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A mishmash of features leaves us with mixed feelings
Most enthusiasts view McAfee as just another resource hog often found in OEM systems alongside performance-pillaging bloatware. Fair assessment or not, this is the perception McAfee’s up against in trying to win over the PC elite. It helps that the company isn’t blissfully unaware of the importance placed on performance; its latest edition promises to raise the bar with a more efficient engine that won’t drag your system down.
In our testing, McAfee fell in the middle of the pack instead of leading the charge. RAM consumption crept above what we’d consider lean, and while scanning for malware, CPU utilization often hovered around 40 percent. That in itself isn’t criminal, but we felt swindled when all it bought us was the second-slowest scan time of the bunch—although, remarkably, we didn’t see much of a drop in gaming or day-to-day computing performance.
McAfee’s list of features ranges in practicality from the beneficial to the unlikely to ever be used. Occupying the former camp are spyware protection, a highly configurable firewall, email and IM guards, basic parental controls, and a file shredder. But we just can’t get stoked about the virus map, which displays global viral hot spots, or the HackerWatch module, which looks for patterns of attack around the world to report to ISPs. And still other features, like Active Protection for real-time safeguards, will be made available only through future updates—boo!
Living up to its name, McAfee Total Protection 2009 proved a formidable adversary against all types of malware and stopped malicious websites from loading. We also dig McAfee’s SiteAdvisor tool, which not only identifies questionable search results but also gives a detailed report on why the URL is suspect. But no matter how good it protects, we’re not willing to endure slow scanning performance or wait for features that should have been available at release.
Verdict: 6
www.mcafee.com
$70 (3 PCs)
Could this be the luxury sedan of antivirus suites?
For the latest version of its AV suite, Symantec went back to the drawing board and completely rewritten the program from the ground up with a focus on speed. Even the installer has been revamped; in an attempt to reduce setup time to less than a minute (we clocked it at 55 seconds), Symantec coded its own proprietary installer instead of using Microsoft’s, as it has
in the past.
This year’s release adds a smart scheduler that monitors task utilization in real time and queues up its task if the system is busy. This means if you’re lining up a headshot in your favorite shooter, NIS will take a backseat until system resources are freed. But if a task qualifies as critical, it will run regardless of what you’re doing, so you can continue to crunch
Folding@Home without being a sitting target. And to keep itself honest, Symantec integrates a system monitor showing what percentage of CPU cycles NIS is consuming—nifty!
Live Update has been rewritten too, and in addition to regular updates, Symantec sends out micro updates. These pulse updates ensure that when a new threat is discovered in the wild, you’ll have the necessary signature definition within minutes instead of waiting up to 24 hours for the next refresh.
The program swept through our test system in less than 10 minutes, and subsequent scans completed in less than two minutes! NIS accomplishes this by discerning between trusted and untrusted files and by default won’t rescan files that haven’t changed.
NIS 2009 leaves virtually no security stone unturned. Our biggest knock is that not all features work under Vista x64, such as right-click scanning. Still, if security suites were cars, consider NIS 2009 a decked-out Lexus.
Verdict: 9
www.symantec.com
$70 (3 PCs)
Why pay more when you can get the same or better for less?
At $80 for a one-year subscription, Kaspersky charges more than any other suite we tested. If you buy the downloadable version instead of a retail boxed copy, the license is good for up to three users—that’s little consolation to single-PC
households.
Kaspersky also holds the undesirable record for longest install time. What started off as a pokey two-minute install ballooned into an agonizing eight minutes composed of a tediously long update and no less than two reboots.
Once we were finally up and running, Kaspersky began to atone for its pricing and installation sins. Like Norton’s package, Kaspersky significantly shortens subsequent system scans by skipping files already determined to be clean. During an initial run-through, Kaspersky’s iChecker algorithm makes note of certain files’ digital signatures and saves them in a special table. If the signature matches the next time a scan takes place, the file will be skipped over. The result is that a 12-minute system scan was reduced to a blazing one minute and 14 seconds, finally setting a record Kaspersky could be proud of.
Like the other full-featured suites, Kaspersky crams a multitude of tools into a neatly organized package and manages to set itself apart in some areas. Rather than limit email scanning to Outlook and POP3, Kaspersky also analyzes IMAP traffic. It boasts a banner-ad blocker and, through parental controls, the ability to limit how much time children can roam the web. Finally, road warriors will appreciate the option to automatically disable scheduled scans when running on battery power.
Kaspersky provided a formidable wall of defense against both viruses and spyware, keeping our test bed protected against Trojans, dialers, and other Internet-bound ills. But so did some of the less-expensive suites.
Verdict: 6
http://usa.kaspersky.com
$80 (3 PCs)
Comments are closed on this article
wendyw
March 02, 2011 at 8:10pm
You can never overprotect your PC from the threat of virus attacks. The big danger is once a virus gets through a firewall, your whole network becomes vulnerable. Virus protection software is like health insurance for your computer. You can never have too much!
RobbyDesmond
January 18, 2011 at 7:46am
When it comes to protecting your computer against viruses and malware, NOD32 is my weapon of choice too. It's virus detection track is unscratched by any failures. Ever since I've installed it, it updated it's self, it performed regular scans and I never felt it was there, a really great tool.
xmannd
January 27, 2011 at 6:46am
I can't believe how fast and smooth works my computer now thanks to Internet Security who stopped the virus to enter and infect the computer
lovercathi
November 30, 2010 at 7:45am
I was searching Google for an antivirus free download and there were a lot of websites where you couldn't download nothing unless you paid a hefty sum of money. What's up with that ? Why can't we benefit from free anti virus software ?
tfox
October 06, 2010 at 6:18pm
After reading MaximumPC's review and giving it a quick Google, I decided it was time to take them off my black list and give them another shot. I purchased and downloaded Norton Antivirus 2010 for a hair under $41. Initially I was happy as the old install issues were gone and the performance was substantially better. The happy lasted about three days when I discovered that each successive scan slowed the machine a little more. In about 4-5 weeks the scan time took every bit as long Avast! which has the worst system impact of any security app I have used. Worse the freeware version of Malwarebytes was catching stuff that Norton wasn't. This only happened a few times and what was caught was no big deal. Still, it is not a good sign when freeware does something a paid program can't. Six months in to my subscription I ran across something worse. I was looking into customer complaints about various vendors my employer uses when I happened upon complaints about Symantec.
Customers who elected not to renew their subscription and disabled automatic renewal were charged anyway. In some cases they were charged for one year in others they were charged for two years. My employer doesn't use Symantec products so I did not take the time to dig into this thoroughly. However, I dug in enough to get a clear impression that this was not a unique or even rare case. This happens a lot. If I looked into this as thoroughly as I would for my employer, I would not be surprised to find the number of cases are a thousand or more. In any case I have insured that they cannot renew my subscription and have provided feedback letting them know why they have lost my business.
spinner76
July 30, 2010 at 8:11pm
I've used McAfee's since 2k4 and aside from the program taking up A LOT of processing power the program ran fine. Or so i thought. The firs time i found out about spybot, it found a lot of stuff McAfee's was supposed to have found. Malwarebytes proved this again. Yet again with Glary's. William from below brings up a very GOOD POINT. MAXPC should be testing out 1) Customer Service 2) Tech Support and 3) Full Functionality. McAfee's provides poorly on these issues. 1- i paid in US Dollars, don't give me ESL Support. 2 - Make sure you can call w/o having to pay. 3 - If you tell the progam to stop scanning, it should stop scanning. All very basic things, all McAfee's failed to provide or do.
Mithrandir
May 07, 2010 at 10:51am
You guys are 100% right on PC Tools. I tried the Pro version, almost losing my PC in the process. The entire program is a piece of junk. It DID supposedly get rid of a Keylogger I had for awhile, but other that, it's junk.
I use PandaCloud and MalwareBytes Pro. I am going to try Nod 32. :)
WilliamssonLoeber
April 08, 2010 at 10:18pm
One thing you missed in your test, Customer Service. I got McAfee based on your review of it. I had it two days when I got a message it was not up to date, and my subscription is expired. It would not update. I called McAfee customer service and told them of the issue. I was told "Yes sir you have a virus, we will have one of are tear 2 techs do a remote session with you and resolve the virus. All we need from you is $89.99 and if we do not resolve the issue we will gladly refund your money." I told them I did not think I had a virus, and that I should not pay anything until it was confirmed that I had one. I was then told "from what you have told us you do have a virus so I will need payment to fix this issue." I told them I rather have a refund if that was the quality of their customer care. I was told “I cannot give you a refund we are not responsible for your computer getting infected." LOL I did find on their website that if you are not 100% satisfied with your punches you can get a full refund if it is within 30 days of punches. I then talked to a supervisor and rather then look at my issue I was told we will e-mail you a refund form. The sad part is after hanging up with them I looked in to the issue, it turned out my cousin was playing around and set the date for windows to 2013 I changed it back and everything was fine! To think they wanted $89.99 to change my date for me. McAfee may be better than it was but there customer service is as bad as ever!
nintendorox
February 26, 2010 at 10:43am
Windows Security Essentials is the best one that I've found for the price of nothing!
shashank
February 15, 2010 at 8:14pm
hay i m using norton for last 3 yr and my pc is iffected with virus then i use nod 32 and i got unbeivale result nod 32 cleen my all the virus
yukiscamp
October 07, 2009 at 1:56pm
the best AV out there is not on here anywhere that would be Trend Micro (formerly PCcillin).
I started with Norton years ago, it drove me nuts with constant notifications, oh and about once a year it decided my network was a threat and blocked it out. I wasted so much time fixing Norton so it would let me do normal things, it drove me nuts. Maybe Norton has changed but do I want to take the chance? No, not when I have a perfectly good antivirus that never gives me a lick of trouble.
I discovered PC-cillin when it came preloaded with my current computer a couple years ago. Its been a dream to run, never causes a problem never hassles me, I couldn't ask for better.
bzbuck
July 21, 2009 at 6:52pm
I use to use Norton, tried Kaspersky, then started checking out ESET.....all I can say is wow. They are great, a few downfalls, but great. I have to believe that Norton takes up more system resources then ESET. That is one thing ESET is know for...lowest amount of resourrces on your computer. Tried Avira, but man it brought any PC I used to a crawl. AVG is OK, and PC Tools I believe was actually bought by..hhhmmm let me think......oh yeah I believe it was Norton(Symantec). Kind of funny.
jsps999
June 26, 2009 at 4:03pm
In Year 1900 - 108 years ago - 1/3 of the motor vehicles in NYC were electric-powered.
stretch2007
June 04, 2009 at 2:13pm
After trying other antivirus programs, So far I have had the best luck with ESET. It does not slow down the
computer any even when doing a full system scan.
MrBlonde81
May 06, 2009 at 8:46am
I think NIS 2009 rating should be downgraded to 8 due to it's behavior of installing Firefox toolbars. I don't want the damn Norton IPS which installed when NIS was, or the latest Norton Toolbar which installed itself or updated and re-enabled itself today! Well, disabling the unwanted add-ons is easy, but you cannot uninstall them.
It's still a good program. I'm glad I paid for it (well, I sent in the MIR from frys and haven't recieved that back yet... that's another story)but this toolbar instalation isn't cool.
jesicajame
May 02, 2009 at 9:09am
If you are like me and tired many different scans in the past looking for something that will protect and clean your computer, give Search-and-destroy Antispyware a try. I found that the antispyware solution from Search-and-destroy (http://www.Search-and-destroy.com) is an excellent choice. It’s less expensive than many of the other scans I’ve tired but it finds the same type of bugs that can damage and ruin my computer. I am so happy with this scanner that I want to tell everyone about it so you can give it a try to. I’m sure you will love it.
Max PC Rox
March 19, 2009 at 5:38am
Hey,
Do you mind updating the article to the new version of avira av?
It now has free antispyware and free anti adware.
-Matt Oakville, On, Oakville
OvenFresh
February 26, 2009 at 2:29pm
The article was about NIS 2009 not the dreaded 360. You bought the wrong stuff.
nemsis7377
February 05, 2009 at 10:32am
After reading January's artical on Antivirus software, I went out and bought Norton 360 2.0. I am tech myself. So I know how to install software. My PC is new and very stable. I installed 360 and it compleatly destabilized
my machine. A right click on any folder would send windows into tail spin! This is not the first time I tried Norton, but it will be the last. And I am out $70 bucks plus tax!
Woofa
February 01, 2009 at 2:58pm
Yeah, it makes you sound cool to dismiss Symantec's products, however your coolness is not reality.
I could leave my comments at that but I won't and yes I'm going to rip into fools that think NIS is junk and that their beloved this or that is great. Most of you show how little you know with your comments. To paraphrase some "my Avast doesn't look like that", are you stupid? Did you pay attention to your install? Get rid of your junk Avast anyway. Glad to see that this roundup brought out PC Tools for what it is, complete and utter junk, no matter the version. NIS features that don't work in Vista 64, the right click scan is the ONLY one I know of and apparently that MaxPC knows of as well or they'd list them. If there's more then MaxPC you need to list them not alude to there being more. Anyone know of more? Name them and lets see how crucial they are. I was disappointed in the right click scanning missing but it's not a make or break item. BIG DEAL. More to that is NIS (and obviously the AV alone as well) still tags a fair number of false hits. The fewest number of false hits I've gotten is with ESET. NIS doesn't work with Zone Alarm? So what? YoPa, you need a clue buddy and someone else already clued you in that you don't need nor would you want to use ZA with NIS. You can use either suite but I'd choose NIS of ZA anyday currently. Kapsersky, well this is another once very good product that's turned garbage, much like BitDefender which has become junk and unfriendly to knowledgable users.
Now here we come to the real meat on this issue. I don't see anywhere in the MaxPC's roundup here any mention of false hits. False hits are a huge issue. To keep down panic and refrain from trashing something that is harmless you don't want false hits to be very high. ESPECIALLY for any AV or Suite that doesn't give you an option to not delete or quarantine an item. Well NIS doesn't give you full control over this, so it's made for or dumbed down for stupid users that don't know what they are doing. This is a glaring fail point for me, it takes what I know NIS to be a very top notch and resource stingy suite to being at very best an 8 on the scale here. ESET is my choice. The biggest problem I have with ESET though is that they are now gouging on price with single user licenses costing what almost everyone else gives you 3 licenses for. Wake up ESET, your pricing strategy keeps me from successfully recommending your product to customers.
Acknowledge the reality that Symantec has once again made Norton products recommendable and just short of excellent. Get rid of taking away my control of all supposed risks and get the false hits in check and I'll use it again on my own systems. If you look you will see that MaxPC's results here fit right in with Virus Bulletin's. Like it or not all you Symantec haters, they actually do make a very effective tool and lately it has become a lot more system friendly making it a very good product except for what I noted above about full control over actions on all hits and false positves. Still on my personal systems that I have full control over I use ESET and the family currently gets NIS. Again speaking of VB, you'll notice that there are a lot of AV and suite venders that no longer want to take part in VB's testing. They like to paint it as if it's unfair or tainted but in reality their junk product just doesn't cut it so they don't want it scrutinized.
jihnn
May 21, 2009 at 6:37am
dude
way to long like maybe 2 people actually read your post
should be headed
TOTAL FANBOY I'M RIGHT YOUR WRONG
bty i went back to the current norton product and find it a compelling and user frindly product that i recomend
Jims45wow
March 31, 2009 at 8:29am
Let us textually stick our chins out that we may lash at one another. Parties separately feeling unreached and unreachable. Fallaciously minimized or superiorized as our delusions dictate. Keeping our teeth which grow in ways unseen by the biter.
Jim
Jim Lee
February 16, 2009 at 5:46pm
As far missing the right click to scan, you can always make a "short-cut" to NAVW32.exe and put it on your "Sendto Menu" for quick custom scans of individual files/folders.....works for me. And YES, I too wish I had more control over false-positives.
nekollx
February 02, 2009 at 10:51am
False Hits
At home Anvir flaged of all things City of Heroes once (thats MMO)
Nod32 flaged at work Combofix (from the malway search and destroy article here on maxPC)
another interesting not to those dinging Nod32 because only "NIS and Anivir let me disable scanning with a right click of the system trey"
Open Nod32
Click "enable advanced options"
Now right click your system tray, real time scaning disable and a host of other options become available.
YoPa
January 19, 2009 at 3:01pm
Normal
0Normal
0I am surprised given a known major incompatibility with Zone
Alarm Pro that Maximum PC wouldn't have mentioned this in their article.
With the only knock in the article review being some
features not working under Vista x64….
I feel Maximum PC dropped the ball on this one....
While Symantec should get some well deserved credit for the
NAV 09 product with its glorious new User Interface , resources management,
improved installation, configuration, and functionality the incompatibility
with Zone Alarm Pro really should have put the Kick A$$ award out of
reach.
Give it a 9, but leave the Award off..
Paul_Lilly
January 19, 2009 at 5:05pm
The paid programs in our roundup were all-in-one suites, the point of which is to not have to seek additional security software. Given that NIS 2009 falls under this category and includes a capable firewall and spyware protection, there's no reason to run Zone Alarm Pro, or any other similar program, at the same time.
If you already own and/or want to run Zone Alarm Pro for whatever reason, your better bet for AV software is to install Avira's free AntiVir.
piddler2
January 07, 2009 at 4:57pm
I was surprised and delighted to see the review about Norton. I had used NAV quite a ways back but it became a resource hog and I ditched it for a free AV (Avast). So, I spent the money and purchased NAV, since I really don't mind paying money for a valuable piece of software, like AV protection. Well, that speedy scan the first go round (in the mag) took over a couple of hours on my machine (which is moderately loaded since I just did a complete system reinstall recently). Then the problems started, screwy stuff that I couldn't figure out, like why my machine mysteriously restarted in the middle of the night, then I would lose internet connection and Firefox would mysteriously crash and burn. Hmm, wonder if it could be Norton? I opened the program and saw all types of blocks that it had applied without my knowing it. Unknown processes it had stopped, Spybot it had blocked from accessing the internet, and dozens of other unexplained blocks which could not be undone. So, I unloaded Norton and low-and-behold my machine is back to normal again. Hmm, so much for your review. Back to Avast, which I love. Yes, the first real-boot time scan is slow and the interface looks hokey, but other than that it just works well. But, hey you can opt out of the real-boot time scan and do a regular scan before you go to bed.
Christian Hart
January 06, 2009 at 7:41pm
Great article and useful comments, too. The comments led me to realize that I'd really not paid attention to the part on Norton. Like many of you, both Symantec products and technical support--should be called technical aggravation--left me repeatedly dissatisfied (to say the least).
But comments, and re-reading, caused me to question my bias about this new version. So, I downloaded it and tried to install--tried. Error message: Zone Alarm Pro is incompatible with NIS 2009. Well, OK, maybe NIS has it's own firewall. So, I then downloaded NAV 2009. Same error message.
And what is the solution offered (for both products) by the installer? Uninstall Zone Alarm Pro. I realize that installers don't have a sense of humor, so no joke. One might accept such arrogance from a company with a stellar track record. My experience with Symantec is anything but.
Still, maybe the message is simply terse, and I can reinstall Zone Alarm after installing NAV 2009? (I know, I'm hopelessly optimistic.) I waded through the chat support swamp but they confirmed that the products are incompatible. I can accept that *this* version is super new & improved. But in a battle for supremacy between two products, where one has a fairly solid history of reliability and the other has consistently elicited my contempt... You get my drift.
My conclusion: New product perhaps, but same old company.
Ironic punchline: the process of uninstalling current antivirus, attempting to install two products, and finally returning to baseline was all made much simpler by...Norton GoBack, a product that has served me flawlessly going all the way back to when WildFire first released it and is now slowly dying in the Symantec graveyard of purchased product lines.
dallas7
January 04, 2009 at 1:08pm
This review smacks of a transportation review that would go something like this: The fleet Ferd T-155 is the baddest, toughest most powerful pickup in the group. The Ditge's forty foot trailer allowed us to haul several cords of wood. The GMZ's leather seats and satellite radio kept us comfy and entertained. Three points for the Ferd, eight for the Ditge and a Kick Ass for the GMZ. While the free shuttle got us to the airport on time, it exposed us to food wrappers, sticky gum and smelly people. The $60,000 Licksus drove us in smooth comfort, luxurious appointments and... no riff raff!
All we gwet from this is a free single-task app won't do as well as an pricey full-blown suite. DUH.
Comparing the performance of packages with a "yes" under every feature (McAfee and Symantec) to AVG with three and those in between was absurd. BTW, did anyone notice that, according to that comparison chart, PC Tools does... nothing.
This article is a shining representation of what has become the dumbing down of Maximum PC, more in tune with the likes belonging in the publications catering to the computer illiterati. ("An AV app should...be able to do its job with minimal interaction from the end user, ...some level of customization." Oh yeah, that's why I buy MAXIMUM PC.) We geeks would need an analysis of stand alone apps and how well they protect and behave together. Say, Avira and Threatfire with Spyware Doctor and/or Comodo Firewall and BoClean?
Seems here that instead of a article on assembling a killer vehicle built on the best chassis with the most useful components, we get a review of assembly line cars and trucks picked from the catchiest commercials after a round of channel surfing from those expert at pushing a remote button.
Finally, I don't believe for a minute that PC Tools provided an AV-only app as their "the most robust" package. A simple visit to their Web site would reveal PC Tools Internet Security fits that bill (followed by Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus and the Email Guard and Behavior Guard add-ons). If indeed Maximum PC did receive only AntiVirus Free from them, it should have raised a red flag, the very least being some kind of miscommunication. I singled out PC Tools here as the most blatant misrepresentation in this review. Obviously, there were several others.
__________________________________________________
"Machines making machines! How perverse..." -3CPO
David44010
January 01, 2009 at 8:20pm
as previously stated, I've used norton products since the 3.1 days, but also as previously stated they lost their kinghood from around 2004 to the present, and in that vein, I would like to ask for a little suggestive help.
listed above in this artical are some choices for Antivirus protection, in the comments a suggestion or 2 for fire walls, which is also good.
what I would like now is either links to articals/reviews for firewalls, and utility suites, namely defrag and registry fixing utilities, things that work as well as the Norton Systemworks suites used to work, or maybe better?
have there been any suit reviews on MaxPC? if so what are the links please.
thanks, this is an awsome mag'
b00tpwnz4ll
January 01, 2009 at 7:32am
Ignorance is bliss I guess... lol... Anyways, I started using Eset NOD32 on my AMD Duron 850 back in the day and was shocked at how lightly it loaded even that system. Now I run Smart Security 3 on my Q6600 running Vista Ultimate and it's just as light and efficient. Plus I can keep idiots who use my machine out of social networking sites and whatever else. I'd not even know it was there were it not for my Raptor X 150, lol. Occasionally I do go to some fairly unscrupulous websites but I tend to do that in my Windows 7 Ultimate Beta partition running in Sun Microsystem's Virtualbox (Shameless plug).
Let's see... Other than that, please don't fool yourself into thinking your machine is virus free with nothing to detect anything. That's just folly. Take care everyone and happy new year!
supplystud
December 31, 2008 at 2:16pm
I was surprised to not see ZoneAlarm in this article. ZoneAlarm has consistently been listed as a top notch firewall, but Pro has a built in antivirus as well. I dumped Norton about three years ago and have been running ZoneAlarm only on five different machines. I was excited to see this article to get an opinion on the antivirus...but it was left out. I wonder if there is a reason for that?
Batman
December 31, 2008 at 12:29pm
Batman
I used to use Norton for the first half of this century (2000-2005) but it was getting to be a resource hog and slowing down my computer. Since I jumped on the Panda Antivirus wagon I haven't had a problem yet to date. At work the only thing they use is McAffee for the last 8 years and still going strong. My question is why wasn,t Panda included in this roundup of antivirus tests? I'm pretty sure it will hold up pretty good with the best of them.
David44010
December 30, 2008 at 9:38pm
I personally have been a Norton user for over 15 years, ever since windows 3.1, I have for the most part up untill the last couple of years been very happy with them, however over the last couple of years, as previously griped by others, it has become a resource hog with configuration issues, one of the biggest gripes I have had with Norton AV is the ability to tell it weither to ignore a file on the auto protect warning, it used to have an option that if a virus was found to ask the user what to do, but over the past couple of years that option for the auto protect feature was gone, and I lost several files that I knew were good and legit to the auto delete, has that option been returned?
I have been looking for alternitives to norton for sometime, the bad thing is you never know how good your av is untill you get nailed, and by that time it's to late, and by the same token you assume it's working if you get no flags.
McAfee has been a major gripe of mine for ages, I once had to un install it from a system for a client, it trashed the system to the point I had to completely redo the system, this was around 99 or 2k, seems the scanner created a kind of "gateway" to everything, in order to install or even run a program this gateway had to be there, even in safemode I was not able to even get into the registry to fix it, what a nightmare.
another popular program is bitdefender, it has been rated pretty good, but I didn't see it here either, although I tried it's online scanner a while back and thanks to a virtualization program survived that experiance, it deleted and lot of stuff with out even asking, and some of it was innocent stuff includeing 2 batch files froma batch file training program I had from DOS days, I had the distinction in my school of being the only guy to write a 4k byte batch file, and all it was was a self growing batch file used to demmonstrate what a worm would do.
anyway to make a long story short, I was very happy to have found this article, and am going to put some of it to good use.
is there a simular artical on firewalls and utility suites? not to happy with Norton speed disk any more, and the 2007 firewall wasn't to thrilling either.
any way keep up the good writing, and Happy New Year to all
nekollx
December 31, 2008 at 9:52am
go with Anvantir, i recently switched from AV 8 to Avantir because of this article.
The system impact is negligible, i do get nagged every so often on what to do with "keygen.exe" an i tell it to just ignore it. So it will flag virus files and not delete the mbut it won't ourright ignore them compeltly so your "psudo worms" woudl be fine.
Now before anyone asks i have keygen as sort of my lazyman backup. Sometimes i loose a keep for stuff i already own, or i typed into my paskword bank wrong. Rather then hunt around for the original i just fire up keygen to get my legally obtained softwhere to work without the hedach of looking for some stupid 16 caracter alpha numeric key.
chuckyBob
December 30, 2008 at 3:48pm
I noticed that "the lack of identity protection" was a negative comment about ESET's proggy, but was never mentioned in the discussion of McAfee and Norton products.
Just A question: what would an "identity protection" thingy be? And, how would it work?
--Chuck
BobK2007
December 30, 2008 at 9:18am
Just a dig here guys.....
I don't run any antivirus nor any antispywere....YET.....on my Linux box! Two years strong, no infections to report.
BUT on my Windows boxes I DO have protection and it pops up a warning now and then. AVG free on one box, Avast free on another box. Comodo firewall on both. I dumped ZoneAlarm ISS when my subscription ran out. Too many problems with runaway scans sucking 100% CPU time..
Funny story: I was surfing the inter-tubes one day and hit on a reputable site that had obviously been hijacked. A warning suddenly popped up on my screen saying a virus had been detected and AntiVirus 2008 was doing a scan for me. I knew this to be a known trojan but I let it play out. After 15-20 seconds another box popped up saying my "Microsoft was infected" and for $$$ I could download the program to fix it. Interesting event. At the time I was on my Linux box running PCLinuxOS2007 and my WindowsXP box was OFF. That's some strong scanner, it works on machines across the network that are not even running. Wow........ Closed the window, moved on to other things. No problems, no worries. Love my linux box!!!! I still use Windows....just not for mission-critical work.
roninnder
January 24, 2009 at 7:24am
So if you don't use a virus scanner how do you know that you don't have any viruses?
winmaster
December 28, 2008 at 6:48pm
I still use AVG 8. Yes, it is much more bloated than 7.5 was, but it offers good protection and is free. It also runs fine on my old Pentium III. I also use Zone Alarm Pro because I got a free one year license. Seriously, who wants to buy a piece of software to protect their PC, then buy it again next year because it "expired".
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The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Kaldor
December 26, 2008 at 8:28am
I dont need to spend $60 to get good AV. Use Avast, tweek it slightly, and be happy. Maybe the new Norton is better, but is it $60 a year per PC (I have 4) better? Doubt it.
SpaceyJacey
December 25, 2008 at 6:06pm
Dustn525 Doesn't Even Have an Antivirus Installed - and hasn't had an virus in 2 years. How do you know that you don't have a virus if you don't have an Antivirus program? Some viruses aren't obvious and your computer could be compromised and you wouldn't even know it.
Dustn525
December 25, 2008 at 3:44pm
...i don't even run antivirus software. I haven't gotten a virus in 2 years now, and the trojan I got back in '06 was from a piracy site that I was suspicious of in the first place. The best weapon against viruses is common geek sense. I pitty the common fool who responds to the "click here" pop-ups. Come on, think.
lwreynolds
December 25, 2008 at 9:05am
Why wasn't F-Secure reviewed? It is widely included with Charter Communications and I have seen it in past reviews.
jihnn
December 24, 2008 at 9:36am
i am currently using kaspersky, i got the 1 puter disk off amazon for hmmm seems like $25 after rebate
it stays in the background pretty much, no complaints here. hope its working lol
norton norton norton just scares me. it is probaly the program that has given me the most grief over the years. i have actually used lots of different flavors of it. always an adventure
one install somehow set a password (i didn't) pretty much mucked my puter up, then it wouldnt let me uninstall without the password WTF thank god for system restore (the box that lets you change password, as the csr was telling me wasn't there)
one year i was renewing my scription and was told i had to uninstall old and it wouldn't, had to use some registry cleanup tool
another time i bought the 3 puter disk, installed on my puter then when i went to install on 2nd it only had 4 months left, guess it was my fault cause i couldn't read print that small.
then there was the year that an install was only a few months old and it kept telling me it was expired and wouldn't update. dealing with norton csr's is a learning xp.... ha i said xp
i actually bought uninstall software at some point in time just so i could get norton out of my computer sometimes it worked sometimes not, i actually tryed a few diff ones
whats with all the garbage it leaves in your puter when you do get it to uninstall
i actually manually did updates every day it will let you do that or at least it did, hmmmm kap sometimes updates a couple times a day oh well
this is just a personal burn for me this may be true now or not been awhile since i have used norton, if you just have the basic av there was always a box in red saying that your puter was at risk, guess what follow the links it takes you to website selling the spy-malware software ( i use 4 diff vendors for spy-maleware just so i get diff data bases to protect myself) how many people fell for this offhanded advertising
the truth in the goop is i will never ever ever, did i mention never ever yet, use norton again i have been burned way to many times with bulky nasty bloated horrible norton software best thing about norton is it comes in a yellow box
maybe i'm still a nub all i know is i have spent way to many hours trying to somehow get norton to do what it should have right out of the box
Hg Dragon
December 23, 2008 at 2:35pm
Guys, I don't know where you got your copy of Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, but everywhere I've seen it at retail, the $80 version of the suite says quite boldly on the box "3 Users," not just the online version as your article suggests. You can always give any extra licenses to friends/family like I did. I have also installed it on my machines at home and I do not remember having to perform more than a single reboot. Now, I also went and downloaded the latest build available on their site (freely available without having to pay for it, create an account, or navigate through multiple links) before I installed. I ran the installer and applied my key and only had to reboot once.
Granted, some of the interface elements are a bit... "finicky." Adding in exceptions to the firewall and trusting applications can be a bit confusing. This is probably due to some translation issues as the product is originally Russian, but it is worlds better than previous versions (in the interests of disclosure, I administer our AV at my company and we are running Kaspersky.) The web monitoring performance is much improved over previous versions as well. The spam handling interface could use a bit of work, though as there are very few option other than "Delete." The "Spam/Not Spam" buttons are in the main Outlook/Outlook Express windows only.
They also release updates every hour, while most other vendors are every couple of hours/daily. I've seen them release updates to quash new threats much, much sooner than Norton or McAfee. Their CSR's are also some of the better ones I've dealt with for when I've had issues that I simply couldn't resolve on my own.
nekollx
December 23, 2008 at 2:59pm
that may be true but there are better AV suites avaible as the article clearly states
