Is the AntiVirus biggest fraud in the security world?

AntiVirus, is, the way it is marketed, fraud?

Shouldn’t they tell you that it won’t protect you?

would love to hear your views…

thanks
Melih

No, not at all. An AV will protect you, from known threats. I don’t know of any AV that claims to protect you 100% from new malware. If there are any that do claim that, they’re lying. A fraud, no, I don’t think so at all. That’s way overstating the case. It’s a lot safer to have an AV than not to.

did you read the anti virus software company’s website?

Pls read what they say and then tell me if this legacy Anti Virus products are not being overmarketed or not!

Overstating? I don’t think so.
Overmarketing? Totally!

Melih

PS: pls do look at the marketing claims they make on their websites…

2 URLs and 3 minutes later - found one!!! They do exist. :wink:

Can we pls put the URLs and their claim here so that everyone can see. Perhaps we can put a screenshot of AV vendor’s claims to see if they sell this a protection/prevention from (all) malware or not.

thank you very much.

Melih

PS: for clarification my issue is not with AV as a technology. The issue is the way its marketed.

What about this

The VB100 award was first introduced in 1998. In order to display the VB100 logo, an anti-virus product must have demonstrated in our tests that:
* It detects all In the Wild viruses during both on-demand and on-access scanning.
* It generates no false positives when scanning a set of clean files.

The product must fulfil these criteria in its default state.

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/index

Personally I don’t use real time AV, I can’t see the point, but I understand some feel it’s a useful crutch.

But–does “In the Wild” include new threats for which no signatures have been generated yet? To me it means known threats. Even D+ does not actually detect new malware, it only alerts you to the activities they try to perform.

Can you pls provide some screenshot of anti virus vendors to see how they sell their product?

Lets see if they sell it as protection/prevention from (all) malware or not?

thanks
Melih

here look at this:

Whether antivirus vendors say or not i still know alot of people that think just installing and standard signature AV like AVG will protect them.

Cheers
Shaun

Indeed Shaun.

and thats a shame and not the right information. And I don’t see AV companies trying to change it.

Look at what is being said in the above link posted by OmeletGuy from one of the vendors:

“The most advanced Internet security with premium protection from viruses, spyware and all malware threats”

No wonder people think its ok to just have an AV product to protect themselves.

Is selling a product like AV product as “protection from viruses, spyware and all malware threats” ethical?

Melih

Virus Bulletin is just a test organization, you can register free or use a bugmenot login to see the results. The virus wildlist they use is supplied by http://www.wildlist.org From their FAQ they state:

When a virus is reported to us by two or more Reporters, it's a pretty good indication that the virus is out there, spreading, causing real problems to users. We consider such a virus to be 'In the Wild'.

As far as where is ‘out there’, we like the definition given by Paul Ducklin of Sophos, PLC in his paper ‘Counting Viruses’:

For a virus to be considered In the Wild, it must be spreading as a result of normal day-to-day operations on and between the computers of unsuspecting users.

I guess you can interpret that different ways, but it doesn’t explicitly preclude unknown threats.

If it’s a completely new piece of malware , they wouldn’t even have it to use in their tests. That’s the point I was trying to make. “In The Wild” is what they know about.

Everybody knows that viruses are also very good business. There can be no cure without an infection first, it’s like the good needs the bad to exist, otherwise there would be no purpose for the good.

Medicine is being prepared from poison as antidote.

You yourself point to the fact how it is, can you guarantee us, that you protect and keep protected against everything? Even stuff like in my signature?

I think you have misinterpreted Melihs original post.

He was not saying “All others claim to be 100% effective, but they lie! Only Comodo can do that!”

I repeat - he did not say that.

He was saying that some methods and terminology used in the marketing for anti-malware apps can seriously mislead consumers.

Ewen :slight_smile:

Hello Milih,
I have to whole heartedly agree with your words of personally describing 99.9% of all (if not 100%) 'PC Security Programs failure to keep our computers “Clean!”
Since computer owners from all over the globe spend ‘massive millions of dollars each year, with usually at least two security programs per PC.’ One can only surmise that, ‘we humans love having our security blanket.’
Oh yeah, one more thing; “The more Security Programs cost… well… the better they have to be… right?!”
Have a great day,
Harold…

Antivirus industry the only industry I know of, where there is a, so called, solution to the problem that people pay Billions of $$ for every year, yet the problem is getting bigger!!!

Melih

Check out AVG:
http://www.avg.com/us-en/why-avg
In the picture they claim every one of their users is perfectly safe.

Avast:

Says it “Keeps your computer and files free from viruses”.

Comodo:

I was surprised to find this, but there is a line about what Internet Security Pro includes that states that the antivirus can “Track down and destroy any existing malware hiding in a PC”. I believe this is the type of exaggeration that we are discussing in this thread.

CIS Pro does come with Live PC Support service, which includes geeks who can track down and get rid off malware in PCs. Its not just software, its a remote service too. Hope this clarifies.

thanks
Melih

That does make much more sense, but at least on the site it appears that the claim applies directly to the AV component. It’s not a big deal since the same security is there and any malware can be removed, but I thought it merited bringing it to your attention.

I suppose this is one of the reasons why the Free version now comes with the free 30 day trial of PC Support. Even free users can have this same security (at least for 30 days). Thanks for the clarification.

PS: Can anyone believe the boast that AVG makes? Quoting directly it says that “110 million people will tell you computers are perfectly safe. They are with AVG.”