Microsoft OneCare Live: Dead Last Against Viruses

We've all heard it before.

In the past it's been shown that Microsoft's relatively new antivirus software, Windows OneCare Live, struggled to eliminate all of the most recent threats to a user's operating system. Microsoft only released the program last year, and it's starting to become apparent that it has much work to do in order to catch up with the competition from longtime industry veterans like McAfee and Norton.

Now, a recent test of Trojans and the like revealed that OneCare Live in fact offers the least security of all software on the market. (Source: Slashdot.org)

The test was performed by an Austrian research group, which used 17 popular (and not so popular) antivirus programs. AV Comparatives, a website based in Innsbruck, recently posted its quarterly results after hammering all of its subject software against approximately 500,000 threats.

The big bug list included the latest worms, viruses, Trojans, and spyware issues to make their way onto the web.

Some of the major successes were those few North Americans have heard of. First place went to G Data Security's AntivirusKit, or AVK, which eliminated a staggering 99.5% of all threats. Most of the other top virus killers, like AEC's TrustPort and MicroWorld's eScan, were able to prevent 97% or more of the threats from making their way into a computer.

More mainstream (and likely affordable) products from Symantec and McAfee nailed 96.8% and 91% of incoming issues, respectively. (Source: pcworld.com)

So, where did OneCare Live end up? Like we said, in dead last. Microsoft's program was only able to handle 82.4% of the threats that crossed its path.