Battle Feb 2026 conclusion?

Compare list
Bitdefender, TrendMicro, ZoneAlarm, ESET
Platform(s)
  1. Microsoft Windows
DarkJoney

DarkJoney

Level 2
Thread author
Verified
Aug 6, 2014
92
165
67
29
Ukraine
Hi folks,

Happy to be back to Windows after year of struggle on "the best" macOS.

Then, the question is it's time to refresh my AV positioning. I used mainly Bitdefender and Avira in the last 10 years. I need something to cover my back on my Zephyrus G16 and as I see Bitdefender is not a bulletproof choice anymore.

I am advanced user, not afraid of anything.

Currently, the choice is between:
Bitdefender Total
Emsisoft
Trend Micro
ZoneAlarm Extreme
ESET
Norton 360
or again even AVIRA or Ikarus???

At Nostromo's from comss.ru tests ZoneAlarm and TrendMicro look better than Bitdefender or ESET.

I would appreciate good online protection (despite I use piHole), strong behaviour block, PUP cleaner, sandbox is a plus, strong ransomware detect (since I have lot's of media despite 1-2-3 backups) and that it will not burn out the battery :) Good license offer on some ebay or key website is also a plus.
ASUS is actually comes with McAfee, but dunno.

What's is your opinion? Basically, I want a thing with no compromise.
PLEASE DON'T OFFER KASPERSKY OR DR.WEB, THANKS IN ADVANCE :)

p.s. sorry to the mods if wrong thread :)
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: Khushal, Sorrento, Moonhorse and 4 others
I don't use paid AVs as I'm a diehard MS Defender user configured with @Andy Ful's GitHub - AndyFul/ConfigureDefender: Utility for configuring Windows 10 built-in Defender antivirus settings., but I've always had a place in my heart for Bitdefender and AVG.

Eset and Norton are also top notch, followed by the rest, except for ZA Extreme.

Please be aware that McAfee is actually quite improved, ranking at the top or alongside some in your list. It's detailed here App Review - McAfee Protection (Plus Plans, Total Protection, LiveSafe) and here Serious Discussion - Deep Research: McAfee GTI, JTI, Artemis and Other Technologies Explained.

And these:
New Update - The new cloud-based McAfee
App Review - McAfee Web Protection Test
Serious Discussion - McAfee Uses Default-Deny on Executables
Serious Discussion - Quick Play with McAfee
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • +Reputation
Reactions: lokamoka820, Khushal, Sorrento and 3 others
simmerskool said:
imo your political comment was unnecessary and added nothing useful to this thread. (fwiw) -- atypical of you.
Click to expand...
especially where I explicitly stated in what I am not interested, I can also write a tirade but we are at AV forum :)

simmer, I am actually waging the most either to ESET either to Emsisoft. Eset folks were just hosting me last week for the AWS workshop :)
Sadly that Emsisoft is not Austrian anymore :) ZA looks interesting for me because it's defacto downscale enterprise one, I would be happy to run SentinelOne or Crowdstrike like at work :D

Defender, idk, I don't like the controls and fragmentation, I still don't have enough trust to it at all.
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: Khushal, Sorrento, Zero Knowledge and 2 others
simmerskool said:
imo your political comment was unnecessary and added nothing useful to this thread. (fwiw) -- atypical of you.
Click to expand...
Parkinsond

Malware News Post in thread 'Notepad++ updater installed malware'

Zero Knowledge said:
But this is not the world we live in
Click to expand...
This explains wars.
Zero Knowledge said:
Developers have political views and opinions and have a platform to share those views
Click to expand...
The platform if for sharing work; they can share their political opinions, family photos, and religious beliefs with their family and close friends on a FB account limited to those.

Only politician who need to shart their political opinions on public accounts; they do their jon then, just as the developer has to do the job of making apps.
Zero Knowledge said:
When people say keep politics out of security forums or any forums they really mean 'I have...
Click to expand...
  • Like
  • Applause
 
  • Applause
Reactions: Sorrento
DarkJoney said:
yeah, this is also a standard comparison kit :D

Which one holds the best against new samples and intrusions? Trend actually passed a phishing telegram stealer at dad's, had to steal his account back...
Click to expand...

Quick summary:

Eset: Excellent detection engine, cloud starting to get serious, default HIPS is a mess but if you know how to configure it, you can modify it as you wish.

Trend: Very advanced for novices, good behavior blocker, fairly average antimalware detection, don't push it too hard...

Bitdefender: Excellent behavior (the video scheduled for Friday on Bitdefender Free will prove it :D ), excellent Cloud, pretty good antimalware scan.
 
  • Like
  • +Reputation
  • Thanks
Reactions: Gandalf_The_Grey, Khushal, Sorrento and 5 others
Shadowra said:
Resumen rápido:

Eset: Excelente motor de detección, la nube empieza a ponerse seria, el HIPS predeterminado es un desastre pero si sabes cómo configurarlo, puedes modificarlo a tu gusto.

Tendencia: Muy avanzado para principiantes, buen bloqueador de comportamiento, detección antimalware bastante promedio, no lo fuerces demasiado...

Bitdefender: Excelente comportamiento (el vídeo previsto para el viernes en Bitdefender Free lo demostrará :D ), excelente Cloud, bastante buen análisis antimalware.
Click to expand...
and Norton :/ ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Khushal and Sorrento
Shadowra said:
Quick summary:

Eset: Excellent detection engine, cloud starting to get serious, default HIPS is a mess but if you know how to configure it, you can modify it as you wish.

Trend: Very advanced for novices, good behavior blocker, fairly average antimalware detection, don't push it too hard...

Bitdefender: Excellent behavior (the video scheduled for Friday on Bitdefender Free will prove it :D ), excellent Cloud, pretty good antimalware scan.
Click to expand...
Highly appreciate! What about Emsisoft? I am looking at the other thread with you and Parkinsond now :)
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: Khushal, Sorrento, Zero Knowledge and 1 other person
RansomwareRemediation said:
and Norton :/ ?
Click to expand...

Norton, if I told you what I think, I'd spoil one of my videos for you :D

DarkJoney said:
Highly appreciate! What about Emsisoft? I am looking at the other thread with you and Parkinsond now :)
Click to expand...

Its behavior is fairly average and based solely on Bitdefender's SDK (despite Emsisoft's good cloud).
Bitdefender itself is better.
 
  • Like
  • +Reputation
  • Wow
Reactions: Gandalf_The_Grey, Khushal, Zero Knowledge and 4 others
simmerskool said:
imo your political comment was unnecessary and added nothing useful to this thread. (fwiw) -- atypical of you.
Click to expand...
I deleted that comment just for you, my friend! :cool:

@DarkJoney Sorry, I didn't mean to derail your thread. Just my 2 cents.
 
  • Like
  • Applause
  • Wow
Reactions: Miraculix, Khushal, Sorrento and 2 others
DarkJoney said:
Hi folks,

Happy to be back to Windows after year of struggle on "the best" macOS.

Then, the question is it's time to refresh my AV positioning. I used mainly Bitdefender and Avira in the last 10 years. I need something to cover my back on my Zephyrus G16 and as I see Bitdefender is not a bulletproof choice anymore.

I am advanced user, not afraid of anything.

Currently, the choice is between:
Bitdefender Total
Emsisoft
Trend Micro
ZoneAlarm Extreme
ESET
Norton 360
or again even AVIRA or Ikarus???

At Nostromo's from comss.ru tests ZoneAlarm and TrendMicro look better than Bitdefender or ESET.

I would appreciate good online protection (despite I use piHole), strong behaviour block, PUP cleaner, sandbox is a plus, strong ransomware detect (since I have lot's of media despite 1-2-3 backups) and that it will not burn out the battery :) Good license offer on some ebay or key website is also a plus.
ASUS is actually comes with McAfee, but dunno.

What's is your opinion? Basically, I want a thing with no compromise.
PLEASE DON'T OFFER KASPERSKY OR DR.WEB, THANKS IN ADVANCE :)

p.s. sorry to the mods if wrong thread :)
Click to expand...
I use both ESET Premium (due to their Live Guard our Gard or GERD whatever it's called) and McAffeee. I like them both, both of them are extermelly light on the system. The major difference between the two that I personally found was usability from the tweaking perspective. McAffeee is more user friendly dumb down version that just shows you OMG ##### HAPPENED BUT WE STOPPED IT. Whereupon ESET is more granual and I find it personally a lot easier to define exclusions of folders that may store your own code that makes AV freak out. Additionally ESET has more thorough firewall and HIPS (althought that is debatable between usefulness and annoyance).

For home detection I would choose ESET or McAfee over BITDEFENDER due to lighteness/ performance impact on the system. Othewerise if you can get the business suite and get their malware sandbox addon then I personally think that will place Bitdefender over ESET and McAffee in terms of detection but again not in terms of performance.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Hundred Points
  • +Reputation
Reactions: piquiteco, RansomwareRemediation, Khushal and 4 others
Yes ESET has a place in my world because:

1. it can block Registry Modifications. I obtained a bunch of registry keys related to persistence from ChatGPT and I can block modifications to them. Like the famous Run and RunOnce keys. You let hackers write to those and they'll be staying on your system forever.
2. It can block some Process Injection methods, but it requires some time to prepare: you have to build rules to allow normal memory injections (svchost does it a lot) by going thru the HIPS log. But process injection accounts for nearly a third of intrusion methods used according to the 2025 red report. So it's worth the effort. @Parkinsond , you were talking about process injection.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Hundred Points
Reactions: piquiteco, Khushal, Sorrento and 2 others

You may also like...