Gandalf_The_Grey
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- Apr 24, 2016
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Introduction
In the Malware Protection Test, malicious files are executed on the system. While in the Real-World Protection Test the vector is the web, in the Malware Protection Test the vectors can be e.g. network drives, USB or cover scenarios where the malware is already on the disk.
Please note that we do not recommend purchasing a product purely on the basis of one individual test or even one type of test. Rather, we would suggest that readers consult also our other recent test reports, and consider factors such as price, ease of use, compatibility and support. Installing a free trial version allows a program to be tested in everyday use before purchase.
In principle, home-user Internet security suites are included in this test. However, some vendors asked us to include their (free) antivirus security product instead.
Offline vs. Online Detection Rates
Many of the products in the test make use of cloud technologies, such as reputation services or cloud-based signatures, which are only reachable if there is an active Internet connection. By performing on-demand and on-access scans both offline and online, the test gives an indication of how cloud-dependent each product is, and consequently how well it protects the system when an Internet connection is not available. We would suggest that vendors of highly cloud-dependent products should warn users appropriately in the event that the connectivity to the cloud is lost, as this may considerably affect the protection provided. While in our test we check whether the cloud services of the respective security vendors are reachable, users should be aware that merely being online does not necessarily mean that their product’s cloud service is reachable/working properly.
For readers’ information and due to frequent requests from magazines and analysts, we also indicate how many of the samples were detected by each security program in the offline and online detection scans.
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Test Results
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False Positive (False Alarm) Test Result
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Details about the discovered false alarms (including their assumed prevalence) can be seen in the separate report available at: https://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/avc_fps_202109.pdf

Malware Protection Test September 2021
The Malware Protection Test September 2021 assesses program’s ability to protect a system against malicious files before, during or after execution.
