Advice Request Forticlient Free - Pro's and Cons

[jackuars]

With respect to the Free Antivirus of the Year 2018 competition, I'm starting a thread series where users of the various products will be joining together to state the Pro's and Con's of each antivirus software and why they think it was a contender or not for the Free Antivirus of the Year 2018.

In this thread we'll talk about the Pro's and Con's you have found about Forticlient Free Antivirus.
The first post will be updated by me [or the mods] with what user's think is good and bad about the product, so an informed decision can be made for newcomers.

 

[Eddie Morra]

I like FortiClient because I find I think it cuts to the chase unless you want to dig through configuration and is bloat-ware free. I think that they have good signatures and it is generally quite well-known that the web filtering with Fortinet is of a good standard; the anti-exploit mitigation's offered for free also also a nice bonus.

There are some cons I can think of but nothing major. I think that the GUI is annoying because some of it still looks really outdated and old whereas some of it looks new, and I dislike how the settings are "locked" until you "unlock it" when there's nothing like a master password set-up.

I personally feel that with FortiClient, you're using the product instead of becoming the product, too.

 

[Mahesh Sudula]

Pros: Excellent web blocking almost at network level, Up to date signatures, Anti phish champ at par with Webroot, Trend micro.
Cons: Lack of dynamic modules, Can be bypassed if a sample bypasses it signature, So So unknown malware blocking
I definetly do use it, however happy clicking should be avoided..may be paired with combo softwares

 

[Moonhorse]

Pros;
+ bloat-free patching of vulnerables
+ good signatures; good web filter
+ very light on system
+ anti-exploit
+ may be paired as combo with other sw
+ simple gui

cons:
- lacking behaviour blocking, sandboxing, and any kind of default deny blocking/ white/blacklisting so its just lotto wich threats will pass or not to pass

 

[TairikuOkami]

Pros & cons: GUI - a great AV for skilled users (can be tweaked) and for noobs (install & forget), but not for average users, who want a nice AV.
It has that feeling of an enterprise AV, it works fine, but I myself would also prefer some nice eye-candy popups and would just use its webfilter.

 

[jackuars]

Looks interesting from the reviews, waiting for more from other MT members

 

[jackuars]

Pros;
+ bloat-free patching of vulnerables
+ good signatures; good web filter
+ very light on system
+ anti-exploit
+ may be paired as combo with other sw
+ simple gui

cons:
- lacking behaviour blocking, sandboxing, and any kind of default deny blocking/ white/blacklisting so its just lotto wich threats will pass or not to pass

Their website mentions it has behavioural blocking & sandbox. I'm confused now :| I used it for one day it definitely has a sandbox, and it has dynamic modules too.

 

[Shiz]

Their website mentions it has behavioural blocking & sandbox. I'm confused now :| I used it for one day it definitely has a sandbox, and it has dynamic modules too.

For sandbox I think you need a fortinet physical sandbox device for it to work. A lot of setting up involves editing the xml settings of the program. You can enable sandbox signatures to add to the protection. Just go take a read at the forticlient topic in this section.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Just a friendly reminder, FortiClient is not so user friendly AV as I thought, it is an enterprise AV. You have to update it manually, enterprises do it via software deployment, good for them bad for users.

Like I have just noticed at Softpedia, that there is 6.0.4, I had only 6.0.2, so I updated it, and it actually went up to 6.0.5, lol. Notified Softpedia and added it to software watchlist to keep an eye on it.

P.S.: Yes, I have automatic updating enabled, but that seems to apply to signatures only.