Yep, I agree with your views about Avast4, unfortunately the reviewer at Clean Computing does not and has down graded Avast4 from 5 to 4 stars because of the last two VB100 results as quoted below:
"UPDATE: Recent tests run by Virus Bulletin suggest some problems. Avast! failed two tests against Windows XP Professional and Windows 2003 Server. We have readjusted our rating based on these tests pending updated tests. We sincerely hope Avast! addresses these issues as expeditiously as possible."
http://www.cleancomputing.com/Software/antivirus.htmlhttp:// >:
Thats rediculous.. Any review house that bases their own inhouse reviews on the action of an external testing house doesn't have *ANY* credibility in my eyes. Not only that, look at the two AV products it gave the golden award too! Norton and NOD32?!?!??! Running either of those two products your are guaranteed to infect yourself with more trojans and worms than you can shake a stick at. Running NOD32 for 3 months, I had no less than 16 Trojans pass through, shortly before switchin to AVK and Avast, the last week I was running NOD32, I had 6 trojans/wurms pass through and nearly infect me. Norton and NOD32 offer a big, great big, false sense of security. Do you know why Avast failed the last VB test? My data says that it was because they missed a single sample of Lovelorn in an HTML file - completely benign in that form, and unable to infect a system. My question to them is, did they have .HTM* scanning options enabled for on-access and on-demand? If not, no friggen wonder it failed. I'd like to see a full list of their settings for Avast before i'd even comment on that.
As for Virus Bulletin, a couple things on them.. First, they are testing only viruses, and viruses that companies all have advanced notice of to begin with! How reliable is that for a test bed? Second, they ignore some of the biggest threats facing computer users today, which are wurms, trojans and backdoors/hijackers. When was the last time there was a true, real, threatening new virus outbreak? Kaspersky lists the top 24 threats of May, and all of them are wurms/trojans. So how useful is VB's testing now? Third, VB has had testing discrepencies in the past, and it brings to question their reliability. They've rushed tests before, and made critical errors. They've been known to mis-configure programs on a regular basis. Are those test results you would fully trust?
Lastly, its COMICAL how some companies, and some people use Virus Bulletin like its the Holy Bible for AV products. NOD32 overuses them as a marketing tool to the point of making one nauseous! I send them 2-3 samples that their product missed, and the response I get back is "We didn't detect this by design, its because we didn't want to detect them! Remember, NOD32 has won more VB awards than anyone!"... Are you kidding me? Its like you can't offer legitimate critisim about that product, without having the useless VB awards thrown back into your face adnauseum. I had enough of that, and promptly requested a refund of my remaining subscription, and uninstalled the bad joke.
Ironically, my real-world, real-use testing has shown Avast to be a remarkably better product. Now if Avast had advanced heuristics, NOD32 would fade off into obscurity, and KAV would have a new boss on the block to contend with. So lets get those heuristics in!