The most important feature on a security product

Which is the most important feature on a security product?


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cruelsister

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Leaving aside the sarcasm of my previous post in this thread, what troubled me about the Poll results (and remember that the poll was well crafted enough so that multiple choices could be made) was that the System Impact choice doubled that of efficacy in malware detection. One would hope that effectiveness would alsways be at LEAST number 1, but sadly it was not. This pretty much mirrors the comments on that other Forum where the "Lightness" of a product seems to outweigh whether or not the product works (always makes me sigh...).

Now we do have an essential response here:

I voted "impact on system" because I assume "effectiveness against threats" as granted

On what exactly is this assumption based? Far too frequently are decisions made by "lightness", GUI colors, or whether the cute Panda still exists in the Taskbar (although the latter may have been only me...). I personally would hope to see a reason specified for effectiveness, then other considerations added.
 

RoboMan

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Leaving aside the sarcasm of my previous post in this thread, what troubled me about the Poll results (and remember that the poll was well crafted enough so that multiple choices could be made) was that the System Impact choice doubled that of efficacy in malware detection. One would hope that effectiveness would alsways be at LEAST number 1, but sadly it was not. This pretty much mirrors the comments on that other Forum where the "Lightness" of a product seems to outweigh whether or not the product works (always makes me sigh...).

Now we do have an essential response here:



On what exactly is this assumption based? Far too frequently are decisions made by "lightness", GUI colors, or whether the cute Panda still exists in the Taskbar (although the latter may have been only me...). I personally would hope to see a reason specified for effectiveness, then other considerations added.
When it comes to advanced users, I believe they take security for granted based on their safe habits and experience. Therefore, a simple protection (say signatures) and an isolated/equipped browser will suffice for them. Hence why many here use Windows Defender without any problems although it sucks as a software, because it's light and it (sometimes) works. Placebo effect, having something monitoring on the backwards that has signatures sometimes gives people the minimum of sense of security they need, the rest is handled by them.

As for novice users, choosing performance and compromising security is a stupid choice indeed. +1 there sis.

Btw, I had to uninstall CFW after weird Office docs secure function killed, system restore and Windows Update stuck (can't explain how)...
 

cruelsister

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Robo- I can help with the Windows update thingy- if you keep WF active the Updates will hang- if you deactivate it all is Golden. The Office issue? God knows. But I know that you are savvy enough not to get infected no matter what you use; so no CF, no issue (for YOU).
 

imuade

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Leaving aside the sarcasm of my previous post in this thread, what troubled me about the Poll results (and remember that the poll was well crafted enough so that multiple choices could be made) was that the System Impact choice doubled that of efficacy in malware detection. One would hope that effectiveness would alsways be at LEAST number 1, but sadly it was not. This pretty much mirrors the comments on that other Forum where the "Lightness" of a product seems to outweigh whether or not the product works (always makes me sigh...).
I think the choice about detection wasn't worded in the correct way (no offence meant).
"I only care that it's effective against threats" means "I don't care about anything else" and I think this sentence is a bit too much (who will accept to have a PC taking ages to boot up, launch apps, make scan and such?).
If the wording had been "effectiveness against threats", I think it would have taken much more votes.

Now we do have an essential response here:

I voted "impact on system" because I assume "effectiveness against threats" as granted

On what exactly is this assumption based? Far too frequently are decisions made by "lightness", GUI colors, or whether the cute Panda still exists in the Taskbar (although the latter may have been only me...). I personally would hope to see a reason specified for effectiveness, then other considerations added.
What I have learnt in the last couple months of testing of several security products is that "lightness" is really something personal, which may change from user to user (and sometimes for the same user in different moments).

Windows Defender has always been a no-choice for me because it has always been a resources-hog, but then I decided to give it another try and I was very surprised about its lightness.
On the other hand, I have always been happy with Comodo Firewall since 2008 on Vista and Windows 7. But when Windows 10 came out, Comodo Firewall has only given troubles to me, so I had to look elsewhere.

I personally think a security product is light when it doesn't have any noticeable impact on pc boot time, pc shutdown time, RAM, CPU and disk usage, app launch, webpage browsing.
The meaning of "effectiveness" is, again, very personal: if you like to surf dubious websites or install any new app you find or test malware, then you need something really strong (default-deny, lockdown and such). If you know how to double check a link or an attachment in an e-mail, you surf only well-known websites and install only well-known softwares, then you can go with a "light" solution (and make a back up from time to time just in case)
 
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RoboMan

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Robo- I can help with the Windows update thingy- if you keep WF active the Updates will hang- if you deactivate it all is Golden. The Office issue? God knows. But I know that you are savvy enough not to get infected no matter what you use; so no CF, no issue (for YOU).
That was wonderful. I went right away to disable Windows Firewall (although I uninstalled CFW yesterday and installed Kaspersky) and saw it was fully disabled via services.msc. Enabling the service and setting to automatic now displayed that the firewall settings were being handled by Kaspersky, which before it didn't. A reboot and Windows Update works amazing. Apparently, unknown to me, Windows Firewall service is needed for Windows Update to work!
 

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