Well, I am happy to be here, but AMTSO stands for The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. This is an initiative between Anti-Virus companies and anti-virus testers to improve the quality of testing performed on anti-virus products so as to provide consumers with meaningful tests. There have been so many bad tests performed, but “it’s on the web, it’s gotta be true”. Even respected publications continue to publish test results with substantially less scientific merit than the belief in the tooth fairy. A variety of computer magazines throughout the years have published tests that at best are misleading, and often completely incompetent. When I worked at Microsoft a few years ago, before MS has an anti-virus product, I had to evaluate AV products for use in the lab I worked in. There were very few tests of sufficient quality to be useful. None of the tests were found in general computer magazines.
You can find out more about AMTSO at http://www.amtso.org.
Randy Abrams
Director of Technical Education
