Home What is a Trojan Horse? How we reviewed anti-trojans About us |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Procedure Running a scan timing test sounds simple enough. Just fire up each scanner, scan the the same set of files and time each run. Then you print out a table ranking the products slowest to fastest. The reality is a little more complicated:
Accepting these difficulties and the problems they present for accurate comparison, we chose to set up each product's scan options to represent the way the product would be likely to used in actual practice. Accordingly each anti-trojan was set up to scan all executables and archives as comprehensively as possible. Each product was then set up to scan the Windows directory on a test PC. To eliminate disk caching distorting the results, the PC was rebooted before after each scan. These tests were performed on three separate occasions; in August 2004 , August 2003 and August 2002 using on each occassion, the latest versions of the programs with their latest trojan signature databases. In 2002 and 2003 the tests were carried out on the same PC, a now defunct P3 machine, using the same dataset which was restored from a disk image. In 2004 the tests were carried out on a different PC, a modern 3.2Ghz P4 with 1GB of memory. We also scanned a different data set, the system32 folder of that PC. This was chosen as virtually all files in that directory would be scanned by any of the products tested. This allows a fairer comparison between the products as each tends to scan somewhat different file types. As in 2002/3, the PC was rebooted between timing tests to avoid disk caching distortion. The results were as follows: Scan Test Results - August 2004
Scan Test Results - August 2003
Scan Test Results - August 2002
BoClean could not be tested as it has no file scanning component. Conclusions So what does this mean? We would be confident in saying that TDS-3 was the slowest to scan, however it was also the most thorough and it also scanned for the largest number of possible trojans. Watching Trojan Hunter run, it appeared to be the quickest to scan but its rules database covers the fewest trojans Note that Trojans Hunter's scan time has almost doubled between versions 2.54 and 3.6 largely reflecting the huge increase in the number of trojans included in the database from 959 to 3062. The other products could, in principal, be ranked in the following order for scanning speed, quickest first. However not too much import should be placed on the result.
Advertisements: The Best Backup Software: 18 backup programs reviewed and rated but only one get "Editor's Choice" Inkjet Printer cartridges: The best places to buy cheap inkjet cartridges. We looked at 47 seven sites but could only recommend eleven.
|