Advice Request Is Emsisoft really so impressive?

[zkSnark]

I was surfing Reddit and found this post.

Emsisoft so strong that a 2010 version can block modern day ransomware without signature updates

Since Emsisoft has not been tested and compared in recent AV Comparatives report, what do you think - is Emsisoft really that good as a standalone internet security for PC protection, better than Kaspersky, Eset, etc.?

 

[roger_m]

Since Emsisoft has not been tested and compared in recent AV Comparatives report, what do you think - is Emsisoft really that good as a standalone internet security for PC protection, better than Kaspersky, Eset, etc.?

While I don't have an answer for your question, bear in mind that was just test against a single ransomware sample. No doubt there are plenty of other ransomware samples that it would let run.

 

[Shadowra]

Yes

For me it is on the same level as Kaspersky, Eset etc.
Emsisoft has been doing this for a long time, I've seen it blocking Discord password thieves too!
And especially Pumped malwares with its Behavior Blocker

 

[Like a Western!]

No. it will soon fall too much behind to consider it even decent.
for a small company like Emsisoft it's just a matter of time to drown in the ever evolving cybersecurity space.
yea world would be a happier place if a team of 50 ( mostly not that professionals either ) would compete a team of hundreds/thousands professional, that's not how it works tho.
they already know it. they targeted small and midsize businesses cause they lack number they lack people and muscle for that. soon they remove midsize too and go for only small businesses and home users. small ones are the ones choosing them only for the lower price they offer, and fanboys cover the home licenses.

Their only plan probably is to get their name into some news every now and then by talking here and there about "ransomwares". it's all about ransomwares after all when it comes to Emsisoft. the whole recognition they have is based on one or two guy and ransomwares.

it either dies in near future or becomes something like dr.web vipre.

for now, product protects well. but other mentioned AVs win against it every day maybe not only by their protection, but if you consider support services and other features, they sure do

 

[zkSnark]

No doubt there are plenty of other ransomware samples that it would let run.

Any link of the test?

 

[zkSnark]

Yes

For me it is on the same level as Kaspersky, Eset etc.
Emsisoft has been doing this for a long time, I've seen it blocking Discord password thieves too!
And especially Pumped malwares with its Behavior Blocker

Good to know it's on par with those AVs. What are Discord password thieves? Malware?

 

[zkSnark]

No. it will soon fall too much behind to consider it even decent.
for a small company like Emsisoft it's just a matter of time to drown in the ever evolving cybersecurity space.
yea world would be a happier place if a team of 50 ( mostly not that professionals either ) would compete a team of hundreds/thousands professional, that's not how it works tho.
they already know it. they targeted small and midsize businesses cause they lack number they lack people and muscle for that. soon they remove midsize too and go for only small businesses and home users. small ones are the ones choosing them only for the lower price they offer, and fanboys cover the home licenses.

Their only plan probably is to get their name into some news every now and then by talking here and there about "ransomwares". it's all about ransomwares after all when it comes to Emsisoft. the whole recognition they have is based on one or two guy and ransomwares.

it either dies in near future or becomes something like dr.web vipre.

for now, product protects well. but other mentioned AVs win against it every day maybe not only by their protection, but if you consider support services and other features, they sure do

As I see on your computer configuration post, you are also using Emsisoft. So are you in plan to change it sooner to other AVs?

 

[roger_m]

Any link of the test?

No.

 

[piquiteco]

Since Emsisoft has not been tested and compared in recent AV Comparatives report, what do you think - is Emsisoft really that good as a standalone internet security for PC protection, better than Kaspersky, Eset, etc.?

This was Emsisoft Online Armor a discontinued Emsisoft product that had HIPS all products that have HIPS, such as Comodo Firewall, SpyShelter, Outpost Firewall, Online Armor Firewall and even though they are old they will still protect you in many areas of your computer, HIPS does not rely on signatures.

 

[Bumblebee Uncle]

I do not understand where this notion of "too strong" comes from! Technology evolves, platforms evolve, viruses/malwares/whatever name you wish to assign to them also evolve. Just because a particular sample or a group of samples was detected by a particular version, it doesn't mean it would be the case now!

Behavioral blocking technology is not new either which Emsisoft supposedly boasts! Other big AV's in the industry all have good or if not better BB's. Emsisoft is okay but the word "so strong"- i am not sure.

Also, their support even though people praise is downright defensive and if you ask them multiple questions, they get annoyed! Its an okay piece of software but there are other better options also out there such as F-Secure, ESET etc.

 

[CyberDevil]

I can assume Emsisoft is definitely better than Eset at protecting against ransomwares, but I highly doubt it is better at protecting against trojans, data stealers, scripts and threats like malicious browser extensions, etc. The way I see it, an anti-virus without strong machine learning, heuristics, firewall, network analyzer cannot be as powerful as a real internet security solution.

And in fact, the focus on ransomwaress I don't understand at all If my disks are encrypted, I'll download all the data I need from the cloud, but if my credit card data is stolen, I won't be able to download the money from anywhere.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Emsisoft is such a great AV that everyone knows about it, but nobody uses it.
It is probably the only AV with a good privacy left, so people give it some slack.

 

[Bumblebee Uncle]

Emsisoft is such a great AV that everyone knows about it, but nobody uses it.
It is probably the only AV with a good privacy left, so people give it some slack.

Actually this whole notion of Emsisoft being a privacy conscious AV comes from a 2014 report which was published by AV comparatives. Since then, the technology landscape has changed and the products themselves have gone through multiple updates. How can we be so sure that their product architecture has not changed since then and it still works on the same principles as it worked back then with regards to telemetry?

When Emsisoft says it is privacy conscious, what is it based on? There has been no analysis done since 2014 by anyone. If I can read another analysis, I will hold back on my criticism. Until then, you just need to trust Emsisoft at their word that they are not in the data collection business. Also, if you go their privacy policy, it is no different from others. It collects quite a lot of data.

 

[Shadowra]

Good to know it's on par with those AVs. What are Discord password thieves? Malware?

Password stealer

I do not understand where this notion of "too strong" comes from! Technology evolves, platforms evolve, viruses/malwares/whatever name you wish to assign to them also evolve. Just because a particular sample or a group of samples was detected by a particular version, it doesn't mean it would be the case now!

Behavioral blocking technology is not new either which Emsisoft supposedly boasts! Other big AV's in the industry all have good or if not better BB's. Emsisoft is okay but the word "so strong"- i am not sure.

Also, their support even though people praise is downright defensive and if you ask them multiple questions, they get annoyed! Its an okay piece of software but there are other better options also out there such as F-Secure, ESET etc.

I never said that Emsisoft is "too strong". For me it is equivalent to other antivirus, but yes it has weaknesses and I have sufficiently demonstrated it (Java attack, script, trojan injector etc)

It is good yes, but not invincible. No antivirus is.

 

[piquiteco]

Emsisoft is such a great AV that everyone knows about it, but nobody uses it.

I believe because it is now a paid product, if it had a free version, surely many people would use it, with now MD in Win10 and 11 many people are not wanting to buy third party AV licenses. Well, I assume!

 

[Bumblebee Uncle]

Password stealer



I never said that Emsisoft is "too strong". For me it is equivalent to other antivirus, but yes it has weaknesses and I have sufficiently demonstrated it (Java attack, script, trojan injector etc)

It is good yes, but not invincible. No antivirus is.

Hey @Shadowra , the "too strong" was not for you It was the original post from reddit reposted here by the OP which said so! You are amazing at what you do and very grateful for your videos and testing

 

[Azure]

I’m guessing

What’s impressive about Emsisoft is that while its protection doesn’t exceed other big companies AVs.
They are able to reach the heights they have with a smaller team and maintaining themselves as privacy friendly as possible.

 

[upnorth]

Modern day ransomware, from 2016.

Close, but no cigar!

 

[piquiteco]

Modern day ransomware, from 2016.

It would not be correct old day ransomware?

 

[Adrian Ścibor]

Interesting thread on Emsisoft security. I can only say as a CISO and a person who tests such solutions.

Well, Emsisoft has been in our tests for a long time - the business version, which is similar to the home version. We will soon publish results from red-teaming attacks and telemetry visibility for EDR-XDR in the admin console. I can't add anything before the PDF report is published. Personally, I find the Emsisoft console very clean and readable, easy to search quickly for threat information and security of the entire network. Unfortunately, not all EDR-XDR-class products are as administrator-friendly. Emsisoft may not be as good at the complex security environment: backup, office 365, agentless protection for VM etc.

I think BB protection is very good. For a 1-2 week we'll publish the results from the Advanced In The Wild Malware Test's year-long summary. Emsisoft blocked in total and without error more than 10,000 known malware samples and quite a few unknown 0-day files.