Miyuki's Antivirus Software Test

[Torikakae]

Yay Miyu! I was debating whether to go for Avast or Avira, since I heard that both was good~ You get a +rep and a big hug!

/hugs

[Vith]

THANK YOU, Miyuki! Your work is most definitely appreciated~!

[Miyuki]

Thanks =D.

I decided to took the tests myself since the reviews on..most of the websites like those in Download.com and other "reviews websites" seems ...sugar-coated or "being paid", and it seems the tests conducted by them..kinda...biased as well.

Also, when checking on Avast's website, I stumbled upon this, on their blog.

I ran this report past our virus lab people and they just laughed and said “Pay us, give us a little time and we will set up the respected and independent ‘Vince’s Technology Lab’ to get you whatever results you want.” I took them up on their offer—I promised them a bonus and told them I wanted a test where we got a 100% score and Norton got 0%. An hour later they had 40 javascript infections from today that we catch and Norton does not:

avast! blog » Can testing paid for by an AV company be trusted?

That means...if you "paid" them for the reviews/tests...you'll get what the results you wanted.

Also, Symantec on "free antivirus"
- Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus - TECH.BLORGE.com

Dangerous? Then how come my personal tests that Avast, which is a FREE ANTIVIRUS performs better than Norton Antivirus?

There you guys got it.

[zgmfx19a]

Originally Posted by Miyuki

Dangerous? Then how come my personal tests that Avast, which is a FREE ANTIVIRUS performs better than Norton Antivirus?

There you guys got it.

Maybe because Miyuu is paid by... Avast? 8D

[Torikakae]

Man that's scary. I'll only trust a Miyu-approved security system from now on~

[Miyuki]

I do hope they do pay me q_q....
But yeah, norton just gained [-100] points of trustworthy from me.

It should be noted Symantec funded the benchmark test and provided some scripts used to benchmark each participating antivirus software.

- Norton AntiVirus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the word "funded" and "provided some scripts"? Tests and reviews shouldn't be "funded", it should be independent, and not being paid to get the "results" as they wanted..

I'm not saying this to bashes other antivirus software, it's just...unfair for users to pay such subscription fee...yet the software can't really protects the users well.

[kag]

One test suggestion
Put a folder full of media files and documents maybe about 500MB of stuff and time how fast each of them scans maybe using the right click scan function and how much CPU usage during the scan.

[Miyuki]

Take note for users who uses Avast! antivirus.

Since today's update, it seems have bugged or made Avast! Antivirus went nut, and detected all *.exe and *.dll as Win32.Delf-MZG [Trj]

THIS IS NOT A VIRUS, it's false alarm. Please don't get alarmed by it.

Temporary solution is..either switch to Avira or don't let your Avast! Antivirus update itself.

Edit: It seems the problem has been fixed.

Update your Avast! antivirus now to fix it.
- Right-click on your Avast Antivirus icon
- Updating->Program Update

[Skiegh]

I have a couple questions about Avira since I may start using it since I grow weary of Mcafee (Only using it because I have 12 months free).

1. You mentioned an annoying message on the free version. Does this pop up at random or does it only show itself once and then that's it?

2. Is this merely a virus scan or other things like firewall and so on. (I'd check the website but it's very uninformative.)

3. Are there a lot of options for turning off functions? If so, is it nice enough to essentially let me turn off everything, be it active time scanning or something else? Again, if so, does it pop up annoying alerts continually telling me about it? And if so can I turn said alerts off completely?

Prior to this computer and prior to my previous computer ironically dying by a savage virus. I like to have pretty much nothing blocking my internet and I prefer to turn on virus scans, active detection, firewalls and all that when I feel I need them rather than having them run all the time.

Mcafee is bloatware, it always has been and while it's gotten a lot better, I feel it causes my computer a lot of problems and I am anxious to see if it causes as much of a problem as I think it does. I don't want to be unguarded though so I just wanted to know if Avira was something I could use that would both be light on the system and customizable enough that I could keep it quiet and not block anything if I wanted it to. (without being bombarded by warnings)

[Miyuki]

Originally Posted by Skiegh

1. You mentioned an annoying message on the free version. Does this pop up at random or does it only show itself once and then that's it?
- On everytime it updates, but you can disable it.. Since there are a lot of this, so I'll link one instead
- Avira AntiVir Updates to Version 9 – Make It More Usable | TipsFor.us

2. Is this merely a virus scan or other things like firewall and so on. (I'd check the website but it's very uninformative.)
- Virus detection, mostly..tho maybe I'll do the full-virus-scan sometime [if I'm un-lazy @_@]

3. Are there a lot of options for turning off functions? If so, is it nice enough to essentially let me turn off everything, be it active time scanning or something else? Again, if so, does it pop up annoying alerts continually telling me about it? And if so can I turn said alerts off completely?
- I've seen most AV [like KAV, Avira, Avast and so on] allows users to turn off the functions, some like KAV will asks for how long.
- I think most pops-up will be Norton and McAfee.


Mcafee is bloatware, it always has been and while it's gotten a lot better, I feel it causes my computer a lot of problems and I am anxious to see if it causes as much of a problem as I think it does. I don't want to be unguarded though so I just wanted to know if Avira was something I could use that would both be light on the system and customizable enough that I could keep it quiet and not block anything if I wanted it to. (without being bombarded by warnings)
- Never fond of McAfee, after the "nightmares" it introduces ~_~...

Replies in bold, quoted.

[Skiegh]

Thank you for the speedy response. I'll uninstall Mcafee and try Avira tomorrow after I do a disk defrag.

And yeah, I've always hated Mcafee ever since it mutated itself into a virus on my old computer when I had it. Used 50 CPU usage at random intervals and ate itself inside and out trying to NOT suck. Version I have now doesn't do that but I'm just sick of clicking "close" on the stupid message that tells me I have active time scanning disabled which by the way is the only alert you can't turn off and it's the only thing I want turned off. Random pop-ups telling me things I already know every 45 minutes is... yeah.