App Review Comparative : F-Secure vs Bitdefender vs ESET vs Kaspersky

It is advised to take all reviews with a grain of salt. In extreme cases some reviews use dramatization for entertainment purposes.
Content created by
Shadowra

Shadowra

Level 36
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Malware Tester
Well-known
Sep 2, 2021
2,582
Hello and welcome to this comparison!
Following a big request, I decided to make this comparison.

Small precision: The antivirus have not been configured, only the detection of suspicious applications has been activated on Eset, because I had some. Otherwise the rest is by default, just to put them in a situation of a computer novice.
Then, there was NO pause! The URLs and packages are the same for the 4 antivirus programs tested and were tested in the same way.
And finally, the shooting took me 4 hours with 1 hour of editing. The antiviruses are already classified during the editing.



F-Secure : F-Secure is a very good antivirus and provides a decent protection.
Unfortunately, it is 4th because it let through the Magniber Ransomware which encrypted my test files and several files of the virtual machine.

Bitdefender: Bitdefender provides a more family friendly protection due to its numerous shields. However, I noticed a drop in web detection (its anti-malware shield was very solicitous) which lowers the score. Then, its BB is excellent, but reacts a little late on scripts. Finally, NPE detected a malware that Bitdefender recognizes, but failed to remove it. It is 3rd.

Eset: Less shield than the others, but very powerful, it's Eset!
Eset impressed me in this test, due to an excellent database, and has the luxury to catch up with all my scripts!
It is 2nd because Eset does not have pro-active shields, and let pass a fake crack file, which installed multitudes of files (which were blocked by Eset). You can see it during the analysis.

Kaspersky : Kaspersky becomes the number 1 of this comparison! It is ultra complete, has several shields and its Watcher system is powerful. Very efficient because it also erased the dropper of the fake crack and also several files during the execution of the pack!

@franz and @TedCruz request
 

franz

Level 9
Verified
Well-known
May 29, 2021
424
Hello and welcome to this comparison!
Following a big request, I decided to make this comparison.

Small precision: The antivirus have not been configured, only the detection of suspicious applications has been activated on Eset, because I had some. Otherwise the rest is by default, just to put them in a situation of a computer novice.
Then, there was NO pause! The URLs and packages are the same for the 4 antivirus programs tested and were tested in the same way.
And finally, the shooting took me 4 hours with 1 hour of editing. The antiviruses are already classified during the editing.



F-Secure : F-Secure is a very good antivirus and provides a decent protection.
Unfortunately, it is 4th because it let through the Magniber Ransomware which encrypted my test files and several files of the virtual machine.

Bitdefender: Bitdefender provides a more family friendly protection due to its numerous shields. However, I noticed a drop in web detection (its anti-malware shield was very solicitous) which lowers the score. Then, its BB is excellent, but reacts a little late on scripts. Finally, NPE detected a malware that Bitdefender recognizes, but failed to remove it. It is 3rd.

Eset: Less shield than the others, but very powerful, it's Eset!
Eset impressed me in this test, due to an excellent database, and has the luxury to catch up with all my scripts!
It is 2nd because Eset does not have pro-active shields, and let pass a fake crack file, which installed multitudes of files (which were blocked by Eset). You can see it during the analysis.

Kaspersky : Kaspersky becomes the number 1 of this comparison! It is ultra complete, has several shields and its Watcher system is powerful. Very efficient because it also erased the dropper of the fake crack and also several files during the execution of the pack!

@franz and @TedCruz request

Thanks again for a great job :)
 

franz

Level 9
Verified
Well-known
May 29, 2021
424
Hello and welcome to this comparison!
Following a big request, I decided to make this comparison.

Small precision: The antivirus have not been configured, only the detection of suspicious applications has been activated on Eset, because I had some. Otherwise the rest is by default, just to put them in a situation of a computer novice.
Then, there was NO pause! The URLs and packages are the same for the 4 antivirus programs tested and were tested in the same way.
And finally, the shooting took me 4 hours with 1 hour of editing. The antiviruses are already classified during the editing.



F-Secure : F-Secure is a very good antivirus and provides a decent protection.
Unfortunately, it is 4th because it let through the Magniber Ransomware which encrypted my test files and several files of the virtual machine.

Bitdefender: Bitdefender provides a more family friendly protection due to its numerous shields. However, I noticed a drop in web detection (its anti-malware shield was very solicitous) which lowers the score. Then, its BB is excellent, but reacts a little late on scripts. Finally, NPE detected a malware that Bitdefender recognizes, but failed to remove it. It is 3rd.

Eset: Less shield than the others, but very powerful, it's Eset!
Eset impressed me in this test, due to an excellent database, and has the luxury to catch up with all my scripts!
It is 2nd because Eset does not have pro-active shields, and let pass a fake crack file, which installed multitudes of files (which were blocked by Eset). You can see it during the analysis.

Kaspersky : Kaspersky becomes the number 1 of this comparison! It is ultra complete, has several shields and its Watcher system is powerful. Very efficient because it also erased the dropper of the fake crack and also several files during the execution of the pack!

@franz and @TedCruz request

Did you send the results of the test to f-secure for a statement? ;)
 

czesetfan

Level 4
Dec 3, 2021
182
Thank you for your work. I would like to ask. (y)
Did LiveGuard contribute in any way to the ESET Premium result? If I understand correctly, it only works when downloading a file via web browser, email and when opening compressed files from external USB storage.
 

simmerskool

Level 36
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 16, 2017
2,547
Thank you for your work. I would like to ask. (y)
Did LiveGuard contribute in any way to the ESET Premium result? If I understand correctly, it only works when downloading a file via web browser, email and when opening compressed files from external USB storage.
Big Thanks for this video, and also czesetfan question re ESET LiveGuard. two weeks ago, upgraded my ESET to ESS_Premium thinking it might plug a protection gap. Shadowra can give a little more info as to which proactive shields are lacking in ESET, and if you think LiveGuard does anything to fix that.
sidenote perhaps unique to me: the video is fuzzy on my end, recently switched to MS Edge wonder if that causing blurred resolution? Or perhaps a slowdown caused by an Edge extension, although not running many ext. (I guess I'll watch it again from another browser) And finally, my experience FWIW over the past several have used 3 of 4 tested (never installed F-Secure) is consistent with your summary.
 

Shadowra

Level 36
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Malware Tester
Well-known
Sep 2, 2021
2,582
Shadowra can give a little more info as to which proactive shields are lacking in ESET, and if you think LiveGuard does anything to fix that.
Of course :)

Eset has a hips and cloud (LiveGird and LiveGuard for reputation)
Except that by default, Eset's hips only protects its files.
I did a small test yesterday by modifying several downloaded malware, it took me 5min to infect the system. Eset blocked the connection to the C&C server (which was based in Romania) but could not get rid of the malware.
And this I notice often! Eset scans with AMSI when running JS malware and also scans the file structure code. Unless you offend the file by modifying it, it sees nothing.

C9957346-359F-4005-B82F-6632C4106945.png
 

Anthony Qian

Level 10
Verified
Well-known
Apr 17, 2021
453
Knowing the Avira engine cannot provide adequate protection against Magniber, I asked F-Secure to improve its DeepGuard function to block Magniber ransomware via the sample submission system several months ago; however, based on this video, they ignored my request.
 

simmerskool

Level 36
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 16, 2017
2,547
Of course :)

Eset has a hips and cloud (LiveGird and LiveGuard for reputation)
Except that by default, Eset's hips only protects its files.
I did a small test yesterday by modifying several downloaded malware, it took me 5min to infect the system. Eset blocked the connection to the C&C server (which was based in Romania) but could not get rid of the malware.
And this I notice often! Eset scans with AMSI when running JS malware and also scans the file structure code. Unless you offend the file by modifying it, it sees nothing.

Big thanks again for your detailed reply re ESET :D
 

TedCruz

Level 5
Aug 19, 2022
176
Hello and welcome to this comparison!
Following a big request, I decided to make this comparison.

Small precision: The antivirus have not been configured, only the detection of suspicious applications has been activated on Eset, because I had some. Otherwise the rest is by default, just to put them in a situation of a computer novice.
Then, there was NO pause! The URLs and packages are the same for the 4 antivirus programs tested and were tested in the same way.
And finally, the shooting took me 4 hours with 1 hour of editing. The antiviruses are already classified during the editing.



F-Secure : F-Secure is a very good antivirus and provides a decent protection.
Unfortunately, it is 4th because it let through the Magniber Ransomware which encrypted my test files and several files of the virtual machine.

Bitdefender: Bitdefender provides a more family friendly protection due to its numerous shields. However, I noticed a drop in web detection (its anti-malware shield was very solicitous) which lowers the score. Then, its BB is excellent, but reacts a little late on scripts. Finally, NPE detected a malware that Bitdefender recognizes, but failed to remove it. It is 3rd.

Eset: Less shield than the others, but very powerful, it's Eset!
Eset impressed me in this test, due to an excellent database, and has the luxury to catch up with all my scripts!
It is 2nd because Eset does not have pro-active shields, and let pass a fake crack file, which installed multitudes of files (which were blocked by Eset). You can see it during the analysis.

Kaspersky : Kaspersky becomes the number 1 of this comparison! It is ultra complete, has several shields and its Watcher system is powerful. Very efficient because it also erased the dropper of the fake crack and also several files during the execution of the pack!

@franz and @TedCruz request

Amazing Thank you. Now I will going to install them all on my Packard Bell 386SX

I would love to use Kaspersky but they are on my own personal embargo list do to the actions that are not their own. Secondly, last time I used it (2018) I found it heavy on my system.
 
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