Battle Emsisoft vs Bitdefender vs Sophos vs VIPRE Advanced Security

[kmetz]

Hi all! Heading to college in a few weeks time and seriously can't decide what AV I should put on the new laptop that I just purchased. I'm a Mac user for the past years and just switched to PC for college. Any and all information is welcome

 

[bribon77]

Well, I'll tell you that I'm using Emsisoft and I'm happy with the performance and it has a good behavior blocker an anti-Rasomware module among other things.

 

[Andrew999]

I quite like Sophos Home Premium. I would recommend that. It has exploit prevention, good web blocking, etc.

 

[plat]

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]

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.

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?

 

[Brie]

emsisoft did well in the hub.

 

[blackice]

Roll the dice, most known AVs perform well for home users. With that said I’m partial to Emsisoft on this list, but I don’t know anything about VIPRE.

 

[RoboMan]

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

 

[SumTingWong]

Bitdefender: Buggy as heck even the support staffs admit the software is bug.

Emsisoft: Good protection, heavy on usage, good support and privacy. Price is meh for the features.

Sophos: I have no idea

Vipre: I think VIPRE is dead since the company got acquired by this one company.

 

[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.

 

[Andrew999]

Would you say it's a resource hog?

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

 

[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.

 

[toto]

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

 

[alakazam]

From your list, I'd choose Vipre. Otherwise, I'd go for Avira or ZoneAlarm.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

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.

 

[Andrew999]

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

Yes, a very good choice in my opinion too. Norton is very good these days, also Kaspersky.

 

[DeepWeb]

Vipre is a meme.
Emsisoft is nice but the new UI is annoying and no firewall.
Sophos... I wouldn't pay for Sophos.
Bitdefender is the winner for me here. Not even close.

 

[kmetz]

Norton

Elaborate if you could please

 

[toto]

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

Norton Security Standard

 

[Threadripper]

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.