AV-Comparatives Feb 2010 On-demand test results

Independant security software testing organization AV-Comparatives have released the PDF with the test results for it's February 2010 On-demand test.

In this test, 20 well-known AV products have been tested against 1.2 million malware samples that have been collected up until February 3rd.
The malware sample set is smaller than in previous tests because only 'recent' malware from the last 8 months has been used for this test.

I will give the details for the following tested products only (as they are free or offer a free version);
Avast Free Antivirus 5.0396
AVG Anti-Virus 9.0.733
Avira AntiVir Premium 9.0.0.457
Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0.1611.0
Panda Antivirus Pro 9.01.00

As you can see, Avast decided to have their free version tested this time, all other products are the paid versions.
Panda was tested for the first time.
All programs were tested with their highest settings, the final rating given by AV-Comparatives is based on a combination of the detection rate and the number of false positives.

Antivirus programs with a high detection rate but with also a high FP rate score lower than a program with a similar detction rate but with lower FP's.
The FP threshold was put at 15. Any AV scoring more than 15 FP's got a lowered rating.

This on-demand test should be appreciated for what it is, an on-demand test.
It's not an on-execution test nor a behavioural blocking test.
To fully understand the scores, the testing methods and the limitations of this test and for other results like scan speed, please read the full report yourself! ( PDF link)

So, here are the scores; detection rate, the number of FP's and the final rating;

• 
  Avast Free Antivirus 97,3% - 11 FP's - Advanced***

• 
  AVG Anti-Virus 94,2% - 10 FP's - Advanced**

• 
  Avira AntiVir Premium 99,3% - 11 FP's - Advanced***

• 
  Microsoft Security Essentials 96,3% - 3 FP's - Advanced**

• 
  Panda Antivirus Pro 99,2% - 47 FP's - Advanced**

Considering that Panda Antivirus relies heavily on in-the-cloud scanning which requires an active internet connection, it was also tested without a connection and scored;

• 
  Panda Antivirus Pro 9.01.00 73,3%-32 FP's

Of course many more AV products have been tested like from Eset, Norman, Kingsoft, Symantec etc.
Read the report yourself to see which ones scored well; Advanced*** and Advanced** and which ones scored (much) lower with a rating Standard* or even the abysmal rating Tested.

The second part of this report will be published soon and will contain the retrospective test in which the AV's are tested against malware again but now without any updates; if you would be unable to update your AV for a month, how well would it still perform.
When those scores are published I'll put them in a new post.
Again, for anyone interested in how the above scores were accomplished, please read the full report yourself at AV-Comparatives.org.
Cheers.

 

Hm ... I am a bit dissapointed with MSE detection rates, however, it is still high enough to remain more than useable ... plus with a lowest false positive ratio.

 

GDATA users will be happy with these results

 

can't wait for the day someone beats the "cloud" and all those millions on the cloud get farked . I'll stick with common sense and avira , with the cloud turned off .

 

Nice rate from MSE...and almost no FP's is awesome.

 

Yea I thought MSE's Score was quite good.
You don't need 99% AV to protect they OS above 95 is good enough.