We have released our Anniversary Report 2015. You can find it here (PDF).

You can see which eight vendors are celebrating ten years of participation in our public tests, and how AV-Comparatives has evolved over the years.

The Performance Test for Security Products has been released. It can be found here.

We released the heuristic/behavioural protection test report. It can be found here.

Our first review of Linux Security products is now available! You can find the Linux Security Review here http://www.av-comparatives.org/linux-reviews/

The March 2015 file detection test report has been released. As usual, please read carefully the whole test report. You can find it on our website. The False Alarm lists are here.

We released the Mobile Protection Test report. It can be found here: http://www.av-comparatives.org/mobile-security/

These Microsoft-prevalence-based analysis reports are supplementary to AV-Comparatives’ main reports, already published, of the September 2013 and March 2014 File-Detection Tests. No additional testing has been performed; rather, the existing test results have been re-analysed from a different perspective, to consider what impact the missed samples are likely to have on customers, according to telemetry data of Microsoft.

AV-Comparatives is now an ISO certified testing body. We received the approval and ISO certification from the auditors of TÜV Austria for our “Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software”.

We have released a study of data transmission in Internet security products. Many Internet users are concerned about who has access to their personal information and what is done with it. After revelations by Edward Snowden regarding the extent of eavesdropping by the US-American NSA, users have become increasingly aware of privacy issues. Computer security software has legitimate grounds for sending its makers some information about the system it’s running on; in particular, details of malware found on the machine have to be sent to the manufacturer in order to protect the user effectively. however, this does not mean that a program should have carte blanche to send any and all personal information found on a computer to the manufacturer (other than with the specific knowledge and agreement of the system’s owner). This report gives some insight into data-sending by popular security programs.

Clearly, antivirus manufacturers have to comply with the laws of the countries in which they are established. In the event of e.g. a court order requiring the vendor to provide information about a customer, the company has no choice but to do this. However, this should be the only reason for providing user data to a third party. Some companies do not state that they will only pass on customer information in such circumstances.

This report was initially requested and commissioned by PCgo and PC Magazin Germany.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/avc_datasending_2014_en.pdf

We compared the built-in anti-phishing protection of several popular web browsers (Opera, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox). You can find the report here.