Advice Request Kaspersky Products - To Trust or Not

[SearchLight]

I recently installed KAFree with CFW and CS settings. I have used KAV paid in the past but the full software versions affected the performance of my PC, so I found myself looking elsewhere. I purchased Kaspersky because of its high ratings.

Now that Kaspersky introduced a free version which is bare bones, my PC performs flawlessly, and I get the great protection that Kaspersky is known for. I consider this a good supplement to CFW but this is my personal opinion.

In recent days, there have been news articles about a possible Kaspersky, Russian intelligence connection. The US Government has taken steps to ban use of their products because of the allegations.

We all know that the other free software like Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, and Qihoo, are made in other countries, and also collect some form of user data during use including Microsoft WD.

My question to all of you is would you let the allegations against Kaspersky deter you from using their software, even their new free version?

My own personal opinion is that since the other free AV products are made elsewhere, and collect data. what's the difference? My focus is getting the best possible protection.

Your thoughts?

 

[ispx]

if you are going to judge the potential of a security product based on news articles you are wasting your time.

as for the collecting data thingy, i still have to see an anti-virus product that does not collect any user data. quit worrying about that.

i will not be surprised if tomorrow i am told that even my mkv player was sending my data back home.

 

[Solarlynx]

I see no reasons to blindly trust or distrust any product. The problem is that there's no trustworthy source of info on this question. We leave in the world of many unknown parameters.

 

[omidomi]

Hi.
its simple,if you can't trust (or suspect) a company quickly remove it
btw in these days all companies do the same job, I do't think its different you spied by CIA or FSB
due to your work you can choose which intelligent service is better
between Kaspersky and USA Government,I think its just a politics game ...(Kaspersky detected NSA malwares so they hate Kaspersky and want removing it )

 

[jerzy601]

And why should I not trust a good product,
Are politicians having something to do with it I do not trust the program?
It's pure stupidity.
They do not care what they care about they once they get along like they used to be sometimes, they sometimes pissed and then they got along.

 

[aragornnnn]

US bans Kaspersky witout evidence... i dont have to think twice who to tust and who not lol

 

[jerzy601]

This is a pure political game.

 

[mekelek]

lets look it this way, if by some miracle all the things the US goverment implies of Kaspersky are true, what is the Russian government going to do with your data?

 

[Deletedmessiah]

I wouldn't fully trust any business but in this age, if you don't want to be spied, stay off the internet. Besides, the US Government is like the worst spyware out there. This made me to become more positive on Kaspersky than before.

 

[Transhumana]

Should you trust Trend Micro, BitDefender, Avast/AVG, Qihoo or Zemana? I trust Kaspersky just as much as I trust any other AV/AM company. Geopolitics might be intriguing, but if you'd let it enter that micro-space of your everyday life, you could just set your PC on fire, smash your mobile phone and go live as a hermit because each and every Other may become suspicious at some point.

 

[SHvFl]

Lets say Kaspersky has ties with Russian government. Why would the Russian government care about my stuff? So if you are not working on a company of interest to huge countries you can relax. None cares enough about you or your data to steal them.

 

[ispx]

Should you trust Trend Micro, BitDefender, Avast/AVG, Qihoo or Zemana? I trust Kaspersky

a vg / vast = no bd = no kaspersky = no qihoo = hell no tm = yes, an interpol partner zemana = yes

 

[Fritz]

As some of you may know, I'm always on my toes when it comes to privacy. Yet, I'm not all too worried about Kaspersky.

The U.S. decision to cut them off is clearly politically motivated. What does Kaspersky stand to gain from spying? It would only hurt their reputation because whatever they do, one day somebody will find out. Reputation = $$$, so why risk anything?

Culturally, I'm leaning much more towards the U.S. than Russia. I'm not fond of their sniffing fixation, though and I'd much use a provider from a diametrically opposed system of values as a safeguard. Just like I wouldn't use an American VPN provider. Putin may be after some groups, but the U.S. want just everything they can get their claws on. So in the end, I'd rather stay away from Norton than Kaspersky.

 

[Solarlynx]

LOL I've paired Comodo FW with KAF on my PC. They seem OK with each other and don't care about geopolitics.

 

[cruelsister]

Fritz- When discussing this topic one really has to differentiate between the Home user running a security product and a Government running the same product. The ultimate goal of CyberWarfare is not to spy on home users but instead to compromise Command and Control and/or create chaos (like by taking down utilities) as a prelude to an attack.

It has been shown that this can be done not by the inclusion of any backdoor in the security product but instead by simple omission- making sure that a cyberweapon is NOT DETECTED by that security product. The weapon can actually be implanted on the target system though an update, and there are just oodles and oodles of ways that this infective pathway can be masked, this allowing the security vendor plausible deniability if anything is uncovered. Also note that the security product need not have any coded in backdoors to make this work (I almost had a stroke when Comrade Eugene wanted to "allow" the US government to inspect the K code. Does he really think that all Americans are Stupid?).

But to the point- when a security application is considered for use by critical infrastructure the possibility of compromise has to be taken extremely seriously, and to do so the current trend in CyberWarfare must also be discussed..

 

[Fritz]

Vaild point @cruelsister. Of course, I'd think twice about putting foreign products on ever single computer in the Pentagon.

On a side note, I don't understand why the government of country A would buy a product from country B in the first place, when such product is readily available at home. I know I'd be shaking my head when our police would ride Toyotas and Hondas when there's VW's and others manufactured right around the corner.

 

[212eta]

Kaspersky detected NSA malware so they hate Kaspersky and want removing it

This explains a lot, I guess.

When Politics enter the Security Software area,
then, everything is a mess...

 

[cruelsister]

Fritz- That was perfectly said! But the actual issue is not that any current critical US Department uses K (they were convinced years ago- Trust Me), but that 3rd party contractors still do. Also a push must be done both in the US and its Allies to divorce the use of such products in critical non-govenmental infrastructure as it would certainly be a pain to have power and communications go down as the Tanks come across the border.

 

[Arequire]

Fritz- That was perfectly said! But the actual issue is not that any current critical US Department uses K (they were convinced years ago- Trust Me), but that 3rd party contractors still do. Also a push must be done both in the US and its Allies to divorce the use of such products in critical non-govenmental infrastructure as it would certainly be a pain to have power and communications go down as the Tanks come across the border.

Maybe the US government can ask those contractors to exclusively use Cylance and get their money's worth from that CIA investment. Y'know, assuming the company has any staff left to sell the software and that doesn't flag everything on their systems as malicious the moment it's installed.

 

[omidomi]

This explains a lot, I guess.

When Politics enter the Security Software area,
then, everything is a mess...

Same as Equation Group ...