Former Download Squad co-lead Marc Perton wrote in to tell us about a bit of controversy stirred up by his current employer, Consumer Reports, which recently conducted one of the most comprehensive tests of anti-virus software to date. The controversy is that for the test Consumer Reports hired a firm to create 5,500 new variants of existing viruses to see how antivirus software reacted to new threats. And, not unexpectedly, the antivirus companies threw a fit. Here's what McAfee's Igor Muttik had to say about it: "Creating new viruses for the purpose of testing and education is generally not considered a good idea." Consumer Union's Evan Beckford defended the test, saying, "We need to anticipate how antivirus software will react to future threats. This is the only way we know to do it. We think the benefits far outweigh the risks." SANS Institute's Alan Paller agrees, saying, "extremely valuable because a great weakness of most leading antivirus tools is that they are slow in detecting new viruses," adding that creating viruses in a lab isn't wrong--distributing them is.

Among the antivirus software tested, McAfee's scored in the middle of the pack, which was led by offerings from BitDefender and Zone Laps. McAfee denies that its criticism of Consumer Reports' methods was not motivated by its score. You can read Consumer Reports' report on how the tests were conducted here.

So, what do you think? Is creating thousands of new virus variants playing with fire, and do all of us stand to get burned as a result, or are tests like this essential to staying ahead of new threats before they're created?