avast and ICSA Labs

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi all,

I just visited the ICSA Labs site and I saw that Avast32! for Windows XP Professional and Avast32! for Windows 2000 Server were certified by ICSA Labs not avast! 4, what’s wrong?

Anti-Virus Detection : http://www.icsalabs.com/html/communities/antivirus/certification/certprod.shtml

But the ICSA Labs’ Anti-Virus Testing Reports page says avast! 4 passed the monthly test.

ICSA Labs’ Anti-Virus Testing Reports : http://www.icsalabs.com/html/communities/antivirus/labs.shtml

And this is what I’m wondered, Why avast, Kaspersky, NOD32 are not certified in Anti-Virus Cleaning area? ALWIL, KL, ESET did not submit their products to the test?

Anti-Virus Cleaning : http://www.icsalabs.com/html/communities/antivirus/certification/clean_certprod.shtml

2

Maybe, Alwil do not want to pay in order to submit avast 4 version…
Anyway, you can search the board for the word ‘Bulletin’.
You will find a lot of discussion about this.
My suggestion: don’t lose your time. It’s a marketing or nonsense fighting 8)

3
Avast32! for Windows XP Professional and Avast32! for Windows 2000 Server were certified by ICSA Labs not avast! 4

avast32! doesn’t mean version 3. It’s just an (somewhat incorrect) name of the product. There’s no version info in it (compare with other vendor’s products). I guess it should read avast! instead…

And this is what I'm wondered, Why avast, Kaspersky, NOD32 are not certified in Anti-Virus Cleaning area? ALWIL, KL, ESET did not submit their products to the test?

Well it’s just that most AV vendors don’t care much about cleaning… Detection is what counts.

I guess avast wouldn’t pass anyway – there’re hundreds of ancient viruses in the database for which to add cleaning at this stage would be an overkill…

4

First let me welcome you to the forum. This topic has been brought up before. You should do a search on this forum and search with a key “ICSA” or you can look up by member and use my username radicalb21. I asked this question sometime back. Here are some links:

http://www.icsalabs.com/html/communities/antivirus/labs.shtml

http://www.icsalabs.com/html/communities/antivirus/notes/tr0104.shtml

I hope this answers your questions. If you have any other questions please feel free to ask. Sorry I misunderstood the question. VLK is correct.

5

Thanks for all clarification. :slight_smile:

6

Vic-
I am more confused now.When the VDB is updated are the older defs removed or new defs just added.

7

They are always adding. There would be no point of removing old entries…

8

Hi
I’m researching Avast! as a new virus scanner and had just visited ICSA myself - I think I see what you are referring to regarding detection, but the cleaning business still puzzles me.

http://www.icsa.net/html/communities/antivirus/certification/avcleancrit.shtml
states that:

“For a product to achieve the ICSA Certification for Cleaning a product must:
Be certified by ICSA as an Anti-Virus Scanner.
Cleaning all viruses listed in the current In The Wild List.
Clean all viruses in the listed as Common Infectors by ICSA.
Cleaned files will not replicate.
Cleaned documents will be able to be opened and the data extracted.
Cleaned executable files will retain their basic functionality.”

I’m interested in the BART CD and from the website it says:

http://www.avast.com/eng/products/desktop_protection/avast_bart_cd/avast_bart_cd.html

“In short it is a bootable CD, giving you the capability to detect/clean virus infections on a computer.”

and:

“The main and most important component of BART CD is a special version of avast! 4 antivirus. It is built on exactly the same kernel as other avast! 4 Editions, which ensures excellent detection capabilities combined with high performance. It detects 100% of ITW viruses/worms (In-The-Wild, i.e. the ones you are likely to meet), it also features advanced Trojan horse detection. The kernel of avast! antivirus has been certified by ICSA Labs. avast! also takes part in Virus Bulletin test, having received the VB100 award many times.”

So here it is pushing the ‘cleaning’ aspect - i.e. the BART CD is for cleaning infected machines?
Can you explain more to me, please?

Thanks.

9

avast! BART CD doesn’t have ICSA Certification for Cleaning, it that’s what you’re asking about.

avast! BART CD includes a special version of avast! Virus Cleaner, so it should be able to clean the most common infections.
Personally, I would say that 99% of today’s infections are worms (not file infectors), so cleaning usually means deleting the detected files.