The DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification

[Stoic Joker]

The award could only go to a company that does not try to sell "security". They should be honest about what their product really does: attempt to lessen the likelihood of catching a worm, virus, or whatever. When they "guarantee 100% security" they are making fools of their customers.

But if they do educate their customers and try to raise their awareness about those "dangers" without resorting to panicking them, I think that should have a positive impact on the uhm awardiness(?).

-housetier (December 20, 2009, 12:06 AM)

110% agreed ... The various AV companies seem to pit their marketing & legal departments against each other ... Granted they never really flat-out say 100% effective. But, most seem to use the cleverest forms of word play to get as close to the razor edge as po$$ible without causing anybody in legal to have a seizure.

Truth-in-Advertising should most definitely be considered, and weigh heavily on any award(s) given.

[mouser]

regarding the suggestions that companies not be evil in terms of trying to trick people into a false sense of security, all well and good -- but for this award i think we want it to avoid any kind of subjective judgement.

there's plenty of room for full reviews written by lots of sites to tell us a more detailed description of what's good and bad about a particular antivirus and the company.

but what i have in mind for this particular thing is a kind of certification/award that describes a very clear and concise set of objective and strict requirements that a company can decide that they want to meet in order to get this certificate, and have it mean something important.

[Stoic Joker]

regarding the suggestions that companies not be evil in terms of trying to trick people into a false sense of security, all well and good -- but for this award i think we want it to avoid any kind of subjective judgement.

-mouser (December 20, 2009, 11:39 AM)

Understood, but I really don't think it would hurt the awards veracity if there was some mention of how well (acurately...) their product was presented. Are the features (/claims) Touchy-Feely (new-bestest-friend-forever) ...or pragmatic (Meat & Potatoes) fact. There should be some way to quantify (Reality Check) how straight they are with the products presentation.

[f0dder]

Stoic Joker: make the award too hard to achieve and not many companies would want to participate, though... I'm not for yet another meaningless "this'll look good on an awards page" kind of thing, but I do believe it should be something attainable with a product aimed at end-users and not "geekboy powerheads" like the participants on this forum.

[Stoic Joker]

Stoic Joker: make the award too hard to achieve and not many companies would want to participate,

-f0dder (December 20, 2009, 03:49 PM)

So... you're saying honesty is too much to ask for? ...Mind you given the marketing environment today I'm inclined to agree with you. I just don't know that is best to ignore the hideous monster and take-it lying down (in a comfortable position).

though... I'm not for yet another meaningless "this'll look good on an awards page" kind of thing, but I do believe it should be something attainable with a product aimed at end-users and not "geekboy powerheads" like the participants on this forum.

Right... and explaining just how paper thin a given (advertising) claim is, is something I could easily do to my mother (who is neither powerful, geeky, or a boy).

[mouser]

From my standpoint, i dont think we should try to make this award tell you everything you know to decide if an antivirus program is for you.. it's not meant to evaluate the # hits and misses, or the cpu load, etc.. I think those are things that are better saved for a detailed review.

What i'm interested in is motivating these companies to stop the deceptive alerting that scares people like the boy who cried wolf, is harmful for developers because of all the false positives, and currently is without incentive to correct.

By providing a meaningful award that focuses on the issues i suggested, i'm hoping that we might be able to get some antivirus companies to take this certification seriously, and see the benefit of having it.

Think of it as an effort to establish a new BARE MINIMUM standard that all good anti-malware programs will need to live up to if they are to be viewed as serious contenders.  Initially no product meets these standards, but the first one that does will be able to honestly say, this is a real reason to choose us over the others.

And for our part we can help by promising to review and draw positive attention to any anti-malware that meets this standard.

[Stoic Joker]

What i'm interested in is motivating these companies to stop the deceptive alerting that scares people like the boy who cried wolf, is harmful for developers because of all the false positives, and currently is without incentive to correct.

-mouser (December 20, 2009, 07:16 PM)

Hm... So, you're shooting for kinder gentler heuristics. (or rather...) If the AV companies are forced to (justify) clarify exactly what they're on about and why, they'll start being a bit more careful about flipping (erroneous) messages on the screen (to avoid looking foolish) and much of the other stuff will get ironed out in the resulting ripple effect.

I still think it would be more fun to storm the castle...  ...but your way has a better chance at a lasting (positive) effect. 

[JavaJones]

There's nothing stopping the creation of 2 awards either. The thread started with a good idea which I'd really like to see implemented, but honest advertising is also very worthwhile to encourage. It's not unique to AV soft though. And, as you said, is a much harder battle.

- Oshyan

[iphigenie]

What i'm interested in is motivating these companies to stop the deceptive alerting that scares people like the boy who cried wolf, is harmful for developers because of all the false positives, and currently is without incentive to correct.

-mouser (December 20, 2009, 07:16 PM)

Hm... So, you're shooting for kinder gentler heuristics. (or rather...) If the AV companies are forced to (justify) clarify exactly what they're on about and why, they'll start being a bit more careful about flipping (erroneous) messages on the screen (to avoid looking foolish) and much of the other stuff will get ironed out in the resulting ripple effect.

-Stoic Joker (December 20, 2009, 09:22 PM)

It doesnt even need gentler heuristics as much as qualified heuristics - heuristics with a confidence rating perhaps showing simple scales showing a)how active the suspected menace is at the moment, how precise (large) the matched signature is (i.e. could it be a fluke) leading to a rating going from "this is very serious even if you trust the program the file came from be very very paranoid" to "if you know and trust the program in question then you might ignore this warning"

[mouser]

Article today about the sad state of antivirus:
http://arstechnica.c...e-not-going-away.ars

[40hz]

Is it even worth attempting to bring some light to the topic of antivirus software when the companies that are creating the AV products are taking such pains to cloud the issue?

Maybe it would be a better idea to just recommend one (or two) 'best of breed' products ala Gizmo (with the rationale for their selection) and let it go at that?

There's so many bogus and misappropriated award badges out there that I seriously wonder if an "award" means all that much any more - no matter who is conferring one.

[superboyac]

40hz hits on a good point.  That's why I found it so hard to say this is the best, or that's the best.  When I was making my recommended software list on my website, I found the most practical way to keep it up was to just loosely talk about my favorite software and leave it at that.  I don't bother with a consistent article format, or meticulously going through each feature, comparing it with the alternatives, benchmarks, etc.  I found it was too much work and impossible to keep up without making it a full time job.  So I just talk about why I like it, tell a couple of hopefully entertaining stories, maybe point out a favorite feature.  My intent is to get the user to think, "hmm, that looks pretty good, I'll try it out."  And hopefully, they have enough trust to believe that if I like it, there must be something to it.

Anyway, I know that's a little off topic.  but whenever I see people talking about badges and reviews and comparisons, it gets me thinking about this.  There are a lot of review sites and forums out there.  But many of them are unreliable to me.  That's why I liked Zaine's old list, before he went Linux.  I trusted him, so I knew i could look for something on that list, and it was probably a safe bet that I would like it.