The Death of Honest Review Scores

My parents need a new security suite for their computer. They’re reasonably computer savvy but still asked for my help in picking one. Since I’m a Linux/Mac kind of guy, I decided to do a few searches to see what was new and ran across PC World’s chart of Internet security suites.

PC World is a magazine I have a lot of respect for. They do a lot of great work in the field of reviewing computer products. But I noticed something when I looked at the bottom of the chart. Trend Micro got the lowest score on the list and their “Bottom Line” review reads as follows:

“Trend Micro’s latest suite fails at the most basic task of detecting and blocking malicious software. Not recommended.”

Ouch, seems pretty scathing to me. But then look at the score. It’s a 74/100. On a regular grading scale that would be a middle “C”. On a 1-10 system it would be a 7.5, well above an “average” of 5.

How the Hell do you say something “fails at the most basic task” and then give it an average or even good score? That makes no sense. The full review isn’t much more kind saying that:

“Trend Micro’s suite has some good points, but there’s no getting around the fact that Internet Security Pro 2009 fails at detecting malicious software, and therefore fails as a security program. We cannot recommend buying it.”

Clearly something is wrong with review scores when a 74 is a total failure of a program. It’s time we woke up a little bit and realized that review scores on the Web are garbage and reliance on them is dangerous, especially when dealing with security software.

However, this isn’t a new problem, it’s been going on for quite some time. Read more