Just as the title reads, I am interested in some opinions as to who you trust for information about AV products, which includes a review, and I am especially interested in why you feel a given individual does a good job of reviewing AV products?
Thank you.
NOTE: Yes, I did use the search engine here to see if anyone had already asked for such information and came up with nothing. But if I made an error in the search and such a discussion already exists, please excuse my error.
In my experience and personal opinion:
I asked something similar to this once and it didnt meet with very good results. Kinda expected though as this forum is only focused on one AV.
I think he does not want to discuss the AV product itself, but the method we come to it 
You are exactly right, Lisandro.
I figure that a lot of customers come to Avast upon the recommendation of friend, family member, or colleague, but there must be quite a few that did some sort of research that might have included some writer’s review of the various products on the market. So I am firstly wondering who they might have been influenced by.
Then I would be interested to know what the professionals here think of the various writers that do such reviews, such as your point, Lisandro, about the independents.
What I need to do now is go figure out how an “independent” receives an industry recognized specification of being an independent. I imagine there are standards for that, just like everything else in the business.
But there must also be some reputable sites or magazines, and such, that are viewed as being fair, even if they are not also viewed as being independent. Maybe?
In a nutshell, I am asking about this business of reviewing the AV products. Maybe I can write that as the “science” of reviewing the AV products? Is it a science?
And, Cast, I couldn’t find any similar threads/discussions when I did my searches before posting. Do you have a link to that thread/discussion?
Here, independence means that rules are clear, stated before the test, all the results would be published without exception.
Sometimes, the tested products pay the same to participate.
Sometimes they’re professional. Sometimes are biased. It’s difficult to measure some points like “user friendliness”, “interface”, all of these are subjective.
Okey-dokey, I understand. Thank you.
How about an article on the subject and I sure hope nobody tries to state I am promoting this fella. I have just found his piece on this subject and it seems useful for our discussion here. Until about 10 minutes ago I didn’t know the article existed.
http://igl-security.blogspot.jp/2011/11/what-is-independent-antivirus-tester.html
Is there any point made in that article that anyone might disagree with?
Well apart from Lisandro who is an avast team member, avast evangelists and überevangelists are perfect examples to trust.
Well not everybody maybe, but listen to my story here?
Where I do the website security scanning to compare detection of suspicious and malicious or vulnerable websites
my reporting is unbiased. I know about the unique qualities of the avast shields detection and how it is further being finetuned.
I am also aware of it’s blind spots and where Bitdefender TrafficLight and DrWeb’s malcious websites list form an addition.
That it is depending as from what detection theater you discuss, just consider the discrepancies between Google Safebrowsing blocked websites and those blacklisted by Yandex (now cooperating with Sophos detection).
And detection is also being frustated all the time from malcreants, see how many times we cannot visit Clean MX - realtime results, because a Ddos attack is rolling. So more than anyone else here I can say you should not rely here on easy answers, because they cannot be given.
There is so much critically wrong online that it is a sheer miracle not far more site are infesting as those that already are.
Server configuration security is meagre to non-existant in a lot of cases. DNS delegation and nameserver issues galore. Do not forget that avast is blocking all afraid dot org driven sites by default. Bulk hosters cash on easy money and have security of websites as a last resort thing.
The wrong combinations of website technology and certain coding practices makes the Interwebs often a very insecure place.
So you now ask me what av solution would be best under such circumstances. I would say avast because I have grown up with avast for over a decade and yes as a resident av solution it is my choice on my laptop and my Google smartphone.
But I also will use other extensions to help me, like DrWeb’s URL checker, Bitdefender’s TrafficLight, WOT, Scriptsafe and HTTP-Switchboard and a decent adblocker like uBlock. Next I still need my expertise and my safehexing habits and then still a recent not fully tested Vista update could interfere with my Google browser script rendering blurring things. First those updates came from Redmond, those coders do not work there anymore, then they came from India, and now the patches are brewed up in Brazil. And when that is the attitude then you understand why we have that Swiss Cheese Security Situation from the outset, 
polonus
That is a very informative post, polonus, and I will spend more time studying it, as trying to digest it in one reading seems hard to do, if one is wanting to learn.
But one thing is this:
I am more interested in what testing regimes members feel they can trust ‘out there’ away from Avast.
By the way, you made note of doing some testing yourself, I believe.
I mean, from this sentence I got the idea you have done some testing:
Where I do the website security scanning to compare detection of suspicious and malicious or vulnerable websites my reporting is unbiased.
What I am trying to get to is where can we see published results of your own testing?
And thank you for your contributions to this discussion.
Latest Security-Software Test from a german Computer website:
Avast Place 7/8
Avast let 26/8443 samples through, and it took about 3 GB of disk space (Most likely NG caused that)
Worst protection of all in the test, Kaspersky again the winner…
And Bitdefender on the LAST Place, i cant believe that, Reason: Worse protection against new malware
How do you think about these results?
Excuse me, but who did the test noted above? What website? What people? Their experience? Anything, please. And thank you.
I won’t rely on test results. Test results are very different from each Independent labs i.e. West Coast Labs and etc and there’s different scenarios of each test. As for me, I don’t rely on these tests of antivirus software based on their performance test, usability, malware test, and etc, because each one of them are tested on different environment, test scenarios, and etc as I previously mentioned. In the past, I have used many free and paid antivirus and decided to stick on Avast since version 7 and I never ever looked back and don’t have any regrets. My laptop and Avast works and treats each other very well and never had any malware struck my laptop :). I do take counter measure by having SAS LifeTime Pro and MBAM Free
I manage about 15 computers. All used in the “Real World” all of them are clean and all of them are protected by Avast.
Don’t know about the tests and what they use but if Avast in their eyes is at the bottom of the list, they need to get glasses.
Trust in avast completely, unless you test it yourself.
I do test avast detection every day and each day thoroughly, now for over a decade…
and the most recent years very intensively from end to end,
where I do third party cold reconnaissance website security testing
and website error-hunting to further a better Avast detection.
This is the only way to build an inner conviction that Avast is a top class product.
Avast not only kept my computers and devices clean and free of malcode,
Avast also provided me with a platform where I learned how to protect myself
and others. I am not a fan-boy, but I am a convinced Avast Überevangelist,
polonus
Excuse me, but who did the test noted above? What website? What people? Their experience? Anything, please. And thank you.
The website that did this test is Computerbild.de in cooperation with av-test.org and i think AV-Comparatives as well.
Computerbild pays for the test.
They test everything, Firewall, Zero-Day, Detection rates and more.
If you trust them, go for them.
I do not really trust them, Avast 7th place, never ever.
Just some work on DeepScreen and there will be less malware slipping by.
Hi Steven Winderlich,
Hasn’t it dawned upon you that such test results could possibly have been paid for by those parties interested in a higher ranking than they actually should have. Is any test manipulation throughout possible? Who can say -who can prove it or deny it? ;D
pol