The good people of Virus Bulletin magazine have just published information about their latest round of anti-virus product tests.
VB, as it is known in the industry, has been published since 1989 and is an independent journal which includes detailed technical examinations of malware threats as well as standalone reviews of products and bake-offs.
In its December 2008 issue, VB reveals that Sophos Anti-Virus 7.6.1 out-performed a number of rivals and successfully detected all of the viruses in-the-wild without a false alarm problem. As a result it was one of several products to successfully achieve the VB100 award in this indepth comparative test, which was carried out on the Windows Vista x64 platform.
According to the folks at Virus Bulletin, “[Sophos’s] product impressed our tester with its speed of installation, well laid out interface and depth of configuration…”
This is the 44th occasion that Sophos has won a VB100 award, and it seems like only yesterday (well, January 1998 on Windows 95) that we won the first.
Why are we still participating in the VB100 tests almost 11 years later? Well, because it’s important for customers to know if their anti-malware product is consistent in its performance. Tests against malware from the “in-the-wild” list are not the be-all and end-all when it comes to determining which is the best security product, but it definitely provides a useful standard that vendors need to be able to keep on top of.
In 2009, however, we can expect to see VB and other testing agencies getting even more rigorous in the tests that they put anti-virus products through – and that has to be good news for all of us.
