Trying a new security suite

[EvaUnit02]

I've been playing with trials of different security suites. Surprisingly there's very few companies who fully support 64-bit Windows, this is frankly extremely lazy since Vista x64 is widely used and even more people are bound to adopt W7 x64. Big players like Kapersky for example - their suite only has partial support for x64 Windows.

I've found that I really like ESET Smart Security (from the makers of NOD32), it's fast, eats little resources (small memory footprint), bloat free and the GUI is very simple to use. It accomodates everyone from Joe Average to power users like myself. A one year license is reasonably priced ($93 NZD), so I'm strongly considering the purchase once the trial period is over. It's a lot better than what I was using before - Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition client install + Windows Firewall.

[gasteropod]

I've been using the new Microsoft Security Essentials program recently, it seems pretty good. It's lightweight, the quick scan is quick, and there seem to be definition updates on a daily basis. Obviously professional testing is required to see how much it catches etc.

[bradavon]

Personally I'd not trust MS for Anti-Malware. Their OneCare Live was a joke and MS Security Essentials is very basic. Offering the most basic protection possible (along with their in-built Firewall). If I wanted to go the free route I'd pick AVG Free any day. Fair dues MSE is light-weight though.

Big players like Kapersky for example - their suite only has partial support for x64 Windows.

That is indeed annoying. I use Kaspersky Internet Security 2010. I'm surprised you like Suites.

How come you no longer run Symantec Anti-Virus? Surely it has x64 support.

A one year license is reasonably priced ($93 NZD)

WOW! That's expensive by UK prices. Sure if you pop into a high street store you'll be paying that but I pay £16-20 a year (usually £18) for KIS. I buy it from Amazon.co.uk or Aria.co.uk. Who sell me an OEM copy, which works just fine.

For that price I don't see the point getting a cut down Security Suite and don't fool yourself, all the free ones are cut down, to a lesser or greater degree.

Eset Smart Security is excellent. I'm not a big fan of the basic interface but I could live with it, you rarely have to see it. I considered it at the time but went with KIS as:

A. Eset only had NOD32 at the time and I like Suites.
B. I love Kaspersky's "only scan new or changed files" approach. This reduces my scans from 2-3Hrs on first full scan, to 20-30Mins. Why this isn't standard I do not know.

I recently looked into Eset Smart Security and it is more expensive than Kaspersky Internet Security. The cheapest I can find via Google Shopping is £35. Some sights list it at £20 but it's unclear if it's an old version or not.

Eset Smart Secuity would be my second choice though and likely first choice if I was running x64. I equally like the "let the software decide and bug me with as few prompts as possible" approach. Which KIS in v2009 and the latest v2010 now does (it uses a third party company for it's good/bad app database). You can set it to Interactive Mode if you wish.

Does Eset Smart Secuity take this approach? I hate Security software that constantly asks me questions.

p.s - There's debate whether it's necessary with a router but I also prefer having an outgoing firewall too.

[EvaUnit02]

How come you no longer run Symantec Anti-Virus? Surely it has x64 support.

It does fully support x64, but I'm slowly going legit with all of my applications. Eg I bought a license for mIRC, an app which I've used for several years. (I don't use it to chat, just leech files like anime fansubs.) The fact that mIRC is cheap ($20 USD with a coupon that I found online) and entitles me to lifetime updates made the decision easy.

Plus at the end of the day SAV is just a less bloated, frill-less version of Norton AV. NAV usually does poorly on those Virus Bulletin comprehensive tests and the like from independent research firms.

Also I never felt comfortable having to use Windows Firewall. As you said, MS aren't the best when it comes to security solutions.

WOW! That's expensive by UK prices. Sure if you pop into a high street store you'll be paying that but I pay £16-20 a year (usually £18) for KIS. I buy it from Amazon.co.uk or Aria.co.uk. Who sell me an OEM copy, which works just fine.

Yes, I'm fully aware that ESET aren't the most competitive when it comes to pricing. They should sort their act out. I can't seem to find any NZ stores that sell ESET Smart Security nor NOD32, so I'd have to buy a license directly from the New Zealand supplier.

If you could find a UK outlet that could get me a copy of ESS 4.0 for a reduced priced we could work out some deal and I'd pay the transaction via Paypal. If the total cost is more than $93 NZD then forget about it though.

Does Eset Smart Secuity take this approach? I hate Security software that constantly asks me questions.

It does indeed. It has a very good Automatic mode that I haven't had to mess with once. None of my programs that access the net have been hindered thus far. The Interactive mode is very good as well, but I got sick of the nagging.

Hence why I said "It accomodates everyone from Joe Average to power users like myself." in my original post.

B. I love Kaspersky's "only scan new or changed files" approach. This reduces my scans from 2-3Hrs on first full scan, to 20-30Mins. Why this isn't standard I do not know.

ESS has a "smart scan" option that offers this.

Personally I'm a fan of comprehensive, deep scans that I leave I running overnight every other week.

[bradavon]

Plus at the end of the day SAV is just a less bloated, frill-less version of Norton AV. NAV usually does poorly on those Virus Bulletin comprehensive tests and the like from independent research firms.

I thought NAV always did very well.

ESS has a "smart scan" option that offers this.

Great, thanks.

Personally I'm a fan of comprehensive, deep scans that I leave I running overnight every other week.

Me too.

Don't get me wrong I set the Full Scan to scan "the lot" but there's little point scanning a file that hasn't change since the last time it was scanned.

I set mine to run once a week at 4am so time isn't so much of an issue but A: The rest of my family don't ever leave their PC on overnight so it needs to run whilst they're using the PC (for them I set it once a month, which in honesty is enough). A scan running in the background for 20 minutes is no problem but 2-3Hrs it would quickly get annoying. And B: Not re-scanning an identical file must surely help general real-time performance.

KIS2009 (the best version they're released so far) and lower the "smart scan" worked a treat but they've managed to break it for some people in KIS2010. I'm hoping when I re-format and install Windows 7 it will start working again (it doesn't effect everyone) but at the moment with my Vista install the "smart scan" has no effect on full scans. They always now take 2-3Hrs, which I can live with as like I said I run it at 4am but give how well KIS2009 is running for the rest of my family I've not upgraded them to KIS2010 just yet, as this is a crucial feature.

[bradavon]

Plus at the end of the day SAV is just a less bloated, frill-less version of Norton AV. NAV usually does poorly on those Virus Bulletin comprehensive tests and the like from independent research firms.

I thought NAV always did very well.

It does indeed. It has a very good Automatic mode that I haven't had to mess with once. None of my programs that access the net have been hindered thus far. The Interactive mode is very good as well, but I got sick of the nagging.

Great, thanks.

That is absolutely crucial. I used to put up with all the nagging questions but boy it gets boring quickly. I don't mind the odd one but all the time! KIS in Auto mode just "notifies" you of some things and only occasionally asks you to make a decision *. You can completely control what you get notified of.

* Oddly MPC-HC for example it thinks is dangerous and the default "higher level" just causes it to break up playing DVDs and some videos, setting it to the next level down "restricted" and it works fine. That's about the only time I've been asked to make a decision though. The Auto mode was brought in with KIS2009.

ESS has a "smart scan" option that offers this.

Great, thanks.

Personally I'm a fan of comprehensive, deep scans that I leave I running overnight every other week.

Me too.

Don't get me wrong I set the Full Scan to scan "the lot" but there's little point scanning a file that hasn't change since the last time it was scanned.

I set mine to run once a week at 4am so time isn't so much of an issue but A: The rest of my family don't ever leave their PC on overnight so it needs to run whilst they're using the PC (for them I set it once a month, which in honesty is enough). A scan running in the background for 20 minutes is no problem but 2-3Hrs it would quickly get annoying. And B: Not re-scanning an identical file must surely help general real-time system performance.

KIS2009 (the best version they're released so far) and lower the "smart scan" worked a treat but they've managed to break it for some people in KIS2010. I'm hoping when I re-format and install Windows 7 it will start working again (it doesn't effect everyone) but at the moment with my Vista install the "smart scan" has no effect on full scans. They always now take 2-3Hrs, which I can live with as like I said I run it at 4am but give how well KIS2009 is running for the rest of my family I've not upgraded them to KIS2010 yet, as this is a crucial feature.

For all I know it may work fine on their PCs but like I said I don't want to spent 30-45 minutes (and it always takes this long, once the suite's been re-configured from defaults too) to find out it's broken on theirs too. Not at least until I know it works for me on my Windows 7 install.

[bradavon]

Does ESET Smart Security have a simple way to disable it entirely?

This can be done in Kaspersky's software (right click tray icon and choose Disable) but is so difficult in AVG and requires multiple clicks in Norton's software. It's such a crucial feature, it's so annoying it doesn't come as standard.

[EvaUnit02]

I've decided to buy a 2-year license for Eset SS sometime today. I'm utterly satisfied after using a trial license for a few weeks.

Does ESET Smart Security have a simple way to disable it entirely?

This can be done in Kaspersky's software (right click tray icon and choose Disable).

Yes Right-click tray icon, disable.

[bradavon]

Thanks. It's annoying it takes 3 clicks to Disable Eset completely but it's okay.

I wonder if UAC is activated when run on Windows 7, using default settings. I hope not, as that would make it annoying. I can see on Vista it would be. I'll be installing it this w/e. I only see a UAC prompt when running Command Prompt "as Admin" and Regedit on a regular basis. So it's much, much better.

I still have a couple of years on my KIS license. What's the average memory footprint on your PC?

[EvaUnit02]

The kiwi Eset distributor's deals were really shitty. $93 NZD for a 1-user, 1-year subscription or ~$145 NZD for 1-user 2-year sub.

I used the FoxyProxy extension + a US proxy to get a 3-user 2-year sub for ~$138 NZD. I used a 25% coupon from here. I used a Delaware address, since they don't have sales tax.

What's the average memory footprint on your PC?

Keep in mind that I have Superfetch enabled and that Vista's handling of the memory stack is less efficient than W7's.



I have 4GB DDR2-1066MHz, which is the fastest DDR2 RAM that you can get, AFAIK.

[bradavon]

The kiwi Eset distributor's deals were really shitty.

They're pretty poor in the UK too. Kaspersky Internet Security retail/direct is expensive but through Amazon and the like it's reasonable. I'll definitely give it some thought. Especially if I end up running W7 x64 and/or I cannot get "Scan new or changed files only" working again. It's been broken ever since I upgraded to the KIS v2010. I'm hoping it will work again when I install Windows 7, as in a fresh install.

I used the FoxyProxy extension + a US proxy to get a 3-user 2-year sub for ~$138 NZD.

What's Foxy Proxy? I Google it but don't understand what it is.

I used a Delaware address, since they don't have sales tax.

A Delaware address?

Keep in mind that I have Superfetch enabled and that Vista's handling of the memory stack is less efficient than W7's.

Thanks but I meant more what's its average memory footprint, as in the EXE in the Process tab?

You run Vista with Aero disabled? I don't find it has a noticeable effect on performance and the Live Thumbnail previews are handy. In Windows 7 Aero becomes even more crucial.

[EvaUnit02]

What's Foxy Proxy? I Google it but don't understand what it is.

A Firefox extension that let's you tunnel through the web with proxy servers, eg ones located in foreign countries. It let's you access regionally restricted content, like TV programming on Hulu.com.

A Delaware address?

Yes, the Eset E-store was regionally restricted to North America. So I gained access to the site via a US proxy and when I bought the SS4.0 license I gave a Delaware address, (which is a US state that has no sales tax).

Thanks but I meant more what's its average memory footprint, as in the EXE in the Process tab?

Oh right. Egui.exe takes up about ~3,700KB.

You run Vista with Aero disabled?

Yes, because I don't care about transparencies and hate shitty woosh animations that slow down me accessing every bloody menu and dropbox.

[bradavon]

A Firefox extension that let's you tunnel through the web with proxy servers, eg ones located in foreign countries. It let's you access regionally restricted content, like TV programming on Hulu.com.

Impressive. I'll look into it.

Yes, the Eset E-store was regionally restricted to North America. So I gained access to the site via a US proxy and when I bought the SS4.0 license I gave a Delaware address, (which is a US state that has no sales tax).

I'm surprised they don't check. What address invoice I take it?

Oh right. Egui.exe takes up about ~3,700KB.

Crikey that's very good. How high on average when running a full scan?

AVP.EXE (i.e - Kaspersky) is about 15-18Mb. There are two AVP.EXE processes that run. Which is miles better than AVG and Norton, which load an obscene amount of processes into memory.

Yes, because I don't care about transparencies and hate shitty woosh animations that slow down me accessing every bloody menu and dropbox.

It gives more than that though. The live thumbnail Alt-Tab switching (so much better than the 9x-XP style Alt-Tab window), the live thumbnails in the task bar. Turning Aero off just gives an 2000-XP style list of open Apps when "group similar taskbar buttons" kicks in (e.g - multiple documents open). Which isn't anywhere near as useful. In Windows 7 it's taken even further:

1. IE's Live Thumbnail Tabs. I read Chrome now supports this, likely Firefox too soon.
2. Aero Peak
3. Aero Snap - This one is particularly useful
4. Aero Shake - Pretty useless IMO

I'm sure there are others too.

You can leave Aero one and turn off the "shitty woosh animations" but obviously not the transparency. At least you've not gone back to the 9x style theme and Start Menu. Some do on Vista and lose even more functionality, such as Instant Search. Thankfully the 9x Start Menu is thankfully gone in Windows 7.

[EvaUnit02]

Crikey that's very good. How high on average when running a full scan?

I don't know. But I did run one this morning and was able to continue web browsing and having Winamp playing with no noticeable slowdown. Keep in mind that I have fast 4GB RAM and Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz Wolfdale at my disposal though.

Obviously I wouldn't run a virus scan whilst doing something resource intensive like playing a game or burning writeable media.

[bradavon]

Thanks. Mine runs once a week at 3am. It could be my PC but it's hard to use whilst it's running.

[Lourdes]

I've been running ESET for years now, I've entertained others in this period but ESET is by the far the nicest to use and works very well. Good detection rates, very light on resources, highly configurable and as intrusive as you want it to be.
Also very cheap for student licenses, I paid £35 for 3 PC's for 2 years and you can get bigger/longer packages for less still.

Under Windows 7 I would be perfectly happy to use its firewall + Microsoft Security Essentials as it's good and light but for one reason, application control. You can't limit which programs have internet access with the Windows firewall and I want that. Well, I think you can basically block everything and then go through all sorts of effort to manually add applications but what a nightmare, especially for installers that download required files and the like. With ESET I get the popups and can get it to temporarily remember them as allowed.

[bradavon]

Also very cheap for student licenses, I paid £35 for 3 PC's for 2 years and you can get bigger/longer packages for less still.

Where from? I guess the same place has no non-student decent prices too?

Under Windows 7 I would be perfectly happy to use its firewall + Microsoft Security Essentials as it's good and light

Personally I don't yet have faith in Microsoft for Anti-Malware. MSE isn't as comprehensive as the likes of Kaspersky and ESET too.

Well, I think you can basically block everything and then go through all sorts of effort to manually add applications but what a nightmare

That's how I understand it works. The incoming Firewall is fine but the Outgoing one is way too complicated.

[Lourdes]

http://www.advantage-computers.co.uk - probably the same prices for regular licenses but you can always PM me.

MSE is as good as other programs, in fact it's better than most. Others just let you configure more which tbh isn't needed and is often counter-productive. besides there's UAC anyway.

[bradavon]

http://www.advantage-computers.co.uk - probably the same prices for regular licenses but you can always PM me.

Thanks. I still have 2 years left on Kaspersky at the moment though, it's a good Security solution. Those Student prices should be the standard prices, grr!

MSE is as good as other programs, in fact it's better than most. Others just let you configure more which tbh isn't needed and is often counter-productive. besides there's UAC anyway.

Good point about UAC but there's no harm about having that extra level. I see you're one of the few people who actually know what UAC does.

You've got a point. Kaspersky has started to become a "little" bloated in the last couple of versions. Adding silly things like cookie removal. Which really has no place to be in it.

[bradavon]

Regarding Kaspersky Internet Security 2009/2010 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009/2010:

No, i'm afraid the first response is incorrect....................2010 (& 2009 too) are 64bit ready, the drivers are 64bit = what is important. What you're seeing in task manager is just the GUI part and that 32bit because it makes little sense development wise to make that 64bit

A 32 bit driver will not work under a 64 bit version of windows (can be done in Vista if driver is signed - but not recommended and not possible in windows 7), hence the drivers Kaspersky uses must be 64 bit under 64 bit windows (installers should be tweaked too!).

the drivers are 64 bit. the processes are 32 bit. there's no actual reason to make the executables 64 bit, there wouldn't be any significant gain by doing this.

the default installer has the 64-bit version in it. the only difference between the two are the 64-bit kernel and driver files which are installed on your system automatically when the installer detects the OS.

Source: http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=143227

[bradavon]

It does indeed. It has a very good Automatic mode that I haven't had to mess with once. None of my programs that access the net have been hindered thus far. The Interactive mode is very good as well, but I got sick of the nagging.

Can you please clarify this Eva?

Looking at the PCMAG review it looks like there is no Kaspersky IS type Auto-Mode, which means you virtually never get a prompt and have to choose Allow/Block. This is fine for you or I but a newbie simply hasn't got a clue (and never will). Here is the section of the review, for ESET Smart Security 4.0 -

"ESET takes a different approach—and it's one that doesn't impress me. In its default configuration, ESET's firewall avoids program control pop-ups by leaving program control completely disabled. It blocks incoming network packets that weren't requested by the system but does nothing about controlling which programs can make outgoing connections. Users accustomed to other personal firewalls may not understand that this part of ESET's firewall is turned off by default.

If you want actual program control you'll have to switch to one of the firewall's other filtering modes. Interactive mode is traditional query-based program control. There's no automatic processing of known good programs in this mode, so the pop-ups will come thick and fast. Learning mode, new in this version, assumes that all programs on your system are legitimate, so whenever it detects a program attempting access it creates a rule to always allow it. Policy mode applies the rules generated by these other two, blocking all programs unless a rule exists to allow them access.

I much prefer the modern approach taken by Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, Norton Internet Security 2009, and Panda Global Protection 2009. These programs put the security software, not the user, in charge of deciding which programs get access. Forcing the user to first realize that his program control is disabled and then to figure out how to turn it on is an exceptionally poor choice in a security suite designed to protect the average user."

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343639,00.asp

* Interactive Mode: Definitely has a place but frankly it's too complicated for the average user. During install Kaspersky 2009/2010 asks if you want Interactive or Auto mode. Older versions only had Interactive (or Off/Only Incoming etc...)
* Learning Mode: Sounds dangerous. How is "allow all", learning anything?
* Policy Mode: Will result in software falling over, it looks to just block everything, unless there happens to be a rule already in place.

In other words, Interactive is the only useful one and that results in prompts galore. Incidentally Kaspersky (older than v2009) used to take the same approach as ESET and disable part of the Firewall to reduce prompts, not exactly a reassuring approach in my opinion.

[bradavon]

I've been using Kaspersky Internet Security for the past 5-6 years, v2009 added a good/bad app database (i.e - program control) so KIS knew exactly what to block and not. No longer did I endlessly have to click Allow or Deny. Norton Internet Security takes the same approach (about it's only good thing). v2010 was okay but v2011 has become so bloated. The install EXE has doubled in size to 110Mb and it has loads of features I simply don't need:

* Anti-Spam (if I ever got too much spam I'd just change my e-mail address)
* Parental Controls
* Virtual keyboard (good idea too impracticable)
* Anti-phising (browsers do this perfectly fine on their own)
* Anti-Banner (Adblock Plus is significantly better)
* Identity Protection (I don't like the idea of storing my credit card details permanently on my PC)

It does have Sandboxing, which Avast Free now has and I hope Eset add.

It was pissing me off so much, with the process EXE growing from 25Mb to 500Mb and seemingly not stopping. I tried everything, including support who as expected were a bunch of morons. They just kept repeating it's normal for KIS to use that much memory. NO IT'S NOT! v2010 never grow above 70Mb (except when scanning). The very good tech guys on the forum ran out of ideas, so sadly it had to go.

I found out for myself the Heuristic module was causing it to balloon in size but not why and you don't really want to leave this disabled permanently.

I tried Panda Internet Security (what a POS! Free security software has more features) and now am on Eset Smart Security 4.

I'll get the negative out of the way first. It has no good/bad app database so whilst incoming traffic is scanned properly, all outgoing traffic in auto mode (no prompts!) is simply allowed. In other words, if Malware manages to get in, Eset SS won't stop it getting out again. This might sound alarming but I've read lots of Anti-Malware reviews lately and it seems to be the common way of limiting prompts. There is an Interactive Mode which stops outgoing traffic but I'd literally rather just use Windows Firewall than ever have to go back to the endless prompts again.

So in other words, KIS offers better security in one respect but where Eset SS shines is in it's memory management and simplicity. It only has three components:

1. Anti-Malware: Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware
2. Firewall
3. Anti-Spam: which I disable

That's all you really need but I much prefer it in one product than multiple ones. Eset also market both NOD32 (Anti-Malware only) and Eset SS has being low on memory.

Next to "does it work?", this is the most important thing to end-users so it's always surprising, it's the last thing security vendors bother to think about. You just know Eset SS suddenly isn't going to be bloated when it's a selling point.

It works too. Eset SS never rises above 60Mb and remarkably doesn't even increase when running a Full Computer scan. I've literally never seen this before. It normally always takes more memory to run a Full Scan.

So all in all, very impressed. I'm currently on a 30 day trial but shall be buying it for sure. The best I've found is £16.57 a year from Amazon. Personally I'm happy to pay up to £20 a year for decent security software. As good as Avast Free is, it's no match for paid software.

I've been playing with trials of different security suites. Surprisingly there's very few companies who fully support 64-bit Windows, this is frankly extremely lazy since Vista x64 is widely used and even more people are bound to adopt W7 x64. Big players like Kapersky for example - their suite only has partial support for x64 Windows.

The KIS engine is 64-bit, the UI is 32-bit. There's no need for it to be 64-bit.

The Eset Smart Security 4 64-bit version isn't truly 64-bit. The engine is still 32-bit but oddly the UI is 64-bit. Check it out in Task Manager.

[bradavon]

It looks like Eset Smart Security 5 is coming:

http://www.eset.eu/press-2011/eset-at-cebit

[EvaUnit02]

I've had the release candidate of ESET 5 installed for a few days now. I'm very pleased with the new features and improvements.
http://www.eset.com/beta/smart-security-5-beta/

[bradavon]

Cool. Thanks. I'm surprised you've bothered with beta software.

Any idea when it's coming? I don't mind beta per se (e.g - Skype 5.5 beta) but am reluctant to install beta security software. Four of the known bugs are Windows 2000 related:

http://www.eset.com/beta/smart-security ... wn-issues/

I wonder why they still bother to support it, even though Windows 2000 Server is still used (as crazy as this sounds). The new UI looks nice.