spying AV-Comparatives: Antivirus programs in 2020 has gotten better in detecting stalkerware

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, Neftex said:

source? false positives isnt exactly the main metric i would look at when comparing AV software

This is latest https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/real-world-protection-test-february-may-2020/

[5x5]

1 hour ago, Neftex said:

source? false positives isnt exactly the main metric i would look at when comparing AV software

Install either of them. I'll eagerly await the thread titled "how do I remove AVG/avast from my PC?"

[Neftex]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

Install either of them. I'll eagerly await the thread titled "how do I remove AVG/avast from my PC?"

nice deflection

 

if youre looking at this source (av comparatives), "real world test" shows exact same detection rate and compromise rate for avast, avg and microsoft. difference is only 2 more false positives for avast and avg. "malware protection test" shows avast and avg better than microsoft. "performance test" shows again avast and avg outperforming microsoft.

[5x5]

Just now, Neftex said:

nice deflection

 

if youre looking at this source (av comparatives), "real world test" shows exact same detection rate and compromise rate for avast, avg and microsoft. difference is only 2 more false positives for avast and avg. "malware protection test" shows avast and avg better than microsoft. "performance test" shows again avast and avg outperforming microsoft.

Except the fact that defender is about 5 times lighter on system resources, doesn't have pops ups, ads and doesn't corrupt the OS if removed normally without the special removal tool. Defender also doesn't overwrote settings or behaviour preferences and active hours. Defender also doesn't harvest your data actively and doesn't fearmonger to get you to buy the premiums virus, I mean version

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Neftex said:

nice deflection

 

if youre looking at this source (av comparatives), "real world test" shows exact same detection rate and compromise rate for avast, avg and microsoft. difference is only 2 more false positives for avast and avg. "malware protection test" shows avast and avg better than microsoft. "performance test" shows again avast and avg outperforming microsoft.

My main dig at both AVG and Avast is not their performance at anti-virus protection, but rather their utter bloated mess now with additional “features”, and the fact that they nag you like crazy to upgrade to the paid versions. 
 

You can tweak them to minimize some of the nagging but they’ve just gotten worse and worse in terms of user experience. 
 

But if you can stand/ignore all of that, they do a decent job of protecting your computer. 

[Neftex]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

My main dig at both AVG and Avast is not their performance at anti-virus protection, but rather their utter bloated mess now with additional “features”, and the fact that they nag you like crazy to upgrade to the paid versions. 
 

You can tweak them to minimize some of the nagging but they’ve just gotten worse and worse in terms of user experience. 
 

But if you can stand/ignore all of that, they do a decent job of protecting your computer. 

yes, i can agree with this. popups and pushing their "system optimizer" and whatever other shit is annoying. but from av performance standpoint i dont think its fair to keep repeating that MS is as good/better

[5x5]

Just now, Neftex said:

yes, i can agree with this. popups and pushing their "system optimizer" and whatever other shit is annoying. but from av performance standpoint i dont think its fair to keep repeating that MS is as good/better

The test clearly shows that when protecting a PC, defender is as good. When taking everything else into account, defender is far better. Sorry but I will continue to hold my position that defender is far and away the superior AV solution until AVG and Avast stop shipping with built in adware and malware that harvests data

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Neftex said:

yes, i can agree with this. popups and pushing their "system optimizer" and whatever other shit is annoying. but from av performance standpoint i dont think its fair to keep repeating that MS is as good/better

I wouldn’t necessarily claim Defender is better. But I would claim it’s near enough just as good. 
 

Remember that each time they do rankings there are slight variations. I’d personally much rather use Defender over AVG or Avast. 
 

Though if I wanted something better, I’d go BitDefender or Kaspersky. 

[Neftex]

58 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The test clearly shows that when protecting a PC, defender is as good. When taking everything else into account, defender is far better. Sorry but I will continue to hold my position that defender is far and away the superior AV solution until AVG and Avast stop shipping with built in adware and malware that harvests data

one test showed theyre comparable, the other 2 tests clearly showed avast and avg better than microsoft in both detections and performance.

microsoft missed 1000+ detections over avast and avg and thats the better case scenario when it has online access

 

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/malware-protection-test-march-2020/

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/performance-test-april-2020/

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, Neftex said:

one test showed theyre comparable, the other 2 tests clearly showed avast and avg better than microsoft in both detections and performance.

microsoft missed 1000+ detections over avast and avg

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/malware-protection-test-march-2020/

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/performance-test-april-2020/

Did you actually read the article you’ve cited? Where does it say that Microsoft missed 1000+ detections? 

 

But since you’re so fixated on just detection scores, I’ll let you know that antivirus programs are prime candidates for attacks because of its deep access to the kernel as its drivers run on Ring0. As I’ve said in a previous thread I’ve made just a few weeks ago. 
 

Spoiler

But, some security researchers recommend Windows Defender over other AVs for a couple of reasons:

• Windows Defender doesn't inject scripts in a browser(similar to a MiTM) to determine if a site is malicious or not unlike most of 3rd party AVs, due to the fact that Windows Defender only protects Microsoft Edge so it's tightly integrated. Unlike third party AVs, Windows Defender is less susceptible to cross site scripting attacks.
• While most antivirus programs are exploitable because of the fact that it has a deep access to the system including the kernel, by the time of writing only Microsoft took the effort to sandbox the Windows Defender process, thus reducing the chances of being exploited. Take note that the sandbox isn't enabled by default. If one wants to enable the AppContainer sandbox for Windows Defender, open Command Prompt as an Administrator and type:

  
  setx /M MP_FORCE_USE_SANDBOX 1

  
• Windows Defender is now catching up to the big boys of the antivirus industry. Unlike it's pathetic detection scoresway back years ago.

On 4/23/2020 at 11:39 PM, captain_to_fire said:

 

[Neftex]

21 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Did you actually read the article you’ve cited? Where does it say that Microsoft missed 1000+ detections?

theres 10249 test cases and depending on which column from my screenshot you take, you can get 1000+ missed detections easily

 

missed offline detections: 3000+

missed online detections: 1400+

missed online protections: 10+

[Neftex]

@captain_to_fire updated

[sof006]

On 6/16/2020 at 3:24 PM, 5x5 said:

The test clearly shows that when protecting a PC, defender is as good. When taking everything else into account, defender is far better. Sorry but I will continue to hold my position that defender is far and away the superior AV solution until AVG and Avast stop shipping with built in adware and malware that harvests data

You're entitled to your opinion but I suggest you watch these two videos: 

 

 

About a year apart from each other and it shows minimal improvements at stopping malware. Again you're entitled to your opinion on using defender if you want but i'll continue to use a AV that actually does a good job.

[5x5]

17 minutes ago, sof006 said:

You're entitled to your opinion but I suggest you watch these two videos: 

 

 

About a year apart from each other and it shows minimal improvements at stopping malware. Again you're entitled to your opinion on using defender if you want but i'll continue to use a AV that actually does a good job.

Thing is - McAfee is worse in every possible way

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/real-world-protection-test-february-may-2020/

 

As you can see, McAfee is a whole tier below even trashware like AVG and Avast. Recommending McAfee over Defender is like recommending lung cancer over a mild cold.

[RejZoR]

On 6/16/2020 at 4:17 PM, 5x5 said:

Except the fact that defender is about 5 times lighter on system resources, doesn't have pops ups, ads and doesn't corrupt the OS if removed normally without the special removal tool. Defender also doesn't overwrote settings or behaviour preferences and active hours. Defender also doesn't harvest your data actively and doesn't fearmonger to get you to buy the premiums virus, I mean version

"Lighter" is such a weird definition. In what terms? RAM usage? Execution speed? I literally have 32GB because lolz. It was so cheap going with anything less would be weird. My last system had 18GB (X58, weird triple channel times). I basically haven't looked at RAM usage of anything since around 2004, really. I think I had 6GB RAM in a weirdo 2x2GB+2x1GB dual channel combo. Intel Core Duo E4300 if memory serves me well.

 

Windows Defender sure isn't "light" when it comes to speed. Sure Windows boots at about the same time and launching single app generally isn't a half a minute ordeal, but I can see dramatic slowdowns with Windows Defender on variety of systems, ranging from crappy netbook to high end desktop. Windows Defender is anything but light when launching large EXE files (large game EXE, installers like NVIDIA drivers) and is particularly terrible when opening folder full of EXE files of any sizes (like Downloads folder). It's also horrendously slow when I'm compiling my tools. We're talking like 300% slowdown.

 

When launching my tools, it always causes a brief mini pause, opening Downloads folder full of EXE files causes you to actually see icons refreshing slowly from top to bottom as it's scanning them slowly, downloading EXE files like installers in Firefox causes dramatic pause before download finishes, compiling my tools takes 3 seconds with a dramatic pause instead of instantaneous compile with lets say avast! or Kaspersky. Launching NVIDIA drivers also causes a big pause between clicking and actual display of installer. And this is on overclocked 5820K at 4.6GHz on all cores, 32GB RAM at 2666 and tight timings and Samsung 850 Pro. Sure it's SATA but come on, it's literally irrelevant at this point. This gets far worse when it comes to my netbook with Atom, 2GB RAM and eMMC storage. There, launching my tools takes sometimes even 5-8 seconds where with avast! it's 2 seconds. In fact all the mentioned scenarios just don't happen with avast!.

 

And this annoys me even more coz people constantly praise Windows Defender how light and fast it is, but it's anything but that in reality. And I'm also tired of people constantly saying "it has to be something with my system". 12 threads at stupid high clock, a massive pool of RAM and a fast SSD disagrees with them. Also it's an on/off shift when Windows Defender is active and anything else like avast!. Maybe it doesn't annoy casuals, but it drives me insane just when compiling things and I want to move on testing the binary and whole thing just trips over itself in a massive pause before letting compiler finish. Just that alone makes me insane.

 

I personally believe false positives are a non issue for as long as they are not absurdly excessive and not happening on system files. False positive tests are only useful to find out which AV does "better detection" by just flagging everything just mildly suspicious as "malicious". Some antiviruses used to do this and inflate detection scores, but to end user, you didn't know what's really malicious or just false positive when it's so trigger happy on everything. But degrading a score because some AV had 15 false positives is meaningless. Which is why I just entirely ignore FP scores unless it's really absurd like 500 false positives in a test.

[sof006]

19 hours ago, 5x5 said:

Thing is - McAfee is worse in every possible way

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/real-world-protection-test-february-may-2020/

 

As you can see, McAfee is a whole tier below even trashware like AVG and Avast. Recommending McAfee over Defender is like recommending lung cancer over a mild cold.

When did I say I recommend Mcafee over defender? Not once did I say that.

 

I said Mcafee has gotten better, not that Mcafee is better than defender purely because I don't know that. Also it appears that this website https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/ comes up with different results. Going off what I personally have experienced, I generally find defender doesn't do a very good job at stopping malicious programs. 

 

Also for the record I use Norton and it does a pretty damn good job at stopping anything that has made attempts at attacking my PC.