I’ve been reading the reviews on Download.com of various antivirus programs. It seems to be the consensus that no one product can detect all viruses.
Don’t all of the major antivirus products’ administrators continually monitor their competitors’ update databases and try to match them as soon as possible? In other words, if Norton, for example, were the first to discover a certain new virus on Monday, I would think that Avast at al would have that virus pegged by Wednesday. There should not be a question of whether Avast can detect all known viruses – they should – although they may not be the first.
On the other hand, does Avast purposely not include some of the “minor or scarce” viruses so as not to over-bloat our operating systems? Is frequent first-detection by a certain competitor the result of a larger staff made possible by their product’s higher selling price?