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A well-regarded anti-virus testing laboratory has released its latest quarterly results, and placed Microsofts OneCare anti-virus solution squarely at the bottom of the list.
In each of three categories— viruses, macros, worms and scripts; backdoors, Trojans and other malware; and a third category, combining the results of the first two—OneCare received the worst score out of 17 products tested, according to AV-Comparatives.org, a group of IT graduate students who have published formal analyses of antivirus tools since February 2004. The effort is led by Andreas Clementi, the project tester and a graduate student at the University of Innsbruck.
Microsoft also ranked third from the bottom in detection of polymorphic viruses, which included such worms as W32/Insane.A, which can produce varied copies of itself, defeating a static signature file.
Microsofts OneCare was launched in May 2006; in January, the software package was updated with improved backup and language options, as well as integrated spyware and virus detection.