http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft....s-bulletin-test
Virus Bulletin (VB) conducted its latest test in September, posting the results this month. The security research company evaluated 24 anti-malware products for Windows Server 2008. The basic requirements for a product passing the test is detecting, both on demand and on access, in its default settings, all malware known to be "In the Wild" at the time of the review, and not detecting any false positives when scanning a set of clean files.
A third of the products did not manage to meet these requirements, including a few big names. Here are the eight products that failed the test, and the reason given for their failure: Avira AntiVir (1 false positive), F-Secure (1 false positive), Kaspersky (1 false positive), MWTI eScan Internet Security (1 false positive), Quick Heal AntiVirus (1 false positive), Arcabit ArcaVir (93 wildlist misses, 3 false positives), CA eTrust (1 wildlist miss), and Redstone Redprotect (1 wildlist miss, 1 false positive).
My biggest disappointment is with AntiVir, as it's the product I typically recommend to users who want solid protection but don't want to shell out a dime (AntiVir has a freeware version). I'm also a bit surprised Kaspersky and F-Secure managed to fail the test, as they are usually quite on top of things. The following 16 products passed the test: ESET NOD32, Agnitum Outpost, McAfee VirusScan, Alwil avast!, Microsoft Forefront, AVG, Symantec Endpoint Protection, Kingsoft, Ahnlab V3, Norman Security Suite, Rising Antivirus, Fortinet FortiClient, Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, Frisk F-PROT, Trustport Antivirus, and VirusBuster Professional.
The next VB test results will be posted two months from now and will be for Windows Vista x64; actual testing will be conducted in November.