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>>>> False positive

"High rate of false positive".

When it choose the software antivirus is very important consider the rate of false positive. That because they have a connection with the number of pests that the antivirus detects.

They exist more of 200 thousand different digital pests and the antivirus is necessary "know" each one of them. As it is not possible verify the file all because would be very slow, the application verifies barely some stretches of each file. That "stretch" by which the antivirus seeks is called of signature.

It happens that the signature also is going to be efficient. If a signature permits the detection of several malicious codes, she is more efficient than another one that detects barely a. According to signature stayed genericer, exists the risk of that legitimate files – documents, music, inoffensive programs and pages Web – possess that same stretch by which the signature seeks. If the file contiver the stretch, the antivirus detect-him as malicious and will be giving a false alarm or a false positive one ("FP").

Itself says "false positive" because the antivirus gives a wrong answer (false) to the question "This file has virus?" of positive form ("has yes"). The opposite of false positive – a file infected done not mark as such – is called of false negative film strip.

False positive common Saints. It is not difficult that a legitimate file be detected incorrectly by an antivirus, because many programs in use they exist in the world all. In the majority of the cases, the victim of the False positive one is an utility little one utilized, or restricted to a country or company, and the false positive one passes unnoticed.

Nevertheless, they were recorded false positive that put out files of the own one Windows – depending the language – and of the Microsoft Office. In the past week, that happened with the antivirus AVG and Kaspersky, that detected the file user32.dll of the Windows as virus and arrived it thwart completely some systems. In this week, the AVG come back it have problems of false positive, this time with the Adobe Flash.

It is a native that an antivirus with a rate less than false positive have a smaller rate of detection also. It is a sacrifice that is worth hardly, depending his priorities and the kind of use that the computer will have. The tests of the AV-Comparatives (mentioned above) inform the rate of false positive of the antivirus quizzed.

Therefore, if you look barely the pests detection rate of the antivirus, will not be seeing to possible headache that will be able to have case a program or legitimate document be put in quarantine – or, worse, dull – unnecessarily by the antivirus.