ESET NOD32 Antivirus 7 Review (Level 5- Very Good)

[Chromatinfish 123]

Sometimes Antivirus Products change their interface. ESET never did. You can barely see the difference between NOD32 5 to 6 to 7 if you can't see the large number above (removed in new version). It's surprisingly light for its strong real-time protection.
User Interface (5 points)
ESET is the only product I've ever seen with the retro-non metro interface other than Avira and Qihoo 360. Metro is colourful and but it is very clumsy as you can't easily switch between windows. However, I deduct a point for the very confusing Advanced Setup that's also very hard to get. You need to press the F5 key to get to it. Seriously? What's ESET thinking? Otherwise, it is great! UI: 4 out of 5 points
Malware Prevention (10 points)
It's the most important part of an antivirus. Prevention is already included in Brain Security 2014 but is a reminder. ESET is rated highly by all labs and review sites, and it seems that MT reviews highly favor ESET as well. However, the lack of a Behavior Blocker is very bad (-1 Points). ESET also has a highly annoying HIPS system that either doesn't protect at all or bombards everybody with popups (-2 Points). Even worse, the HIPS displays a notification for every action the program does, not just the program itself. You can get over 1,000 rules probably (-1 point). Malware Prevention: 6 out of 10 points
Malware Detection (8 points)
Malware Detection is very useful in searching malware in places. ESET performs excellent in testing labs; AV-Comparatives gives it an ADVANCED+ rating for all aspects and AV-Test gives it ratings around 4.5 out of 6. PC Mag also gives it a good review and detection. Malware Detection: 8 out of 8 points
Performance (8 points)
ESET is known for its great performance. AV-Comparatives rates it low for performance and AV-Test too (-1 point) but I'm emphasizing on my own experience on performance & UI, and relying more on independent lab tests for things impossible for me to do myself, such as Virus Detection & Prevention. It is very good in my own experience, it didn't affect startup time at all and you can't tell it's there! Performance: 7 out of 8 points

Overall, ESET is a good antivirus and very good!
Total Points Possible: 31 points
Points Earned: 25 points
Levels:
Dismal: 0-6 points
Poor: 7-10 points
Fair: 11-16 points
Good: 17-22 points
Very Good: 23-27 points
Chromatinfish's Choice: 28-31 points

 

[Arakasi]

Hey chromatin, your 3 hour scan will decrease significantly the next time around thanks to hashing, and digital signatures, built into smart scan.
You have to use smart scan every time though, then it will only scan modified files, and skip the rest.

Nice write up !

 

[sid_16]

Very good review and I like most of the points in favor and against of eset 'cos I'm an user of eset smart security since 1and1/2 years. It was incompatible with malwarebyte older version and its advance settings are not for general public with little knowledge about firewall and hips. Here what I mean to say is, to use eset in a home computer or laptop one need not be an experts in a security stuff and its settings (I'm talking about the average users). I myself has faced some problems when I changed the setting in hips and firewall after seeing the tutorials from this site written by Mr Umbra and uninstall eset and reinstall it and kept all the settings to its default state since then I've no problem.

 

[Chromatinfish 123]

Updated with new rating system and publish Kaspersky Review.