Database signatures

[Maddog 0]

In update section It will be nice if we can see the number of signatures for example database version 14065 (5 000 000) and not 14065 (20160903 date) we already have last successful update date and time!

 

[Marcos 4,609]

The number of signatures is irrelevant as you can have one signature covering one specific file and another signature that covers thousands of variants. It's completely unimportant information for users.

[Maddog 0]

I respectfully disagree! Some people care only that the program is up to date and nothing else others are interested to see the database version , release date and of corse signatures number.The second category of users (most of them)  know what is a signature and they want to see the update progress. The number of signatures is equally relevant as the database version for some and irrelevant for others!  Certainly can't hurt the antivirus !

[Marcos 4,609]

You can have millions of signatures that cover only very small portion of threats and another set of smart signatures where one single signature covers dozens, hundreds or even thousands of malware variants. Since the user cannot distinguish between smart and "dumb" signatures, the total number of signatures does not matter. For instance, the AV vendor A can have 10,0000,000 signatures but does not detect 10% of current threats and vendor B which has 100,000 signatures most of which are smart and doesn't detect 0,5-1% of current threats. If the number of signatures mattered. users would tend to buy AV A although AV B would provide much better protection.

[Maddog 0]

I understand ! Eset has a lower number of smart signatures ! Users will see the low number and will choose another antivirus with a bigger signatures number.

Users are smarter than that ! The protection level of an antivirus is not measured by the number of signatures i agree ! Some antivirus programs have multiple engines from bigger names but their protection is not superior !

I can speak only for myself but even if another antivirus is 10-30% better in signatures protection but use more resources i still think overall Eset is better ! The combination of components and resource usage matters as well ! 

 

In conclusion my request was not made from curiosity i still think that database version and signatures number are relevant informations for the update section (not for comparison but for statistical purpose) 

I want to thank you for the fast replys ! I will close the topic leaving Eset designers do what they think is best !

[Marcos 4,609]

I can speak only for myself but even if another antivirus is 10-30% better in signatures protection but use more resources i still think overall Eset is better !

 

If you know that other AVs detect malware which is not detected by ESET, please submit such files to ESET as per the instructions at hxxp://support.eset.com/kb141. However, according to my personal experience ESET is among the first to either proactively detect new threats or to react to new variants among the first (if not as the first).