Detection; avast! External Control; Other Features
AntiVir, avast!, AVG, BitDefender are all free for personal,
non-commercial use/home use. All except BitDefender include on-access
(real-time) scanners in their free version. I think all the vendors
are to be commended for providing this protection.
1. Detection
Detection, repair, and accuracy are roughly comparable for AVG, avast!,
and AntiVir although AVG probably lags avast! and AntiVir. All three
are known for excessive false positives. For example
VirusScan.Jotti.Org ignores scans that fail only those three.
For on-demand scanning of local files, directories, and disks, I prefer
BitDefender as its accuracy has consistently bettered the other three.
(Note, I no longer use BD as the install interferes with other security
software I have. I do have AntiVir, avast!, and AVG installed along
with an ISP provided copy of McAfee under WinXP Home.)
I found both sets of 2005 AV comparison results at the
av-comparatives.org site quite informative. KAV (Kaspersky) led
against current viruses with Symantec/Norton and Network Assoc/McAfee
just behind (Feb 2005).
The conclusions may change this summer/fall as all three top products
benefited from catching more "other malware" and "other OS malware"
than the other vendors. Trend Micro and CA acquired Intermute
(SpySubtract) and PestPatrol, respectively, and Panda added a new
anti-spyware/anti-malware feature.
NOD blew away the competition in the retrospective test (May 2005),
detecting 70% of current zoo viruses using outdated signature files (90
days old). This is not far removed from the worst performers using
current definitions! BitDefender and KAV managed to detect half. AVG
barely limped in with a paltry 4% while AntiVir and avast! managed 11%
and 12%, respectively.
http://www.av-comparatives.org
The April, May, and June Tech Support Alert newsletters featured a
discussion of layering multiple security tools. I haven't found the
detailed results yet, but AVG (free) + ewido (free) + MS Anti-Spyware
(free beta) did well (95%) in his limited test using ~100 malware
items. The three best commercial combinations only reached 98-99%
He also provides some other statistics. AVG caught 84% of ~200
infected files and avast!, 82%, while the Kaspersky and NOD caught 90%
(Aug 2004 P2P download). AVG passed 6 of 8 VB100 tests; avast! 6 of 9.
(Note that many products are only tested sporadically.)
http://www.techsupportalert.com/free-vs-paid-av.htm [from #118,
part 1]
http://www.techsupportalert.com/free-vs-paid-av-part2.htm [from #119,
part 2]
http://www.techsupportalert.com/issues/al_current.htm [#122, part
3]
Conclusions are generally consistent with my impression of other
published tests. All products do well against in-the-wild (ITW)
viruses -- even those that fail the Virus Bulletin VB100% test of the
100 most prevalent ITW viruses (99% is a failure) or that have problems
with ICSA certification. I consider some of the ICSA required default
behavior undesirable (e.g., I want to be notified of problem; I do NOT
want the file automatically quarantined).
2. avast! External Control (AEC)
avast! External Control (AEC) by eXcessive Software is a GUI extension
for avast! (free) that provides substantially more control over avast!
than the vendor's GUI (free). With RejZoR's addition, I think avast!
is clearly preferable to AVG.
http://www.excessive-software.co.nv
3. Other Features
AVG (free) only supports scheduling a full disk scan. avast! is much
more flexible.
AVG (free) no longer includes the menu choice in the tray icon to turn
on-access (real-time) scanning on/off. I sorely miss that feature as I
like to have several AV scanners installed for checking downloaded
files and periodic scheduled and on-demand directory (folder) and disk
scans. Depending upon what I was doing I sometimes turned on three or
four on-access scanners plus a couple of registry monitors -- or turned
them all off when only running a full disk scan.
I have had problems with AVG automatic updates (even with alternative
download sources) and with manual updating. _I_ haven't encountered
any problems with updating avast! and AntiVir.
AVG is reputed to be a bit faster and use fewer resources (but see
counterclaims in this thread).
All the products raise a warning window when (potential) malware is
encountered. I would prefer that the scan continue but some tools stop
the scan until action is taken. Between these AV scanners and several
other scanners I have installed, I don't remember which does which at
the moment.
4. Conclusion
I prefer avast! + AEC over AVG for on-access scanning and BitDefender
over either one for on-demand scanning. For scheduled scanning I
prefer multiplicity (redundancy), so I install more than one along with
other tools such as MS Anti-Spyware (with monitor), Ad-aware, Spybot
S&D, and SpywareBlaster.
BillR
