Compare Antivirus Products

Heuristic Analysis Efficiency

Mutual comparisons of detection abilities accompany antiviruses from the beginning. Comparison tests are often aimed at the effectiveness of scanners (on-demand and on-access) and thus do not evaluate other product attributes, e.g. user-friendly control, services, etc. The comparative scanner tests compare the two most relevant factors — detection effectiveness and speed. Under quality we understand detection rate by percentage. It is a ratio of the number of detected malicious codes to the total number of all malicious codes. But scanners should also be tested on a large collection of harmless files.

The following chart displays the proactive detection results of new samples of various antivirus engines in relation to their false positive rates. These values have been averaged from several antivirus tests during (2007 — 2008). Although ESET did not rank first in proactive detection rate, it offers far fewer false alarms than its competitors. Achieving a far better ratio between proactive detection and false alarms, ESET comes out as a true winner of the retrospective test.

Virus Bulletin 100% Award Results

The following chart represents a comparison of the individual success ratios (expressed both in % and absolute values) of ESET and its main competitors since the establishment of Virus Bulletin testing (May 1998). The excellent long-standing results of ESET can be attributed to the capacity of the company to respond flexibly to new emerging threats with proficient technology.