Battle Emsisoft vs Bitdefender vs Sophos vs VIPRE Advanced Security

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Emsisoft Anti-Malware Home
Bitdefender TOTAL SECURITY 2019
SOPHOS HOME PREMIUM
VIPRE Advanced Security

plat

Level 29
Top Poster
Sep 13, 2018
1,793
Latest Windows 10 or..? Hardware in your laptop, to help narrow down your choices? Are you open to other products or product combinations?

You can search MRG Effitas, AVLab, AV Comaparatives for mostly Bitdefender's results. Sophos and Emsisoft have participated in Enterprise testing, one of Emsi's last here back in 2018. Performance is very important. This has been tested, like here for general, broad info but a demo on your machine overrides everything. YouTube has some malware testing videos, but can't vouch for anything there.

I've never used Sophos. It's currently having hang issues for some following latest Windows KB. I link it. Subjectively, Emsi ran smoother and had a less gluey feel on my gaming machine than BD. I felt that neither Emsi nor BD liked anything else on the system with a real time component--HitmanPro.Alert, for example. Exclusions should work but it's not a guarantee. So, it's always nice to deploy a small UI like Andy Ful's software, or group policy or NoVirusThanks OSArmor for extra protection, with minimal to no user input--the last thing I'd want to be thinking about in school is my antivirus or why is my new laptop so slow, etc.
 

kmetz

New Member
Thread author
May 20, 2019
3
Latest Windows 10 or..? Hardware in your laptop, to help narrow down your choices? Are you open to other products or product combinations?

You can search MRG Effitas, AVLab, AV Comaparatives for mostly Bitdefender's results. Sophos and Emsisoft have participated in Enterprise testing, one of Emsi's last here back in 2018. Performance is very important. This has been tested, like here for general, broad info but a demo on your machine overrides everything. YouTube has some malware testing videos, but can't vouch for anything there.

I've never used Sophos. It's currently having hang issues following latest Windows KB. I link it. Subjectively, Emsi ran smoother and had a less gluey feel on my gaming machine than BD. I felt that neither Emsi nor BD liked anything else on the system with a real time component--HitmanPro.Alert, for example. Exclusions should work but it's not a guarantee. So, it's always nice to deploy a small UI like Andy Ful's software, or group policy or NoVirusThanks OSArmor for extra protection, with minimal to no user input--the last thing I'd want to be thinking about in school is my antivirus or why is my new laptop so slow, etc.
Hi there. Open to any product. I checked out the links previously and was hoping for some real-world usage and opinions.
Specs attached.
Screen Shot 2019-05-20 at 9.00.37 PM.png


I quite like Sophos Home Premium. I would recommend that. It has exploit prevention, good web blocking, etc.
Would you say it's a resource hog?
 

RoboMan

Level 34
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Well-known
Jun 24, 2016
2,399
Sophos includes an amazing variety of modules on its premium version, I would gladly pay for that. Still I never used it on my PC.

I did use Emsisoft, which I was not very satisfied with, and I did use BitDefender, which was actually light and had one or two concerning bugs, but nothing worth dying for.

Long story short, my choice would be Sophos and then BitDefender. But remember to make use of free trials to test which performs the best on your PC :)
 
F

ForgottenSeer 72227

Out of those 4 I've only used Sophos Home Premium and Emsisoft. I have tried Bitdefender in the past, but I found that it always significantly slowed down my system start up time and I wasn't overly fond of it's system performance. It may have gotten better since I tried it last, but I really haven't tried it for a while now. I have never tried Viper, so I cannot comment on that one.

IMHO both Sophos Home Premium and Emsisoft are both excellent products. I really don't think you can go wrong with either one. Protection wise they are both excellent and their system impact is also quite good. Another option that you may consider, if you haven't already, (assuming you are using Windows 10) maybe give Windows defender a consideration. It's built into the OS, doesn't annoy you, it's always up to date, never expires, guaranteed to work with all major updates from Microsoft and it's overall protection capabilities have improve significantly since it first came out. Furthermore, if you want to tweak it further, you can use a free tool here, created by one of our members @Andy Ful , called Configure Defender to further improve Windows Defender's protection capabilities.

All in all, if I had to choose from your list, it would be either Sophos Home Premium and Emsisoft. I know you may not like this, but at the end of the day, it is you that has to be happy and the only true way to know for sure is to take advantage of the trial periods of each product and see for yourself which one you like most. What works for me, may not work for you. We may use our computers for different tasks and that too can have an impact on what you think of each product. So, try each one out and pick the one that works best for you.

Another point I always like to make is to ensure that no matter which product you choose, it's always important to follow safe computing habits (ie: don't open email attachments, don't click on random links/ad's, always backup your personal data, etc...), as no product is perfect. No matter how well a product may score on a test, they will all fail at some point. A security program should not be a substitute for following safe computing habits. In order to have a proper security setup, it;s your habits along side your security program that will help you be safe.;)(y)
 
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F

ForgottenSeer 72227

I heard it sort of used to be, but suposably it is not supposed to be too bad now from what I've heard.

IMO it has improved quite a bit from the first version. Sometimes there may be an ever so slight hit on logging into windows and opening a program for the first time, but it's nothing to really write home about. IMHO most 3rd parties have a slight hit on logging into Windows and loading programs for the first time, at least I've noticed that when I tried various 3rd parties and compared it to WD for example.

IMHO when it comes to overall system performance between different security programs, the only sure way to know for sure is to try them out for yourself. There are to many variables (software/hardware configurations, system usage (ie: transferring a lot of files, compiling code, etc...)), to have an exact answer. What may be considered light to one person, may not be considered light to another. Again, the trial periods are your best friend, so take full advantage of them. Use them for like 2-3 weeks (unless the program is causing you issues) and go from there. It doesn't cost you any money to try them out for a few weeks and once you found a program you like, purchase it then. That way you won't feel like you've wasted money if you buy it and end up not liking it after a while. Always remember it is you that has to be happy, not us, so picking the one that gets the most "votes" many not necessarily be the best one for you. ;)
 
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toto

Level 4
Verified
Well-known
Oct 15, 2014
164
Since you are considering paid options I would personally go with Norton or Kaspersky. I found both to be very light on my system and security wise they both do pretty well.
As previously mentioned you should try the 30 day trials and see which one suits your needs best.
Good luck with college :giggle:
 

Divine_Barakah

Level 29
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
May 10, 2019
1,854
Personally I would go for either Emsisoft or SHP. Both are great in terms of Protection. I find Emsisoft a litter lighter on resources. Anyway, if you have .edu email address, then you're eligible for %50 discount from Emsisoft. Send an email to edu@emsisoft.com. Anyway you can't go wrong with both products. I have never tried Vipre products.
 
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Andrew999

Level 24
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Dec 17, 2014
1,344
Since you are considering paid options I would personally go with Norton or Kaspersky. I found both to be very light on my system and security wise they both do pretty well.
As previously mentioned you should try the 30 day trials and see which one suits your needs best.
Good luck with college :giggle:
Yes, a very good choice in my opinion too. Norton is very good these days, also Kaspersky.
 

toto

Level 4
Verified
Well-known
Oct 15, 2014
164
Elaborate if you could please :)

I have used Norton Security Standard in the past and found it to be very light on my laptop. I think it has great protection, never got an infection on my system while using it, didn't notice any weird issues or bugs and it offered the setup and forget sort of experience I want for my system (I don't want to be asked every time I try to run a program whether I'm sure I want to do it or not) and has some of the highest ratings from independent testing labs (not that I trust them). I suggest you try it for yourself, it might not suit your taste and it might not be as light on your system (weird how the performance can change from PC to PC) but I think it's one of the best you can get at the moment.

All the best :giggle:

Norton Security Standard
 

Threadripper

Level 9
Verified
Well-known
Feb 24, 2019
408
Emsisoft or Sophos, both have amazing web dashboards to configure devices (Emsisoft's is enterprise style with policies, access settings and everything). Emsisoft has a big focus on privacy and ethics, Sophos isn't bad with that either so to be fair you can't go wrong with either of these solutions. I believe Sophos is very cheap for 10 devices or so, if you have lots of devices go with Sophos for the price, otherwise go with Emsisoft.

Never heard of Vipre but it doesn't seem good, and Bitdefender... well uh:
I used Bitdefender recently for 30 days and my god, it was heavy, bloated, settings randomly reset themselves, waking from sleep froze my PC entirely and I recall needing to turn on and off my PC several times to get past the Windows login screen on one occasion.

This all happened when I was using Bitdefender, and stopped once it was gone. I did run sfc /scannow and it's a pretty powerful gaming PC with an M.2 - it really should be called Bugdefender. No issues before using it, and none after.
 

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