Battle I need to decide between G-DATA and Emsisoft

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GDATA
Emsisoft

Like a Western!

Level 9
Thread author
Verified
Well-known
Apr 6, 2016
440
Hi.
So the title makes it clear what my concern is.
now i was using Emsisoft before i decide to include GDATA to my options.

I believe they're both equal in terms of protection and privacy friendliness, however both have things that i don't like.
as for things i dislike for Emsisoft are:
-the fact that there is no 24/7 hotline like GDATA phone call offers, in case of emergencies( not that i'm gonna have alot of emergencies but i can't know. )
-their software UI is one of the most interesting ones to me but somehow it always been laggy for me, on Win10 and Win11 even when they're brand new and nothing but Emsisoft installed on them. sometimes i even manage to crash the UI.
-the fact again that Emsisoft has far less feauters than GDATA.

and as for things i dislike for GDATA:
-of course you got to say, old UI but it's a minor thing for me i don't mind it really, maybe this is how they like it in Germany.
-not really active on their Blog even tho they have 500 employees and Emsisoft only has like 50ish, still Emsisoft blog is way more updated than them for example there is no news or blog from GDATA on this recent trend Mastodon, that most companies published some suggestions recommendation etc on it on their blog including Emsisoft.
-and the fact that they're more local than international, GDATA is like Dr.Web for Russia i'd say. their tweets are not in English, their talks on conferences are not in English, it seems they're more focused on Germany and that's it. maybe that's what keeping them from growing more.

Yea as you see i don't just choose my AV based on protection they offer, i don't know why but i care about these stuff ( i wish i knew why myself )
by the way, please don't suggest AVs that are not in my options ( Emsisoft and GDATA ), my options are limited to these two because other companies don't do business with peope of my country due to political sanctions.

Yep can't wait to hear what ya think!
 

upnorth

Moderator
Verified
Staff Member
Malware Hunter
Well-known
Jul 27, 2015
5,459
I think Emsisoft doesn't focus on consumers anymore, like they did before and that is unfortunate.
You mean with the shutdown of their forum?

Personal I'm not one of their customer/user, but I must mention that the latest small experience I had with Emsisofts support was silly fast and I was really surprised how smooth and easy it was. Also surprised that non customers/users even could use their support as that's not the case with all other vendors.
 

Emsisoft

From Emsisoft
Verified
Developer
Jul 27, 2013
42
> I think Emsisoft doesn't focus on consumers anymore...

We have a wide variety of customers from homeusers to small businesses to large enterprises. Requirements from (remote) management perspective may differ depending on the use case, but at the end of the day the software on the endpoint (your computer) needs to prevent malware infections. That's always our main focus.

It's true that the majority of our customers are in the business segment now but that doesn't mean we won't do anything for consumers anymore. Our latest addition was e.g. the content filtering feature which is being used as parental control to block certain types of websites.

Also keep in mind that many of the remote management features are also quite useful in home environments where typically one computer-guy type of person manages security for the whole family and friends. Having all devices' configurations and alerts combined on a single screen might come handy.
 

Like a Western!

Level 9
Thread author
Verified
Well-known
Apr 6, 2016
440
Personal I'm not one of their customer/user, but I must mention that the latest small experience I had with Emsisofts support was silly fast and I was really surprised how smooth and easy it was. Also surprised that non customers/users even could use their support as that's not the case with all other vendors.
that actually is my experience too, Emsisoft even on holidays would response to my emails in like 4-7 hours with what like 50ish employees?
meanwhile i've opened an email ticket for GDATA for a simple question about how program udates works and it took them 19 hours to response to my email. considering they have about 500 employees, x10 what Emsisoft has, Emsisoft doing a great job keeping it's home customers supported too
 

Bushman

Level 2
Verified
Sep 9, 2017
55
I think Emsisoft doesn't focus on consumers anymore, like they did before and that is unfortunate.
If Gdata works without issues on your machine (always run a trial before buying) I would go with Gdata.
Do you have other options?
I don’t know what makes you say that.Impressions, feelings?...
I am a customer at Emsisoft after having done other editors F Secure, Dr Web and G.Data.These latter are far from having an assistance and attention comparable to what Emsisoft does.
I base myself on concrete facts and not on subjective preferences as told here or there.
I must admit, however, that what bothers me the most is rather the number of false positives that Emsisoft detects whose correlations are not done very quickly.

> I think Emsisoft doesn't focus on consumers anymore...

We have a wide variety of customers from homeusers to small businesses to large enterprises. Requirements from (remote) management perspective may differ depending on the use case, but at the end of the day the software on the endpoint (your computer) needs to prevent malware infections. That's always our main focus.

It's true that the majority of our customers are in the business segment now but that doesn't mean we won't do anything for consumers anymore. Our latest addition was e.g. the content filtering feature which is being used as parental control to block certain types of websites.

Also keep in mind that many of the remote management features are also quite useful in home environments where typically one computer-guy type of person manages security for the whole family and friends. Having all devices' configurations and alerts combined on a single screen might come handy.
I am a customer at Emsisoft after having done other editors F Secure, Dr Web and G.Data.These latter are far from having an assistance and attention comparable to what Emsisoft does.
I base myself on concrete facts and not on subjective preferences as told here or there.
I must admit, however, that what bothers me the most is rather the number of false positives detected by Emsisoft whose corrections are not made very quickly.
 

Digmor Crusher

Level 23
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 27, 2018
1,237
Emsisoft has always had superb customer assistance, however, I stopped being a customer when they implemented the "management console", hated it, and had issues registering my license. Not sure why a single user would need something like that anyways, just makes things more complicated for most imo.
 

Bushman

Level 2
Verified
Sep 9, 2017
55
Hi.
So the title makes it clear what my concern is.
now i was using Emsisoft before i decide to include GDATA to my options.

I believe they're both equal in terms of protection and privacy friendliness, however both have things that i don't like.
as for things i dislike for Emsisoft are:
-the fact that there is no 24/7 hotline like GDATA phone call offers, in case of emergencies( not that i'm gonna have alot of emergencies but i can't know. )
-their software UI is one of the most interesting ones to me but somehow it always been laggy for me, on Win10 and Win11 even when they're brand new and nothing but Emsisoft installed on them. sometimes i even manage to crash the UI.
-the fact again that Emsisoft has far less feauters than GDATA.

and as for things i dislike for GDATA:
-of course you got to say, old UI but it's a minor thing for me i don't mind it really, maybe this is how they like it in Germany.
-not really active on their Blog even tho they have 500 employees and Emsisoft only has like 50ish, still Emsisoft blog is way more updated than them for example there is no news or blog from GDATA on this recent trend Mastodon, that most companies published some suggestions recommendation etc on it on their blog including Emsisoft.
-and the fact that they're more local than international, GDATA is like Dr.Web for Russia i'd say. their tweets are not in English, their talks on conferences are not in English, it seems they're more focused on Germany and that's it. maybe that's what keeping them from growing more.

Yea as you see i don't just choose my AV based on protection they offer, i don't know why but i care about these stuff ( i wish i knew why myself )
by the way, please don't suggest AVs that are not in my options ( Emsisoft and GDATA ), my options are limited to these two because other companies don't do business with peope of my country due to political sanctions.

Yep can't wait to hear what ya think!
For the support to date there is no better than Emsisoft and I say this as a paid client Business Security having used before G Data,F Secure and longer before Dr Web.
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

Level 76
Verified
Honorary Member
Top Poster
Content Creator
Well-known
Apr 24, 2016
6,506
You mean with the shutdown of their forum?

Personal I'm not one of their customer/user, but I must mention that the latest small experience I had with Emsisofts support was silly fast and I was really surprised how smooth and easy it was. Also surprised that non customers/users even could use their support as that's not the case with all other vendors.
I was an Emsisoft customer for a long time.
They had (and maybe still have) a fantastic support team.
I had a great experience with Dave Biggar, head of support at that time.

Sad that they closed their forum.
I had issues with stability the last time I tried Emsisoft anti-malware and chose another solution.

Their blog and changelogs are more and more business orientated nowadays.
In Emsoioft's own words:
Emsisoft generates most income through business users. The home-user antivirus/antimalware industry is somewhat 'developed to death', meaning that there is little space left for further product innovation. Almost all vendors serving that segment work on a very high level of product quality, including the freeware solutions. With that in mind, I think it's not surprising that there haven't been many major changes in the consumer edition of Emsisoft in recent years.
Windows Defender has half of the market share today and the rest is split across a few consumer-focused big brands who keep buying smaller consumer focused vendors. Though, consumer sales only work if you have more products to (up)sell to your user base. VPNs and other 'tools' seem to be lucrative for some vendors, but we at Emsisoft prefer to focus on doing one thing but do it right: Protection.
Yes, we are spending most of our development efforts in cloud based security solutions, in specific in EDR and other advanced protection techniques that aim at professional users and larger organizations. But the tech trickles down to the home edition as well. Mostly under the hood.
For me that means that their focus is on business users and combined with the stability issues I encountered I would recommend another solution when I get the choice.
 

Zartarra

Level 7
Verified
Well-known
May 9, 2019
312
I like them both. They use the Bitdefender engine which is a great signature engine. Shadowra made a nice video of both products (Video - The battle of the antiviruses using the Bitdefender's engine !).

I tested both products a month ago. Gdata scored a small fraction better compared to Emsisoft. The thing I really like at Gdata is the Beast and Deepray modules. Also their firewall is nice with alot of options and customizations. They only thing the firewall is missing is it cannot work with long IP-addresslists.

For the moment I have a license of Gdata on a basic laptop. I have no issues with systems slowdowns or anything else. So I cannot complain.
 

Nevi

Level 11
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 7, 2016
500
Hi.
So the title makes it clear what my concern is.
now i was using Emsisoft before i decide to include GDATA to my options.

I believe they're both equal in terms of protection and privacy friendliness, however both have things that i don't like.
as for things i dislike for Emsisoft are:
-the fact that there is no 24/7 hotline like GDATA phone call offers, in case of emergencies( not that i'm gonna have alot of emergencies but i can't know. )
-their software UI is one of the most interesting ones to me but somehow it always been laggy for me, on Win10 and Win11 even when they're brand new and nothing but Emsisoft installed on them. sometimes i even manage to crash the UI.
-the fact again that Emsisoft has far less feauters than GDATA.

and as for things i dislike for GDATA:
-of course you got to say, old UI but it's a minor thing for me i don't mind it really, maybe this is how they like it in Germany.
-not really active on their Blog even tho they have 500 employees and Emsisoft only has like 50ish, still Emsisoft blog is way more updated than them for example there is no news or blog from GDATA on this recent trend Mastodon, that most companies published some suggestions recommendation etc on it on their blog including Emsisoft.
-and the fact that they're more local than international, GDATA is like Dr.Web for Russia i'd say. their tweets are not in English, their talks on conferences are not in English, it seems they're more focused on Germany and that's it. maybe that's what keeping them from growing more.

Yea as you see i don't just choose my AV based on protection they offer, i don't know why but i care about these stuff ( i wish i knew why myself )
by the way, please don't suggest AVs that are not in my options ( Emsisoft and GDATA ), my options are limited to these two because other companies don't do business with peope of my country due to political sanctions.

Yep can't wait to hear what ya think!
It's no secret I like Emsisoft, but have you tried both applications? Emsi was good on my computer (Eset was better), but I have seen a few places, that G- Data was a little heavy to dance with. I'm not sure it still is that way. A test would determine that. 👍
 

Sorrento

Level 9
Verified
Well-known
Dec 7, 2021
402
G Data for me has a clunky UI & the firewall can be awkward to configure (even for G Data's support) if you use a VPN you may find you get some slowdown with G Data's firewall - This doesn't happen with Emsisoft, & on a personal basis I've never had any issues with Emsisoft which is why its on this PC :p:p Emsisoft's simplicity is one of the things I really like, it's lack of all dancing all singing no VPN, it just does the job it's on for, if I uninstall it & reinstall it's set up in a minute from the cloud, that's great for me.
 
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