Serious Discussion TuxTalk - Eset Smart Security Premium Thread

[stonjean633]

As a absolute final comment: 15 or so or less years ago the philosophy of ESET was working very well (and maybe still is for them) But Defender was all but useless, McAfee was a joke as was he, F-Secure was an revered & expensive AV & often out of my reach, Mbam (Malwarebytes) was almost a requirement to run along a AV, Norton was Symantec, signatures were the AV system, AI was not around & more: Now things have changed, ESET seems to have stayed the same? Is my thinking wrong here?

I think this is spot on. The battlefield has changed.

What Eset is doing is increase the price and makes the lower tier features lesser and lesser and put them on premium. Pricing is insane in my opinion.

 

[Jonny Quest]

The discussed product here is Premium Security which has the LiveGuard emulation.

The products with LiveGuard haven’t really remained the same, LiveGuard is a rather expensive for Eset protection to maintain.

Products without LiveGuard, yes. They’ve mostly stayed the same.

That's why people need to pay for Premium, to help offset the LiveGuard maintenance expense?
And it does work. When I downloaded on 2 separate occasions both Bottleneck and Taskbar Plus, LiveGuard uploaded the file(s) and about 2 minutes later declared it safe. I was very impressed with how well that feature worked.

But I agree with some of @Sorrento's comments, including setting up Anti Theft, it was a bit more of a convoluted set up and disable process than some of the other AV's I've used (including BD).

 

[TuxTalk]

I think this is spot on. The battlefield has changed.

What Eset is doing is increase the price and makes the lower tier features lesser and lesser and put them on premium. Pricing is insane in my opinion.

Correct but…. Yes there are cheaper solutions but ask your self , why so cheap ? Like proven on this forum it comes with some “ bonus “ features like:

Nagscreens
Upselling
Data harvesting
Protection is lesser
Advertisements to buy other products because your computer is in danger
Etc.

Everyone has to choose what they prefer, for me what ever you choose you choose it for a reason.

If you are happy with what you have installed then be happy !

 

[Vitali Ortzi]

The main issue I see with eset is price , nagging (I don't use the consumer version so at least I don't experience that part )


But other then that it's definitely competitive with other av software with emulation like zone alarm , Kaspersky (I assume the consumer version has that but I only used the endpoint version of Kaspersky so I might be wrong )

 

[k1esa]

I don't know what happened to ESET, but it doesn't work the same on Windows 11 as it does on Windows 10. It's significantly slower, doesn't show the context menu, etc.

 

[Khushal]

I don't know what happened to ESET, but it doesn't work the same on Windows 11 as it does on Windows 10. It's significantly slower, doesn't show the context menu, etc.

Agreed, i have experienced glitches and slowdowns on windows 11 23h2 but not on windows 10

 

[TuxTalk]

Agreed, i have experienced glitches and slowdowns on windows 11 23h2 but not on windows 10

No issues at all, Win11 25H2 and on Win11 24H2, runs fast and no issues.

And about the nagging, Eset hasnt got this gladly.

 

[TuxTalk]

I don't know what happened to ESET, but it doesn't work the same on Windows 11 as it does on Windows 10. It's significantly slower, doesn't show the context menu, etc.

If you install AV and then uninstall and reinstall another one too many times your system will be polluted with all these kind of AV remains. This can cause all the issues you experience.
Better use Reset this PC if you want to reinstall a new AV.

 

[TuxTalk]

The main issue I see with eset is price , nagging (I don't use the consumer version so at least I don't experience that part )


But other then that it's definitely competitive with other av software with emulation like zone alarm , Kaspersky (I assume the consumer version has that but I only used the endpoint version of Kaspersky so I might be wrong )

Eset totally no nagging, thats why i choose it.

 

[Trident]

Eset totally no nagging, thats why i choose it.

I got no nags with McAfee either. LiveGuard is ok but in terms of emulation there are companies that do it better. Though they charge more.

 

[k1esa]

If you install AV and then uninstall and reinstall another one too many times your system will be polluted with all these kind of AV remains. This can cause all the issues you experience.
Better use Reset this PC if you want to reinstall a new AV.

Newly installed Windows, this was not the case with 10. More on the ESET forums: https://forum.eset.com/topic/45968-eset-scan-option-not-showing-in-context-menu/

 

[TuxTalk]

I got no nags with McAfee either. LiveGuard is ok but in terms of emulation there are companies that do it better. Though they charge more.

Some members complained about it here , i also never experienced it with McAfee Total Protection.

 

[Trident]

That's why people need to pay for Premium, to help offset the LiveGuard maintenance expense?

Yeah to execute emulation to a proper standard, there is a very high cost associated with R&D, assets, cloud infrastructure and so on. It is not cheap to offer. That’s why Avast is offering it only for executables and only with the MOTW. They know threats can be outside of this scope but they prefer to offload the service.

But the king of emulation is Check Point.

 

[Vitali Ortzi]

I got no nags with McAfee either. LiveGuard is ok but in terms of emulation there are companies that do it better. Though they charge more.

checkpoint emulation is too aggressive for my usecase but kaspersky and eset aren't but its because i download a lot of grayware
for most users it might actually be better to have that aggressive emulation and y can get it for free in the beta of zone alarm if eset is over your budget or you can just purchase zone alarm cheaper then eset (premuim ) via the renewal link

buton my machine i prefer eset because its lighter and less aggressive but that is a good solution for those that cant afford eset

 

[Trident]

Most of the time it’s not the emulation that is aggressive (that one is quite accurate), it’s the Check Point reputation that blocks a lot of greyware. They’ve manually blacklisted them.

ZoneAlarm only emulates files up to 10 MB…

Though the behavioural protection is top notch and it even displays the profile matched (e.g behavioural.win.T102, generic.win.ps.hiddenwindow and so on).

When you read the forensics report, there is explanation for the profile as well.

 

[TuxTalk]

ESET LiveGuard Advanced checks a variety of file types, focusing on those that could potentially harm a system or contain/download malicious content. Here's a breakdown of the types of files it analyzes:

​

These are determined based on file content, not just the extension:

• Executables:
  • .exe, .dll, .sys, .elf, .so, and similar
• Scripts:
  • .bat, .cmd, .js, .vbs, .ps, .py, .sh, .pl, etc.
• Documents:
  • Files that may contain macros or active content (e.g., Word, Excel, PDF)
• Archives:
  • If the archive contains active elements (e.g., JavaScript), the entire archive may be submitted
• Others:
  • Any file type that can execute or download malicious content

​

When submitted manually, any file type can be sent for analysis, regardless of its extension or content type.

​

• Files up to 64 MB can be submitted.
• This limit can be adjusted via policy settings.

​

• ESET Endpoint Security / Server Security: Asynchronous submission (does not wait for analysis result)
• ESET Mail Security: Synchronous submission (waits for result), especially for active content in emails

​

Admins can configure:

• Which categories of files to submit (Executables, Archives, Scripts, Documents, Others)
• Exclusions based on file extension or directory path. [help.eset.com], [support.eset.com]

 

[Trident]

Yeah the Check Point emulation handles files up to 100 Mb and detects anything, from malicious links in documents, to scripts, to documents with Phishing content.

It uses over 60 proprietary engines trained to detect shortcuts, dll sideloading, domain generation algorithms, evasions and others.

To top this off, it also uses the Bitdefender engine and generates a detailed emulation report which Eset reserves only for the enterprise versions and when high number of licenses are purchased.

Admins can configure what is submitted and when and can choose the emulation environments. The file emulation feature submits more than just downloads but also archived/unarchives content, dropped files and others. It also has password detection parsers.

 

[Miravi]

ESET supposedly implements behavior blocking through the HIPS and heuristics, but my impression is that it isn't their forte. LiveGuard emulation aside, which surely has some limitations, how does the behavior blocking compare to other antivirus titans?

 

[Trident]

ESET supposedly implements behavior blocking through the HIPS and heuristics, but my impression is that it isn't their forte. LiveGuard emulation aside, which surely has some limitations, how does the behavior blocking compare to other antivirus titans?

In all these years I never saw a single behavioural detection from Eset. The behavioural blocking is explained to be “an extension to HIPS) but I haven’t seen it doing anything.

 

[Khushal]

In all these years I never saw a single behavioural detection from Eset. The behavioural blocking is explained to be “an extension to HIPS) but I haven’t seen it doing anything.

IMO It is not present and i concur with ur no behavioural detection alerts experience.