it just shows how these tests can give very different pictures... in the other Mar 11 test, norton came out looking like it walked on water ...... still never have it anywhere near one of my machines though 
hi GJ
Yeah they are different tests though... the DYNAMIC test (which Norton scored high in) tests the product as a whole, they score it on its capability's to protect you from all sources of infections like firewalling, url blocking, spam, p2p, instant messaging, heuristics etc... whereas the 'detection rate' test it recently scored lower than normal in just tests its ability's to detect infections by signature, this doesn't test firewall, url blocking, spam etc etc etc - im not defending Norton at all, but what I DO try to defend is when people say the tests are rubbish and mean nothing (of course you havent said that but others do..) they dont realise each test is different and think that tests done around the same time are completely different in results when they are actually different types of test, you wouldnt test detection then test firewall and if a product is good on one and not the other this wouldnt mean the tests are useless and inconsitent? it just means its good at one and not the other - ive never noticed such inconsistencies , maybe tests repeated in next session few months later but thats what they are testing them for..performance over time... e.g. if they test in Nov 2010 and AV1 scores great, then in MAR2011 it scores low - that doesnt mean the tests are rubbish and prove nothing, it means that anti-virus they tested has dropped in its abilities to detect/protect and why we should be thankfull we have these results to compare them with so we can always have the best protection
some people may say "yeah but there are different testing websites/companies and some show differing results" - what I would say to those people is, check back when they all use the same criteria for testing...
...a lot of the testing companies only use a few hundred infected samples and test & score differently... I prefer AV Comparatives because they use MILLIONS of infected samples and therefore give a better example of what is good detection, yeah their last test was only 400,000 (only...!! most other testing companies get nowhere near that amount) but I have seen them use 2.3million samples in some tests just last year...
at mo im using Avast Internet Security 6.0 and I think its great, I cant believe how light it is on the system for a full IS suite.
