Antivirus testing: F-Secure, Symantec... or Definitive AV Thread on Geekzone

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freitasm

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#73634 18-Dec-2010 08:42

I know this is a bit of a hot topic. I current use Microsoft Security Essentials, and am known to have used Avast sometime before.

But I do have a sweet spot for Symantec Norton. Perhaps because I used Norton AV 1.0, back when you had to send a floppy disc away to get new signatures sent to you by post (when not even a BBS update was available).

I know a lot of people scream "bloatware" and always blame Norton for anything, but this post on F-Secure' blog (Tonight We Dine in Hell) is quite interesting:

"We blocked 1946 of the tested files while Symantec blocked 1936. However, Symantec additionally prompted the user for his opinion on 19 files. They received half a point each for those.

Which means that the final score was:

F-Secure: 1946
Symantec: 1945.5

Now that's narrow. We won by half a sample."

The whole study is here.

So, could we make this the Definitive AV Thread on Geekzone?

1080p

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#418884 18-Dec-2010 18:50

http://www.eset.com/home/compare-eset-to-competition

/thread

Nokia2012

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#418903 18-Dec-2010 20:24

I use Zone Alarm Extreme Secuirty sutie 2010. I like the fact that is everything I need in one package also the advanced heuristics

Ragnor

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#419277 20-Dec-2010 01:10

Norton did get pretty bloated but they did a huge rewrite which turned things around imo.

I like that F-Secure have a sense of humour in that blog post but really MSE is "good enough" and at a price that can't be beat.

The AV vendors must be feeling pretty vapid about MSE imo.

virus.gr has links to other interesting comparisons
http://www.virus.gr/portal/en/content/test-other-parties

CYaBro

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#419297 20-Dec-2010 07:09

Norton may not be as bloated as it once was but it still misses Trojans too often.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

geekiegeek

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#419308 20-Dec-2010 08:58

I now use Microsoft Security Essentials. Its free and I personally think that all AV is pretty similar (as the initial post points out), so why pay $100 per year (or there abouts).

In a corporate setting I would use a paid product that has central management etc but for home use I'll stick with free.

oxnsox

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#419334 20-Dec-2010 10:34

OK soo I'm as off topic on this as everyone else but here's my farthings worth...

Security software seems almost tidal to me. At any given time there is always a preferred product... till competitors roll out updates and upgrades. Years ago I was a Nortons user, and yes it was bloaty but it saved my business PC with my accounts data at least once, so I'll admit to a soft spot too. More recently I've used ESET, but as subscriptions expire I've been changing to MS Security Essentials.

I figure if MS can't protect my pc from people hacking (essentially) their software then MS will quickly be on the slippery slope to oblivion.

And on that same basis, are any of the top commercial products really that bad???. Whatever you subscribe to today won't be the leading contender when you subscription comes up for renewal in a year or so.

Regs

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#419369 20-Dec-2010 12:04

blocking stuff is not the only measure of antivirus software... it must be able to block stuff *AND* continue to let you function.

Unfortunately, while many A/V products do a good job of blocking threats, they also do a good job of blocking productivity. In one case i saw an intranet hosted web application go from 2-3 seconds to open a page to well over 90 seconds after an A/V product was installed.

Without any reports showing the impact of each A/V product on page-loads, or file-read/writes, i think this report is seriously flawed for use in evaluating a product to use.

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