Microsoft's OneCare takes last place in anti-virus evaluation

[The Highlander]

Microsoft's OneCare takes last place in anti-virus evaluation

 

March 01, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare came in dead last out of a group of 17 anti-virus programs tested against hundreds of thousands of worms, viruses, Trojan horses and other malware, an Austrian anti-virus researcher reported yesterday.

 

The AV Comparatives Web site, which is maintained by Andreas Cleminti from Innsbruck, Austria, posts quarterly results of tests that pit the top anti-virus products against a dynamic list of nearly half a million individual pieces of malware.

 

Top dog, according to Cleminti's tests, was G Data Security's AntiVirusKit (AVK), which nailed 99.5% of the malicious code. Not far behind were AEC's TrustPort AV WS, at 99.4%, Avira's AntiVir PE Premium, at 98.9%, MicroWorld's eScan Anti-Virus, at 97.9%, F-Secure's Anti-Virus, at 97.9%, and Kaspersky Labs' AV, which stopped 97.9% of the malware.

 

Better known products such as Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee's VirusScan posted results of 96.8% and 91.6%, respectively.

 

Holding the bottom spot was Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare, the consumer security suite that the Redmond, Wash. developer launched last year. OneCare took care of just 82.4% of the malware.

 

Cleminti also tested the 17 products against polymorphic viruses, those which produce sometimes vast numbers of variants as they try to sneak by scanners. "The results of the polymorphic test are of importance because they how flexible an anti-virus scan engine is and how good the detection quality of complex viruses is," said Cleminti in his write-up.

 

Only Symantec's Norton AntiVirus and ESET's NOD32 Anti-Virus caught every variant of the 12 polymorphic families, he said. In that test, OneCare placed 15th, detecting every version of only two families, and missing seven of the polymorphic families completely.

 

Cleminti's report is available online (download PDF).

 

This is not the first evaluation to give a Microsoft security program a black eye. Last week, for example, Australian security company PC Tools released research that claimed Windows Defender -- Microsoft's anti-spyware title -- detected just 46% to 53% of spyware.

 

"We are looking closely at the methodology and results of the test to ensure that Windows Live OneCare performs better in future tests," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

 

 

Read it here: http://www.computerworld.com/action/articl...;intsrc=hm_list

[Guest ml]

Microsoft's OneCare takes last place in anti-virus evaluation

"We are looking closely at the methodology and results of the test to ensure that Windows Live OneCare performs better in future tests," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

 

Oh great..... don't catch more virus, worms, trojans, etc....... just change the methodology so that you 'can do better in future tests.'

 

Wonder who they're going to have to buy out to insure they can do better on the tests?

[marlinsinger]

Did you really believe the results would be any different? We are talking MS and security.

[gi7omy]

If at first you don't succeed - buy off the opposition

[wraithtdk]

psh, that's nothing. Here's a gem they don't talk much about:

 

It doesn't support 64 bit systesm.

 

You plunk down $260.00 on Vista Ultimate 64 bit, there latest OS, and of course, MS says that 64 bit is the future. The security center comes up and says "oh, hey, by the way, you should get some kind of anti-virus on here". So you click on their suggestions. Naturally, topping the list, is the product made by the same people that made the OS. No problem, right?

 

So you pay thirty bucks for the suite, which, says that it's fully Vista compatible, but does not say ANYWHERE on the package, or the web site, for that matter, that it is not 64 bit compatible. And yet, you take it home, try to install it and "blong" you get an error message "Windows Live One Care does not support 64 bit operating systems".

 

 

 

 

classic.

[gi7omy]

And that surprises you?

[Beerman]

I have been sort of beta testing this for MS and since the beta version expired this past weekend, I opted not to continue and to go back to AVG. It was slow and I like a virus program to take care of itself with very little interaction needed. I can see why it was last.