can you trust an antivirus w/ a small virus definition file?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

well in my case…i’ve gone through most of the antivirus products from Norton,McAfee,Trend Micro PC-cillin, NOD32,AVG,eTrust…well we all know virus definitions is known as the heart (as avast tells) as it is the database whether that file contains a virus or not…

some antivirus has a very large virus defs (that reaches on 18mb now) well others are just very small and could only size up to 3 to 5 mb…

some antivirus detects that a file is a virus/malware well some are not…

in my case…once an antivirus detects a virus…(and i’m sure that’s a virus) and the other does not…i will not trust that product anymore…

avast hasn’t detected some of my archived viruses to test whether it could pass my test…and i’ve tried this one with other antivirus and it was detected though i can’t use that because of performance issues…i’ve tested avast with the latest virus def both automatic update and manual update (EXE)

antiviruses are not perfect i know…but tell me…how antivrus products deal with their virus defs…does it mean that as the virus def grows larger the anivirus is trusted that it could detect more viruses WITHOUT FALSE ALARMS?

i’m starting to like avast but because i’m very concerned with securities, i like to reassure that i’ve found the RIGHT ONE… :slight_smile: thanks and more power to avast!!!

2

You want the perfect software… you won’t find it… time of response, update speed, etc.
Antivirus is not a static - like or does not like - software.

I don’t know if this is exactly what you’re asking, but the virus signatures are only ‘added’ and not ‘removed’ as time goes by. So the database increase. About the false positives, well, they try to do their best. :wink:

3

If file compression is used in signature files then size isn’t a comparison. The same is true when numbers are touted as there is no standardisation of virus names or how virus families/variants are counted.

So it is very difficult to compare on a like for like basis.

I have been using avast for a little over two years without a problem no matter how the virus database is compared.

4

If you like it…use it :wink:

I just love Avast, and have used it some time without problems.

5

i’ve used avast! for over 5 years now going from home to pro…,…and won’t have anything else on my system…using everything from norton,avg,panda,trend micro…you name it…as he said it above…if you like it …use it…and using it i am…no a/v can find everything but avast!has keep my computer clean with the other stuff i’m using and i’m am quite happy it with… ;D :smiley: