Large Anti Virus Test

Post by **ayu** » 05 Apr 2007, 09:47

The following AV's have been tested:

AVG Anti-Virus 7.5
Trend Micro Internet Security 2007
Panda Internet Security 2007
Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0
Nod32
Clam AV
Norton Internet Security 2007
McAfee 2007 Plus

--== The AV Experiment==--

Computer specs

CPU: 1 GHz AMD Athlon

RAM: 512 MB

Motherboard: Asus A7V

OS: Windows XP Professional SP2

HDD: 60 GB

Ratings: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Medium, Poor, Very Poor, Useless

Note: The tests with the “Processes running” may vary with how many services you have activated, I was using the “standard mode” in all the AV’s, as in the ones I got when it was fully installed and configured. Also some tests may not have been done on some AV’s depending on how much information they give after scans and such.

-=AVG Anti-Virus 7.5=-

37420 Malicious files

25341 Scanned

21789 Detected

Cleaned: 67

Moved to vault: 659

Deleted: 5688

31073 Malicious files left after scan was completed

Processes running: 3 (+1 With Firewall) (+1 during scan) (All names starts with "avg" which is very good in my opinion.)

Processes that can't be killed: None

Annoying facts: None (Only one thing that I thought was irritating, it was the text "a threat was found during scan", and the list was scrolling with thousands of malicious files.)

CPU usage during scan: (HIGH) 90-100% Usage

Scanning memory usage: ~50 MB

Conclusion: It didn’t even scan all the files, and it didn’t detect all of the files that it scanned. It uses a fair amount of memory and I could not find anything totally annoying about it.

Rating: Medium

-=Trend Micro Internet Security 2007=-

37420 Malicious files

0 Scanned (The AV did not supply me with this information after the scan)

36008 Detected

Cleaned: 0 (The AV was set to not clean any files)

Moved to vault: 0 (The AV was set to not move any files)

Deleted: 0 (The AV was set to not clean any files)

37420 Malicious files left after scan was completed (I did not set it to delete the files)

Processes running: 8 (+1 during scan)

Processes that can't be killed: None

Annoying facts: The only annoying fact that I could find was that the Anti Virus did not supply me with enough information about the scan. Like how many files that had been scanned and it also did not have the option “select all” when the scan was over, It only gave me one option in manually deleting the files, and that was to delete them by clicking delete in the program, one by one (imagine….Mouse click on delete + Enter x 36008)

CPU usage during scan: ~70%

Scanning memory usage: ~170 + ~30 MB (30 scan memory/170 regular “during scan”)

Conclusion: It uses too much memory even when not scanning. The CPU usage while scanning is fair and the amount of processes is acceptable. It did not find all the malicious files although it almost got them all which is a big plus for Trend Micro. It supplies too little info about the scanning which is negative and annoys me like hell. Also as mentioned before, it does not have a “select all” option when deleting the viruses that it found (manually). So imagine deleting 37420 viruses manually, Good luck have fun.

Rating: Medium (set it to delete automatically and you are good to go)

-=Panda Internet Security 2007=-

37420 Malicious files

41990 Scanned (Some of the malicious files where archives which the AV successfully scanned and detected minor files inside it.)

35964 Detected

0 Cleaned

0 Moved to vault

35588 Deleted

2172 Malicious files left after scan was completed

Processes running: 9 (+1 During scan)

Processes that can't be killed: All

Annoying facts: None found

CPU usage during scan: ~70%

Scanning memory usage: ~135 MB

Conclusion: The AV found minor malicious files inside “malicious archives” which made the number of viruses and scanned files increase, it missed some files but found others that other AV’s wouldn’t. Memory and CPU usage is acceptable, so is the number of processes. There have been some reports that it gives you annoying messages when browsing the web, but I have been browsing now for about 20 minutes and so far so good.

Rating: Good

-=Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0=-

37420 Malicious files

56024 Scanned (Scanned inside 2503 archives)

38303 Detected

0 Cleaned

14 Moved to vault

23933 Deleted

10366 Packed files

13715 Malicious files left after scan was completed

Processes running: 1 (+1 during scan, had all the extras off as email protection spyware protection etc.)

Processes that can't be killed: All

Annoying facts: None

CPU usage during scan: ~80%

Scanning memory usage: ~50 MB

Conclusion: Low memory usage, fair CPU usage and no particular annoying facts. Not many processes running. It scanned all the archives but missed a lot of files, but I have sent the missed files to the developer so that they can add them to the definition file. The reason I am doing this is because I really liked this AV, it showed good results when the scan was done, like how many archives that had been scanned and how many packed files there were and so on. It also has a password option for everything so that malicious files can't shut it down that easy, which i like very much.

Rating: Very Good!

-=Nod32=-

37420 Malicious files

41019 Scanned (Scanned inside archives)

24016 Detected

23605 Cleaned/Deleted

13822 (with archives) Malicious files left after scan was completed

Processes running: 2

Processes running during scan: 3

Processes that can't be killed: N/A

Annoying facts: It asked me what to do with every file it found that was infected, even though it had set it to NOT ASK and just delete.

CPU usage during scan: N/A

Scanning memory usage: ~50 MB

Regular memory use: ~23 MB

Conclusion: it asked me all the time what I wanted to do with the found file, even after I set it to delete all found viruses. It missed a lot of files.

Rating: Poor

-=Clam AV=-

37420 Malicious files

37514 (it was a full system scan, couldn't figure out how to just use one folder) Scanned

Detected: 28053

Deleted: 28053

Processes running: 1 (only during scan)

Processes that can't be killed: None

Annoying facts: It has to be in a "default" folder to work, and i have a Swedish version of windows so "Program Files" doesn't exist.

CPU usage during scan: ~90%

Scanning memory usage: ~32 MB

Conclusion: This is ONLY an anti virus, you use it with a console window and run it with the options you want, it scans and deletes naughty files. Now, i like the "not user friendly" style of it since i like to remove my dirty files manually. But it has some down sides, it needs to be in a default folder, not a big down side, i mean how hard is it to create a folder?. I couldn't find an option on how to scan folders, but i am sure it's in there somwhere. So for beeing just an anti virus i think it did pretty well, and it's only "ON" when you use it which is a big plus from the process list side...i mean give the poor old list a break would ya?

Rating: Good

***The test computer failed to run Norton since it is taking up so much resources.
So now I am using another computer to finish the Norton test.****

Computer specs

CPU: 3.5 GHz P4

RAM: 1.75 GB

Motherboard: Asus P4S800D-X

OS: Windows XP Professional SP2

HDD: 400 GB

-=Norton Internet Security 2007=- [Scan took 21 fucking hours]

37420 Malicious files

75829 Scanned (Scanned some archives)

16666 Detected

16460 Cleaned/Deleted

206 Moved to vault

8774 Malicious files left after scan was completed

Processes running: 6

Processes that can't be killed: All

Annoying facts: Removing Norton is a bitch. it takes TO much resources from the computer. Scanning and deleting took 21 hours. And what happened to the other 20960 files that just disappeared? They where not mentioned in the logs. Some files could NOT be deleted although none of the malicious files were activated. Also when I finally managed to uninstall it, it did NOT delete all files. It left behind a lot of folders and registry keyes.

CPU usage during scan: 100%

Scanning memory usage: ~900 MB

Normal memory usage: ~200 MB

Conclusion: In my opinion this is NOT worth the money. But for the “common” users that doesn’t know much about computers and has a freaking good computer and want to lockdown the computer so that absolutely NO ONE can do anything then this is a good choice.

Rating: Very Poor

-=McAfee 2007 Plus=-

37420 Malicious files

38379 Scanned (Scanned desktop, couldn't choose the folder)

37946 Detected

18198 Cleaned/Deleted

5003 Quarantined

15087 Malicious files left after scan was completed

13768 Repaired?!?!

Processes running: 10

Processes running during scan: 11

Annoying facts: Couldn't find where to choose to just scan one specific folder. It has A LOT of processes running even though i shut down a lot of the different alternatives.

CPU usage during scan: 40-70%

Scanning memory usage: ~100 MB

Normal memory usage: ~77 MB

Conclusion: For some reason it quarantined and repaired a lot of files, and it was just a folder filled with malicious files so no reason to do it. There was a lot of processes but it used a fair amount of memory. Couldn't find anywhere to choose folder to scan, even if it exists it was to hard to locate. It provided me with a lot of info after the scan had been done, which is a great plus, but it doesn't save it.

Rating: Medium

Post by **bad_brain** » 05 Apr 2007, 12:12

great job!

definitely worth to make it into the sticky-board, but I'll also leave the shadow-topic here...

Post by **Stavros** » 05 Apr 2007, 12:59

Well, looks like I know what AV to look for now.

Are you going to get around to testing ClamAV (or ClamWinAV, I forgot the name)? I'd like to know how well that does.

Post by **ayu** » 05 Apr 2007, 13:05

jupp it's on the list =]

Post by **floodhound2** » 06 Apr 2007, 09:36

Great job Neo! I like the way you organized all the topics and rated each one.

Post by **ayu** » 11 Apr 2007, 07:50

The Norton tests are finished now so i updated the thread -.-

Nerdz · Post by **Nerdz** » 11 Apr 2007, 20:16

Nice Job

luggyx · Post by **luggyx** » 04 May 2007, 08:15

Nice job!

sternbildchen · Post by **sternbildchen** » 04 May 2007, 08:29

Usefull thx. going to get kaspery

Post by **ayu** » 27 May 2007, 08:30

I want to give Kaspersky a few more points for "Very good!" since it saved me a hell lot of job yesterday. A few worms snuck in so i installed Kaspersky, got rid of them all. Thumbs up for Kaspersky 5/5 stars! *****

Post by **computathug** » 27 May 2007, 09:21

Annoying facts: Removing Norton is a bitch. it takes TO much resources from the computer. Scanning and deleting took 21 hours. And what happened to the other 20960 files that just disappeared? They where not mentioned in the logs. Some files could NOT be deleted although none of the malicious files were activated. Also when I finally managed to uninstall it, it did NOT delete all files. It left behind a lot of folders and registry keyes.

google "norton removal tool" and this will get rid of the unwanted files. its also no good keeping a copy of this file as the file gets updated every week or so and the tool you have downloaded becomes outdated. I came accross this problem when i uninstalled norton A/V to install norton works a few years ago and have come accross a lot of people since with the same issue.

redruminc · Post by **redruminc** » 29 May 2007, 10:22

I wouldn't suppose you kept the process names of these AV's did you?

Beacuse that would help me alot, thanks

Post by **ayu** » 29 May 2007, 10:24

redruminc wrote:I wouldn't suppose you kept the process names of these AV's did you?

Beacuse that would help me alot, thanks

Naah, but if you go to the download section and search for "Process explorer" you can see what program/corporation the process belongs too =) really handy.

redruminc · Post by **redruminc** » 29 May 2007, 12:52

Ok thanks for the help

thrashy · Post by **thrashy** » 24 Jun 2007, 13:17

Norton sucks so badly.. I used it yesterday to scan my 320000files.. so I put it on, went out to ze beach, came home 3-4 hours later and it was still scanning.. and only at 280000files, so I thought.. oh well it's done anytime. 1 hour later, still not done, so I shut the shit down.
It's also COMPLETELY useless when it comes to deleting infected files, and sometimes it even fails in putting them in quarantine.