Early last week, the guys over at AV-Test concluded an 18 month study in which they were able to determine that Google was safer than its primary competitor Bing, when it comes to keeping malware out of search results. In other words, Bing delivered five times as many malicious malware results than Google does, at least according to AV-Test.
Microsoft caught wind of this so-called study and issued a blog post debunking this idea that Bing delivers five times as many malicious malware than Google. “AV-TEST’s study doesn’t represent the true experience or risk to customers. In other words, the conclusions many have drawn from the study are wrong,” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.
According to Microsoft, AV-Test didnt actually search via Bing.com to furnish its study results, rather they used the Bing API. This, in essence, bypassed the warning system designed to keep Bing users safe from malware. Bing will, in fact, display a message to stop users from visiting a malicious URL.
“Does this mean Google is bad and Bing is good? No, it means this is a highly complex problem that all engines are constantly working to solve. No engine will be perfect 100% of the time but we all work every day on detecting the latest threats from the bad guys and updating our engines to keep customers safe,” Microsoft adds.
Microsoft is working with AV-Test to “deliver more accurate and real-world results” for future tests. Microsoft continues to tout that Bing is great for detecting malicious links, to keep users safe online.
