Windows Live OneCare has received yet another negative review, this time with the Microsoft antivirus product finishing dead last in a test of 17 scanners.
The study was conducted by security researcher Andreas Clementi, and he posted the results on his av-comparatives.org web site. Some of the products Clementi evaluated were Avast! Professional, BitDefender Professional, FortiClient, F-Secure, Kaspersky, NOD32, and Norton. In total, 497,608 different pieces of malware were tested against the products.
Overall, OneCare wasn't even close to reaching the same protection levels as the other clients, only discovering 82.4 percent of the threats thrown at it. On the other hand, software from TrustPort, G Data, AVIRA, F-Secure, and Kaspersky all discovered over 97 percent of the threats. OneCare was the only product to have a hit rate under 90 percent.
Even though OneCare's scores were poor in comparison to its competitors, Clementi notes in the report that users should not hold his study as The Word. Consumers should consult reports from other security researchers as well before making a purchasing decision, the report says. Nevertheless, because OneCare failed to even meet the minimum success requirements for participation, it may not be included in any future AV-Comparatives evaluations.
As some readers noted earlier this month when OneCare did not receive VirusBulletin's VB100 grade, the product is capable of finding most viruses, just not all of them. I wouldn't say that your PC has a bull's-eye on its hard drive if you're using OneCare, nor would I say that it's time to switch to a new antivirus solution. But if someone asked me for a suggestion, OneCare definitely wouldn't be first on my list, either.
