Battle Best Indian antivirus company

SeriousHoax

Level 47
Well-known
Mar 16, 2019
3,630
Quick Heal: Used to have BD signatures but now it doesn't. Only uses its own signature which is trash so Quick Heal is a no. But it has a pretty good behavior blocker.

eScan: Usee BD engine and from what I heard is quite heavy too. harlan4096 tested it in the hub. He would know more about it.

K7: It seems it has pretty good signatures, a decent behavior blocker and web protection module. It does very well in AV-Comparatives's tests and also according to them one of the lightest AV.

Out of these three K7 is probably the best. But I would like to hear Der.Reisende's opinion as he used Quick Heal and currently using and testing K7.
 

TairikuOkami

Level 35
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May 13, 2017
2,452
Why are we all responding to an soon a year post?
Good point. Anyway I am glad, upon checking, I have found that MWAV cleans for free again, so I might recommend it again.
There are only a handful of real portable malware cleanup utilities, most keep lingering around afterwards, like zemana, eset, etc.
 

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Der.Reisende

Level 45
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Malware Hunter
Dec 27, 2014
3,423
Quick Heal: Used to have BD signatures but now it doesn't. Only uses its own signature which is trash so Quick Heal is a no. But it has a pretty good behavior blocker.

eScan: Usee BD engine and from what I heard is quite heavy too. harlan4096 tested it in the hub. He would know more about it.

K7: It seems it has pretty good signatures, a decent behavior blocker and web protection module. It does very well in AV-Comparatives's tests and also according to them one of the lightest AV.

Out of these three K7 is probably the best. But I would like to hear Der.Reisende's opinion as he used Quick Heal and currently using and testing K7.
eScan:
I cannot tell much about, had it only for a few days, it seems to be not compatible with ShadowDefender (at least on my machine, it was kinda unstable). However, it seems to use both Bitdefender signatures and Bitdefender Behavior Blocker.
It's GUI is very outdated, the signature updates take long (big size?).
I think @harlan4096 tested it recently, he might give more insight.

Quick Heal:
For Europe, i find it overpriced (74$ for 1y/1PC on their website, I did not find it cheaper on eBay - beware of the Multi-Device-one for 75$ - it was the old v17 version when I tried it - they improved the product a lot with v18).
As for signatures, 1 update a day, without any third party engine is too less.
At least the Behaviour Blocker is very sensitive, it will block most threats.
Which makes me worry that malware which is not detected by BB will stay in memory for days, before signatures might catch up.
As for system impact, GUI, the product clearly shines.
Also I like the support a lot, they also did listen for behaviour blocker bypass reports.


K7:
I think it was v15 i tested last year a few days in the HUB / personally without posting results. It was much weaker than Quick Heal back then.
However, I have the impression that v16 which was released somewhen Q3/2019 (?) has improved the Behaviour Blocker a lot, and they keep improving it, as you can notice by a change in the version number after small and fast updates (sometimes reboot is needed, I think this is related to Anti-Ransomware module, at least I noticed it after I reported ransomware bypasses via ticket to K7, and they responded with a new version days after).

Judging from my HUB experience and personal tests (I am very busy ATM, cannot provide tests on my own, but do personally test the stuff provided in the HUB), I have the feeling K7 BB and HIPS have improved a lot.

Still, Ransomware is a big problem, out of 10 ransomwares, 2-3 will not be detected by Behaviour Blocker / Anti-Ransomware Standalone Module.
They have introduced "Data Locker" in v16 which will prevent services not being whitelisted from writing to specific folders (by default pictures and documents, custom settings anytime), but I have also seen this getting bypassed in very rare cases.

However, the signatures of K7 are not that bad.
For sure, they cannot stand up to ESET and Kaspersky, but I believe they are faster than like Bitdefender.

Because of the great support (they do care if you tell them that for example Ransomware bypassed the protection, they might first release signatures, but also did release new versions after days in many cases), the price (I picked my license from eBay (as the shop of K7 was broken by that time and my trial expired - they also offer a 1y/1 PC sub for 39,99$, more devices / years discounted), the very low system impact, the great GUI, super-fast signature updates (seconds if daily, minutes if not updated for days) and K7 Total Security being non-intrusive but still protecting well with some care and a browser extension like Bitdefender Traffic Light, I would clearly pick this. I still use it and don't feel like changing it anytime soon.
 

XLR8R

Level 4
Jan 20, 2020
164
eScan: BD signatures and BB not bad but erratic results sometimes missing malware... GUI very slow inside VM and very old fashioned...

Hello

I saw your post on this forum regarding eScan. Your post said eScan ISS 11, but the current/best version is eScan 14.

To my knowledge the BB in eScan 11 is very weak in comparison to eScan 14. eScan 11 is sold as a legacy product to work on old computers and is not really maintained/upgraded by the developer anymore.

The video is no longer uploaded so I can't check which version was actually used....
 

XLR8R

Level 4
Jan 20, 2020
164
India has a few antivirus products:

Protegent
Max Secure
REVE
Guardian NetSecure (basically, a cheap low end rebrand of QuickHeal, can be a LOT cheaper sometimes)
Quick Heal
eScan
NetProtector (NPAV)
K7
PC Doctor

Out of these, the only ones that are even half decent are K7, QuickHeal and eScan. Quick Heal is the best funded, having most resources (Sequoia Capital) but ironically is worse off than K7 or eScan.

Quick Heal:

Mediocre protection, average or below average signatures (since they removed BD engine). BB is kinda okay I guess.

eScan:

Probably the best Indian developed product right now, the company has a lot of customers abroad, especially in Middle East and South Asia. Also has bagged a few enterprise deals in India on a large scale. Barebones product in design, but protection wise is good (and always has been, from my memory).

Some good things about eScan is that the product tends to also automatically download security patches for Windows, and apart from BD signatures the BB is not bad at all (from what I understand eScan uses both the BitDefender developed BB as well as it's own BB, as well as giving whitelists and algorithms to both BB on their own through regular updates). eScan users were mostly well-protected from the mass ransomware outbreaks of Locky and Petya etc. Web filtering works with any application accessing the web, is not browser dependent. But malicious site blacklist is quite mediocre and not on par with any of the big name competitors (probably, if they improve this aspect, they'll start doing better in AV-Test).

On the flip side, they've been on that old UI since forever (2014-present) and they release "New Edition" of their product periodically, and you can't get that update automatically, you have to download the new build unlike in modern products where you get the 2020 release automatically if you're running 2019.

K7:

Technically strong engine, good protection, above average signatures. But having a few bugs from time to time, and FPs have been a historical problem with this product.

PC Doctor:

A rebranded version of MSecure (they seem to be phasing out the MSecure name). Have not used this, but from some observations, it appears to be using Dr. Web's engine. It is worth a tryout in the Hub. Anyone up for it?

REVE:

A BitDefender SDK implementation without any proactive protection, with a shell GUI on top. 'Nuff said.

NetProtector:

Quite popular in some parts of India, but the worst AV product I have ever seen.

If one has to select an Indian AV product I'd recommend only K7 or eScan....
 

SeriousHoax

Level 47
Well-known
Mar 16, 2019
3,630
Somethings I would like to add about K7: Recently I tested it for a day and I must say it's one of the lightest AV I ever tested. Felt even lighter than ESET. Everything was super snappy even while it's performing an on demand scan. During scan CPU usage is merely 10% on average with high disk usage but the high disk usage unlike most AVs doesn't affect performance at all and ram usage is very low also.
Signature wise it seems it's not too bad against most things except scripts. Didn't detect some more than a month old script malwares by signatures.
It does HTTPS scanning by default but didn't found that in the GUI. I'm sure there's an option to turn it off but they use a different name for the feature I guess and I didn't invest enough time to locate it.
Anyway this is just an one day usage impression so couldn't look through everything of the product. I posted this comment just to let others know how extremely light the product is.
 

roger_m

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Dec 4, 2014
3,014
K7 products are now free, until the coronavirus crisis is over and they increased the number of daily signatures updates too.
Unconditionally Free Until This Crisis Is Over

In these trying times when everyone has increased their digital usage, it is sad that cybercriminals have switched gear and are attacking vulnerable individuals, families and businesses. To ensure you have one less thing to worry about, we have opened the full versions of K7 products to everyone - it's unconditionally free.We all need to look out for each other at this time, and you need to have the best cybersecurity product in the world protecting you and your business so that you can focus on protecting and caring for the people who are nearest to your heart.Our researchers are working round-the-clock and have increased the number of daily updates to combat the rise in threats that are capitalising on the coronavirus.

We don't know when this crisis will end, but we will be there for you till the very end.

I just registered for a free license and this was in the confirmation email.
Please note that this special offer allows you to install and use our award-winning security product, K7 Total Security, with no payment till April 30, 2020. However, we will try our best to support you by extending this offer if the outbreak continues beyond April.
 
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roger_m

Level 41
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Dec 4, 2014
3,014
A rebranded version of MSecure (they seem to be phasing out the MSecure name). Have not used this, but from some observations, it appears to be using Dr. Web's engine. It is worth a tryout in the Hub. Anyone up for it?
It is using their own engine and has major issues with false positives and the detection rate is bad.

There are some PC Doctor/SecuraShield rebrands, from Lapcare, Lapscan Antivirus Pro/Total Security/Ultimate Security, which have far fewer false positives.

In addition there are some products soon to be released under the name NGAV NetGuardian, NGAV Smart Security/Complete Security.

Although seemingly all these products are using the same signatures, the detection rate and false positives, varies from one product to the next. One good thing about these antiviruses, is that they have good PUP detection.
 

Divine_Barakah

Level 29
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May 10, 2019
1,854
K7 products are now free, until the coronavirus crisis is over and they increased the number of daily signatures updates too.


I just registered for a free license and this was in the confirmation email.
It is very unlikely for the outbreak to end any time soon. But still we've to see how will K7 handle subscriptions duration extension. Thank for sharing btw
 

jackuars

Level 27
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Jul 2, 2014
1,688
Better maybe, but K7 is much lighter. Many people find Windows Defender to be too heavy. WD is fine, if it doesn't slow down your computer.

Could be true, probably on lower end systems. But it doesn't have much of a performance impact on higher end systems.

This is an old video, but good testing to see how a computer performs with WD enabled and WD disabled system. Mostly it performs better when WD enabled, but impact can be seen when it performs poor when transferring files from external HDD to your PC. Am sure you can feel the same impact on 3rd party antivirus too. Anyway it's scoring high on performance in recent AV tests

 
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roger_m

Level 41
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Could be true, probably on lower end systems. But it doesn't have much of a performance impact on higher end systems.
I don't own any high end systems. My fastest system has a 2nd gen i5 and the computer I'm typing this on, has an even slower 3rd gen i3. In my case, some antiviruses, including Windows Defender, do make my system run slower. But, there are some which don't cause noticeable slowdowns.

I do agree about the performance on faster systems. But even then, if you read posts here and at Wilders, some people with high end systems find that WD causes slowdowns. On the other hand there are people with slower systems, who find that WD runs fine.

The problem with the video, is that antivirus performance can vary greatly from one system to the next. On a different system, the results might be very different.
 

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