Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="struppigel" data-source="post: 883358" data-attributes="member: 86910">Regardless of how meaningful those test results are; testing labs themselves are useful. They force improvements in protection via competition. Without those tests, a user would only be left with marketing. The products with best marketing would win, protection wouldn&#039;t count at all to sell stuff. No one would be driven to improve protection too much.But: Regardless how much effort testing labs put into it, they cannot re-create reality. It&#039;s not ethically and practically possible to throw entirely new malware against AVs. Malware has to come from some source. Creating new malware is not ethically right. The labs cannot be perfect and can only test a part of what really counts for user protection. AV companies are indirectly forced to tailor their products so that they compete well in the testing lab. Meaning: only things that are tested, are improved upon, whereas other things that also help for protection may not be as good as they could be. Or if they are improved, they will not be reflected in the test results, thus, not create revenue. Furthermore, if most AVs are similarly good, the labs still need to engineer their tests in a way that makes them distinguishable. So they may indeed put focus on minor differences or not that important stuff in order to determine the winners and loosers.I have no good solution for this. It&#039;s just the way it is. Things aren&#039;t perfect and we can only make the best of it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="struppigel, post: 883358, member: 86910"] Regardless of how meaningful those test results are; testing labs themselves are useful. They force improvements in protection via competition. Without those tests, a user would only be left with marketing. The products with best marketing would win, protection wouldn't count at all to sell stuff. No one would be driven to improve protection too much. But: Regardless how much effort testing labs put into it, they cannot re-create reality. It's not ethically and practically possible to throw entirely new malware against AVs. Malware has to come from some source. Creating new malware is not ethically right. The labs cannot be perfect and can only test a part of what really counts for user protection. AV companies are indirectly forced to tailor their products so that they compete well in the testing lab. Meaning: only things that are tested, are improved upon, whereas other things that also help for protection may not be as good as they could be. Or if they are improved, they will not be reflected in the test results, thus, not create revenue. Furthermore, if most AVs are similarly good, the labs still need to engineer their tests in a way that makes them distinguishable. So they may indeed put focus on minor differences or not that important stuff in order to determine the winners and loosers. I have no good solution for this. It's just the way it is. Things aren't perfect and we can only make the best of it. [/QUOTE]

Verification