - www.eset.com/
9th: BitDefender - www.bitdefender.com/
10th: AVG - www.avg.com/
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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2009, 02:16:47 AM »
1st: Bigger advertising buget
2nd: Google tracks clicks and boosts the most hit to the top
3rd: Who cares?

onlysomeone

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2009, 02:19:59 AM »
My search results are a bit different... (Google Austria...)

the first three results are paid advertisement:
#1: Kaspersky
#2: Norton
#3: Antivirus Doctor (don't know this one... when I try to access it, it gets blocked by internet explorer... ::))

from the normal search results here are the first places:
#1: Avira
#2: Avira
#3: Avast!
#4: AVG
#5: Kaspersky
#6: Eset
...

can anyone tell me if antivirus doctor really is bad software? (the link would be hxxp://www.antivirus-doktor.com/)

yours
onlysomeone
« Last Edit: June 06, 2009, 02:22:01 AM by onlysomeone »

Offline DavidR

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2009, 02:31:45 AM »
So what, my search results exclude sponsored links and avast is 4th, if you appear on the first page of any search engine results, that is considered good, so 4th or 5th isn't bad.
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Offline mkis

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2009, 03:00:57 AM »
you dont see avast running full page ads in popular magazines or coming pre-installed on new computers, just for starters...

AVG have head Offices in US, UK and Netherlands, which classifies them as a multinational. We all know that $$$ has not necessarily led to better AV performance.
Consider that avast are open source with home base outside the main markets.

onlysomeone shows a different picture. We have the same thing here with Yahoo - we have yahoo.com and yahoo.co.nz. But Google has been fiully localised into google.co.nz - this where searching google.com will take you.

Hi YoKenny. Last I recall - a year or so ago - Google was still running their algorithm for rankings returned by search as 50% for paid advertising (that is, 50% head start) and 50% for organic (volumes returned from natural rate of click throughs).

I think they change the algorithm at least monthly to deter the scammers, and they have a big team checking returns from their spider bots anyway. They were once uncrackable but I have heard more recently that they have taken their eye off the ball a bit. Initially - back in their days of "Do no Evil" they prided themselves on the integrity of their returns from organic based. But not for a long time now. When we speak of integrity nowdays, we look to people like Alwil.
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Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2009, 03:18:29 AM »
1st: Bigger advertising buget
2nd: Google tracks clicks and boosts the most hit to the top
3rd: Who cares?
Completely agree with this...
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aerialrave

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2009, 03:42:31 AM »
Hey hey wait, I want to add something about that Mcafee :|

(I'm not advertising or what)

My friend is using mcafee for a long time, then It didn't detect the virus that ruins his pc.
Then the mcafee said that my friend should contact them to know what kind of virus is that =| The problem is, mcafee didn't detect anything lol

Quote
1st: Bigger advertising buget
2nd: Google tracks clicks and boosts the most hit to the top
3rd: Who cares?

Lol at this one. Really right.

TTZ

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2009, 07:33:06 AM »
Hi, here is an issue that I want to share with you.
I've received from my friend his flash usb drive. In my Vista autorun for CD and USB is disabled. I have Avast Home (free version) running. Scanning of usb drive did non detect any virusesm but when I opened removeable drive I found "autorun.exe" hidden file, that was looked like some kind a trojan file. So I sent this file to virustotal, here is a report:
Quote
Antivirus   Version   Last Update   Result
a-squared   4.0.0.101   2009.06.04   Trojan-Spy.Win32.Agent!IK
AhnLab-V3   5.0.0.2   2009.06.05   -
AntiVir   7.9.0.180   2009.06.05   TR/Spy.Agent.asyp
Antiy-AVL   2.0.3.1   2009.06.05   Trojan/Win32.Agent
Authentium   5.1.2.4   2009.06.05   -
Avast   4.8.1335.0   2009.06.05   -
AVG   8.5.0.339   2009.06.05   SHeur2.AHSY
BitDefender   7.2   2009.06.06   -
CAT-QuickHeal   10.00   2009.06.05   TrojanSpy.Agent.asyp
ClamAV   0.94.1   2009.06.06   -
Comodo   1269   2009.06.06   -
DrWeb   5.0.0.12182   2009.06.06   Win32.HLLW.Autoruner.6326
eSafe   7.0.17.0   2009.06.04   Suspicious File
eTrust-Vet   31.6.6542   2009.06.05   -
F-Prot   4.4.4.56   2009.06.05   -
F-Secure   8.0.14470.0   2009.06.05   Trojan-Spy.Win32.Agent.asyp
Fortinet   3.117.0.0   2009.06.06   W32/Agent.ASYP!tr
GData   19   2009.06.06   -
Ikarus   T3.1.1.59.0   2009.06.06   -
K7AntiVirus   7.10.754   2009.06.04   Trojan-Spy.Win32.Agent.asyp
Kaspersky   7.0.0.125   2009.06.06   Trojan-Spy.Win32.Agent.asyp
McAfee   5637   2009.06.05   -
McAfee+Artemis   5637   2009.06.05   Artemis!466239B05F5B
McAfee-GW-Edition   6.7.6   2009.06.05   Trojan.Spy.Agent.asyp
Microsoft   1.4701   2009.06.05   TrojanDropper:Win32/Emold.C
NOD32   4134   2009.06.05   a variant of Win32/Kryptik.RT
Norman   6.01.09   2009.06.05   -
nProtect   2009.1.8.0   2009.06.06   Trojan-Spy/W32.Agent.41984.C
Panda   10.0.0.14   2009.06.05   Trj/CI.A
PCTools   4.4.2.0   2009.06.05   -
Prevx   3.0   2009.06.06   Medium Risk Malware
Rising   21.32.50.00   2009.06.06   Packer.Win32.UnkPacker.a [Suspicious]
Sophos   4.42.0   2009.06.06   -
Sunbelt   3.2.1858.2   2009.06.06   -
Symantec   1.4.4.12   2009.06.06   Suspicious.MH690.A
TheHacker   6.3.4.3.340   2009.06.05   Trojan/Spy.Agent.asyp
TrendMicro   8.950.0.1092   2009.06.05   -
VBA32   3.12.10.6   2009.06.06   Trojan-Spy.Win32.Agent.asyp
ViRobot   2009.6.5.1771   2009.06.05   -
VirusBuster   4.6.5.0   2009.06.05   -
Additional information
File size: 41984 bytes
MD5...: 466239b05f5bde21cdc210c4fb8ce034
As you can see, Kasperski, NOD, Symantec, AVG are detected that trojan, but Avast not :(

Offline RejZoR

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2009, 08:43:03 AM »
If i search for term "antivirus" in Google, i get the following order:
free.avg.com
free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
www.free-av.com
www.avast.com
www.nod32-si.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software
antivirus.comodo.com
www.internetling.com/2008/03/09/anti-virus-software-is-dead-use-linux
trendmicro.com
www.clamav.net

These results are from the first page. Although i'll never understand whats so awesome on AVG to be so popular. Free version has crappy features and annoying banner thats constantly popping out of the interface. On the other hand i can't blame AVIRA to be third...
No McAfee or Norton. Only world wide well known one is Trend Micro way down at the bottom.
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Offline .: L' arc :.

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2009, 09:51:04 AM »
-= Just noticed that the popular free antiviruses begins with an "A".. Avast, AVG, Avira, A-squared.. ;)
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Offline DavidR

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #10 on: June 06, 2009, 04:17:37 PM »
-= Just noticed that the popular free antiviruses begins with an "A".. Avast, AVG, Avira, A-squared.. ;)

That may well be the case but searches aren't listed in alphabetic order.
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Offline DavidR

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2009, 04:18:35 PM »
Hi, here is an issue that I want to share with you.
I've received from my friend his flash usb drive. In my Vista autorun for CD and USB is disabled. I have Avast Home (free version) running. Scanning of usb drive did non detect any virusesm but when I opened removeable drive I found "autorun.exe" hidden file, that was looked like some kind a trojan file. So I sent this file to virustotal, here is a report:
<snip>
As you can see, Kasperski, NOD, Symantec, AVG are detected that trojan, but Avast not :(

Send the sample to virus@avast.com zipped and password protected with the password in email body, a link to this topic might help and undetected malware in the subject.
 
Or you can also add the file to the User Files (File, Add) section of the avast chest (if it isn't already there) where it can do no harm and send it from there. A copy of the file/s will remain in the original location, so you will need to take further action and can remove/rename that.
 
Send it from the User Files section of the chest (select the file, right click, email to Alwil Software). It will be uploaded (not actually emailed) to avast when the next avast auto (or manual) update is done.
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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2009, 04:29:32 PM »
My search results are a bit different... (Google Austria...)

the first three results are paid advertisement:
#1: Kaspersky
#2: Norton
#3: Antivirus Doctor (don't know this one... when I try to access it, it gets blocked by internet explorer... ::))

from the normal search results here are the first places:
#1: Avira
#2: Avira
#3: Avast!
#4: AVG
#5: Kaspersky
#6: Eset
...

can anyone tell me if antivirus doctor really is bad software? (the link would be hxxp://www.antivirus-doktor.com/)

yours
onlysomeone

Antivirus doctor has been listed as a possible rogue program. You may want to research a bit further if you wish.  I would follow avast blocking this website and not be inclined to visit it.  Be careful out there.

Rick F

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2009, 04:31:43 PM »
So what, my search results exclude sponsored links and avast is 4th, if you appear on the first page of any search engine results, that is considered good, so 4th or 5th isn't bad.

This may be OT.... but

David... how do you exclude sponsored links in Google searches?  Inquiring minds would like to know.  I never click on a sponsored link and would prefer not to even see them listed.

Thanks.

Offline DavidR

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Re: Why AVG, Mcafee, and Norton are more popular than Avast!
« Reply #14 on: June 06, 2009, 04:40:20 PM »
I use the firefox add-on CustomizeGoogle and that has many customizations. I can't recall exactly which of the literally hundreds of options it is, possibly the Remove ads bit in the Web tab and a number of other Tabs.
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