Question Has anyone noticed a decrease in Kaspersky (quality) due to reduction of users?

[cartaphilus]

So I know that Kaspersky has their own cloud network of users to inform and watch for patterns of compromise or any new malware.

Since US GOV accused KAV of spying combined with the war in Ukraine, the number of KAV users have decreased over the past few years.

Thus, theoretically the responsiveness and accuracy of KAV should have suffered.

Has it suffered?

 

[Abhishek Singha]

Accuracy part I definitely agree to. Ironically in most tests Mcafee & Norton are performing way better.

 

[RRlight]

I'm not finding it suffered much. With the samples I tested, Kaspersky is doing good.

Also, one important thing is that it has probably one of the best customer services among the common home-used security software. Keep moving.

 

[cofer123]

If anything I would say it has actually improved in recent years. The initial release of the revamped product line (with Standard, Plus, and Premium editions) had quite a few issues and awkward UI limitations that have all been addressed now. Top notch product all around I would say.

System impact is minimal, on par with Eset on my system. Fewer bugs than Eset as well on my end, which I stopped using recently after so many issues with each release since 2023.

I also expected it to suffer in quality after the war and all the sanctions around it, but the outcome was the opposite.

 

[jamey910111]

Accuracy part I definitely agree to. Ironically in most tests Mcafee & Norton are performing way better.

Which tests? If you can share. Thank you.

 

[micasayyo]

Well, I am not an expert on what you are saying about Kaspersky in terms of decreased quality, but I have several computers and at the moment I only have Kaspersky installed on 1 computer, on the other 3 computers I use Eset

 

[RRlight]

I can’t edit my previous reply so I will just add here.

Among I have used/tried, I think Kaspersky is the only one giving you real human feedback on sample submission. I submitted several times false negative/undetected samples and got feedback. For Avast of F-Secure, I don’t get feedback or verdicts on the samples I submitted, and there is one very undetected sample, has been 2 months since I submitted through their website and software itself, still not detected by avast.

 

[Sammo]

Their VPN has been acting up for the last few days. I can't even connect to the Kaspersky site if I am connect to their VPN

 

[jamey910111]

That's well known, but I mean, that doesn't really relate to the quality of their antivirus program itself imo. But that's covered here I believe, they acknowledged it and have pushed out a beta fix already, but there is a work-around that can be done in about 10 seconds to avoid this issues as has been posted: A month-old unsolvable VPN issiue for Kaspersky

Issues can happen to any company - but with this kind of hole-poking other companies may actually end up far far worse than kaspersky - i can only think of false positives I get from other AV suites, or the fact that they slow down my pc more than kaspersky.

 

[rashmi]

Kaspersky hasn't suffered because they already possess abundant data, additional resources, and mechanisms. Over time, Kaspersky has made significant improvements and has become more lightweight.

 

[Trident]

It’s not set in stone that the US ban will cause a reduction of users, telemetry, protection or performance.
Kaspersky has a marketing team and through various promotions they can get more users in Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA region).

Also, the reduction in telemetry will affect third-party vendors relying on Kaspersky feeds but will not affect home users with Kaspersky solutions where plenty of other layers are deployed as well.

Telemetry is only one source of threat information anyway.

 

[KnownStormChaser]

I was worried about this, but I haven't seen any difference. Plus, Kaspersky's main strength is its behavioural protection, not its signatures, which isn't very affected by lost users.

Additionally, I don't see Kaspersky's user base decreasing by any significant amount. Kaspersky's market share in North America has been relatively small for years, most people still use Norton or McAfee. So a ban in the US shouldn't affect anything much. That is, if a ban happens, which isn't certain yet. Kaspersky could easily market more heavily in Europe, Asia or other markets to replace their lost North American subscribers.

 

[jamey910111]

And if anything, I think I've seen the price move up a bit maybe? But I haven't really compared to competitor's prices...price has moved up to a combination of factors I assume

I believe the ban is North American wide though, but I think it only affects government institutions and affilicates? I think individuals in US can still buy kaspersky??? and private companies too i suppose?

 

[Sammo]

Their VPN has been acting up for the last few days. I can't even connect to the Kaspersky site if I am connect to their VPN

I just ran Kaspersky PC Speedup and it found that the VPN had nearly 7gb of temp and unused files. After the cleanup it runs fine and I now can reach the Kaspersky site okay

 

[harlan4096]

Yes, this version of VPN is generating crash dumps, I'm also getting this bug every time I run it, but VPN after a while runs and working fine here when connecting.

I've being sending all those dumps to K. so I expect the next upcoming 21.18 already in beta testing fixes the problem, there is also a Patch A for the 21.17 also in beta testing.

You can delete manually all those crash dumps manually also.

 

[Zorro]

Has it suffered?

KSN is only one of the elements of protection (although quite important), but there are many other mechanisms, so that the level of protection will not be critically affected, as evidenced by the fact that the Kaspersky Standard received the title of "the best antivirus" from AV-Comparatives for the last (2023) year.

 

[Game Of Thrones]

as someone with a little experience in this field, still they are the best and I see no reduction in the detection and performance of this brand. if you see the tests and if you test it yourself they are the most balanced security software out there no other security software comes close to their polished work! everything is balanced. they can make their user base in Europe, Asia, and Africa bigger so they can make up for some of the American user base loss, the world is not just the USA, unlike what many people think in real life they are still one of the first choices for corporations down to the home users and I see many people in this field that they don't care about the country origin of this brand(whether this is good or bad is another discussion)

but as I always say sometimes yes there is this stress when you want to use this in business and corporation environments, I use it in nearly 200 different business computers and we had near zero issues, unlike many other big names no infections and not a major problem. until I see real evidence that they have bad intentions I going to use their services. some simple tests and evaluations show how much ahead they are in some aspects from other brands.
I talk from the real world, I would be happy to discuss this.