>  rf> AVP detected most viruses, but Secure Computing still named
 >  rf> Solly the overall winner.
 > Come on Rod, I know you have to be "Fairer Than Fair" because you're the
 > AVP distributor as well as the moderator, but don't you think you're
 > carrying "Fair Play" to a ridiculous extreme ?
Maybe I did go a bit overboard with the fairness in this instance, but I
have to tread a fine line.
If I hadn't said something about it, some geek would have jumped up and
down screaming that Solly's "won" and would have accused me of letting
you get away with making it look like AVP had scooped the pool for my
own selfish reasons.
 > You know as well as I do, and probably better than I do, that AVP pisses
 > all over Dr. Solomon from all directions in the real world of virus
 > infection, so why don't you just come out and say so ?  Dr. Solomon OWNS
 > Secure Computing, for fuck's sake, and they have no qualms about using
 > snake oil to grease their own program to the top of the list!
Hmmmmmm ...... SC can't afford to be blatantly biased toward Solly ...
they need to appear squeaky clean to maintain any kind of credibility as
an independent reviewer in the AV industry ... but you're not the first
person who's wondered if the goalposts are in the wrong place.  :)
 > Joe Wells does a good job, and his Wild list is fine AS A GUIDE, but not
 > even Joe himself pushes it as the definitive virus test bed.  Every AV
 > professional in the world, including you and me, has had to deal with
 > plenty of viruses before they appeared (or which have never appeared) in
 > the Wild List.  Keeper.Lemming, which I'm sure you will remember only
 > too well, cost the Australian Government millions of dollars in cleanup
 > before Joe Wells even knew of its existence, let alone added it to the
 > list.
Yeah ... I remember the Lemming ... it paid for my Ferrari.  :)
The Wild List indicates those viruses which are _most likely_ to be
encounterd in the wild.  The fact that their licensed scanner was rated
at 100% ITW detection didn't mean much to Acme Widgets when they learned
that the virus which just cost them fifty grand in downtime and cleanup
hasn't been reported often enough to appear in the Wild List and that
their antivirus provider was too busy keeping up his 100% ITW detection
rating to worry about detecting "less important" viruses.
In reality there's can never be a "best" scanner in the true sense of
the word ... no scanner can be #1 all the time ... but if I had to
choose one on pain of death then it would have be the scanner which
recognized the most known viruses (not just those in the Wild List) most
often and which heuristically tagged the most new/unknown viruses most
often.  Kinda narrows the field, doesn't it ?
 > Choosing "The Best Antiviral Program" based solely on Wild List
 > detection is bullshit, and when you wipe away the snake oil, Secure
 > Computing's tests prove that AVP is #1!
I have to be careful not to appear to be using my position as moderator
to advertise/promote my own program here, but I agree that the Wild List
should not be used as the sole criterion for selecting the #1 scanner in
virus detection tests.
It doesn't matter which way you cut it, the bottom line is that AVP
out-detected every other scanner in the world ... and detecting viruses
is what it's all about!
Maybe it's time the goalposts were re-sited.
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