Posted by Virus Bulletin on Apr 5, 2013
Corporate and consumer products rated against Windows Defender baseline.
Independent testing house AV-Test.org has released its first set of figures for solutions run on Windows 8, covering 26 consumer and nine corporate products. At the consumer level, Microsoft's Windows Defender, included as standard in Windows 8, is treated as a baseline measure which others are expected to surpass, but a couple of stragglers manage to perform less well than this minimal target. In the corporate selection, Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection took the same role, and again not all third-party offerings were able to outperform Microsoft.
Products are rated on a range of criteria including speed, system resource use, and false positives as well as protection against a range of threats in realistic scenarios. Each of three areas is given a rating out of six for a potential total of 18 points, with 10 being considered the minimum to achieve certification. In previous tests points have also been awarded for repair and cleanup, but this part of the test has been moved out to a separate report, which is expected out later in the year.
The top performer in the consumer tests was Bitdefender, with 17 points, dropping the single point on speed measures. Close behind was BullGuard, using Bitdefender's detection engine, with 16.5. Kaspersky Lab also did very well with a score of 16. Other quality performers included AVG, G Data, Symantec's Norton, Tencent, Trend Micro and Webroot, all on 15.5, and Avast's free edition and China's Qihoo 360 both on 15. Close behind were ESET, F-Secure and Panda on 14.5, and Check Point's Zone Alarm on 14. Not so impressive were Lavasoft's AdAware and GFI VIPRE on 13, and products from Avira, McAfee and PC Tools on 12.5. Only just respectable on 12 was MicroWorld's eScan, with the baseline set by Microsoft's Defender at 11.5. Named and shamed as being worse than the free product built into Windows 8 were offerings from AhnLab and Comodo, both on 10 points and only just making the grade for basic certification.
In the corporate set, the baseline was set a little higher at 12.5, but was comforatbly beaten by leading performers Fortinet and Symantec, both doing very well with a score of 16.5 points out of a possible 18. Also putting in good showings were Webroot on 15, F-Secure and Sophos on 14.5 and Kaspersky on 14. McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise didn't do too badly at 13.5 points, a full point clear of Microsoft's baseline, but Trend Micro's OfficeScan was found wanting with a lowly 12 points, still enough for certification.
Testing was carried out during January and February; full details can be found at the AV-Test.org website here. VB's own in-house testing covered Windows 8 late last year, with details available here; our next set of results, on Windows XP, are due out in the next few weeks and the deadline for the next comparative, on Windows 8's server sibling Windows Server 2012, has been announced for April 17th.
Posted on 4 April 2013 by John Hawes
