Why do you use the Anti-Virus you're using?

[Eddie Morra]

Hiya.

I'm not trying to start a discussion about why vendor X is better than vendor Y. Instead, what I want to do is start a discussion for people to briefly list a few reasons which make them stick with the vendor they rely on. If possible, please keep this to the scope of full Anti-Virus solutions, and not "second opinion" Anti-Malware/default-deny solutions.

If possible, note the top 3-5 reasons which make any AV vendor of your choice appropriate for you.

 

[Moonhorse]

Comodo cloud antivirus
- has bad signatures, sandboxing every untrusted application by default (default block; default deny)
= uninfected, except the file is signed as trusted will get past (ask from oracle how common this case is)
pros: good against zero day

any default allow av> signatures doesnt detect > infected?


After all you can have better combos than just CCAV, but this topic were about antivirus only

 

[TairikuOkami]

Forticlient

1. signature based AV, no false detections, no removal of my files
2. following point 1, it is install and forget, since it is default allow
3. an excellent web filter, which sort of takes care of 0-day exploits

 

[509322]

Hiya.

I'm not trying to start a discussion about why vendor X is better than vendor Y. Instead, what I want to do is start a discussion for people to briefly list a few reasons which make them stick with the vendor they rely on. If possible, please keep this to the scope of full Anti-Virus solutions, and not "second opinion" Anti-Malware/default-deny solutions.

If possible, note the top 3-5 reasons which make any AV vendor of your choice appropriate for you.

I use softs that routinely generate the lowest aggravation factor. A spectacularly brain-dead methodology that produces the very highest levels of IT bliss.

A lot of my security success is entirely dependent upon me not being a hyper-paranoid that needlessly worries and attempts to protect against stuff that is not realistic and never would have any practical bearing on security.

 

[notabot]

I went with Sophos Home Premium because

- it’s non intrusive ( doesn’t replace SSL certs etc ).
- offers a web dashboard to manage all the family PCs.
- it’s marketing made me believe it has interceptX and Sophos with intercept X had good scores at selabs (*)
- mrg effittas anti exploit scores were good ( again applies to the intercept x product, don’t know if they are good for home premium)

(*) turns out home premium and interceptx do have significant differences and I’m quite unhappy for seeing all these “X”’s at Sophos’ website for home Premium so I’m about to ditch it even though I’ve paid the subscription.

I’m reluctant to buy intercept X - I) because I don’t trust their brand as much anymore due to how home premium is marketed II) because of the talos links you shared, it looks like they have been sloppy with their coding in the past.

So I’ll switch to Defender even though the web dashboard is something that was very convenient as some family members don’t live close.

Why Defender?

- it’s non intrusive
- I trust Microsoft to write good code more than other AV vendors
- has good lab scores these days
- EMET equivalent for Windows 10

 

[stefanos]

I like the light solutions. I use 360 security or avast free. 360 is the lightest of all. He has enough good signatures and sandbox. i used it every time combo with voodooshield and osarmor. And the last two weeks i used avast free. Is light on my system. Have very good sugnatures, good BB and with syshardener combo is absolutely safe.

 

[TairikuOkami]

- it’s non intrusive ( doesn’t replace SSL certs etc ).

A great point there, it lowers security for no good reason. Kaspersky or Avast "nicely" prove, that it an non-resolvable ongoing issue.

Everything about HTTPS filtering in Adguard

 

[Andrew3000]

Kaspersky Internet Security, I think it's currently the best antivirus suite now.

 

[Eddie Morra]

Kaspersky Internet Security, I think it's currently the best antivirus suite now.

If you'd be willing to share more (of course you do not have to, and if you decide to, you can be selective on which ones you do want to answer).

1. What particular features of Kaspersky Internet Security appeal to you the most?
2. Do you know what makes Kaspersky stand out to you more as a vendor compared to others?
3. Do you personally think that Kaspersky's User Interface has any contribution to you wanting to stick with them over another vendor (instead of it just being based around the actual functionality of the service/s)?
4. Would you be willing to pay twice the amount you're currently paying for Kaspersky Internet Security, or would you switch to something else if this was the case? If so, who do you recon you'd try first as a switch alternative?
5. If Kaspersky had to drop one feature from the Internet Security, which one would you prefer it to be?
6. If Kaspersky had to add one feature to the Internet Security, what would you suggest for this feature to be, and why?
7. If you are not a single user on the environment you're using Kaspersky on, do you think it is friendly for any other users of the same environment? If not, why?
8. On average, how would you say Kaspersky affects the performance of your environment? Pretty badly, medium, or not even noticeably?

Just to be clear, I am trying to conduct some private research on what's trending/appealing to both novices and security software geeks among the security software market for Anti-Virus solutions targeted to home consumers. Which explains why I am interested in the answers to the questions above - no pressure.

 

[RoboMan]

ESET: lightness and malware signatures.

Everything else is cover by my anti-executable and common sense.

 

[Andy Ful]

On the old laptop which is used as a media player (Windows XP), I adopted Comodo Firewall ver. 8 (ver. 9 does not work properly), with autosandbox set to block. The system is not supported by Microsoft (no updates), so I do not use the TVL list.
On other family computers with Windows 10, I keep Windows Defender + Windows built-in security configured by H_C. I do not use 3rd party real-time security for compatibility reasons.
On one computer, I also use ShadowDefender for quick software tests and testing the system tweaks.

 

[509322]

1. What particular features of Kaspersky Internet Security appeal to you the most?

Ability to disable processes via an ON\OFF toggle switch.

2. Do you know what makes Kaspersky stand out to you more as a vendor compared to others?

Includes SRP\default-deny as a part of its protection stack.

3. Do you personally think that Kaspersky's User Interface has any contribution to you wanting to stick with them over another vendor (instead of it just being based around the actual functionality of the service/s)?

No. Their GUI suxx. It takes too many steps to navigate to the most often used windows.

4. Would you be willing to pay twice the amount you're currently paying for Kaspersky Internet Security, or would you switch to something else if this was the case? If so, who do you recon you'd try first as a switch alternative?

If Kaspersky doubled prices from $40 for 3 devices to $80 for 3 devices, then it would still be a good value. Current prices are unrealistically suppressed due to price wars and the fact that publishers are just too eager to do whatever it takes to get sales - thereby eroding their profitability. Publishers need to start raising prices and insisting that they get paid a realistic price for their product. People pay $150 for Office or Acrobat all day long, but won't even pay something as low as $40 for a decent security soft. The AV industry needs to start pushing back. If you price at the low-end, then your client base gets filled with bottom-feeders that will erode profits via excessive support requests. Overwhelmed support that doesn't get back to anyone for weeks is direct evidence of this. Either that or offer an independent, high-priced support plan. The days of free support included in the price of a soft are coming to an end. Take Microsoft for example, it is now a fee-only support provider for most of its products.

5. If Kaspersky had to drop one feature from the Internet Security, which one would you prefer it to be?

Parental Control

6. If Kaspersky had to add one feature to the Internet Security, what would you suggest for this feature to be, and why?

Ability for the user to pick-and-choose which modules to install. For example, a lot of people don't use mail clients or parental control and therefore it is a waste of space to install the modules.

Notifications for programs blocked by Application Control, added to restricted, or disabled by user. These infos are needed by the user. Right now there is no feedback except for TAM blocks. It should be an opt-in setting for the advanced users.

7. If you are not a single user on the environment you're using Kaspersky on, do you think it is friendly for any other users of the same environment? If not, why?

Kaspersky Internet Security is not particularly easy for a computer illiterate to cope with, however, it offers solid protection at default settings.

8. On average, how would you say Kaspersky affects the performance of your environment? Pretty badly, medium, or not even noticeably?

I have no problems with it. Then again I'm running all i7s with big RAM.

 

[Eddie Morra]

On one computer, I also use ShadowDefender for quick software tests and testing the system tweaks.

Despite this not being AV related, I do have a question if you're willing to answer.

Q: If a new feature was going to be added to Shadow Defender, what would you like that feature to be? If you cannot think of anything new you would want in it, then is there anything you'd want removed?

 

[notabot]

Are you after functional or non-functional requirements or both ? Or you’re just interested in the top few reasons which could be due to neither but eg trust in the brand ? I tend to pick software by checklist - happy to share the AV checklist here if you’re interested

 

[Eddie Morra]

Are you after functional or non-functional requirements or both ? Or you’re just interested in the top few reasons which could be due to neither but eg trust in the brand ? I tend to pick software by checklist - happy to share the AV checklist here if you’re interested

I'm interested in pretty much all of what you've said. Feel free to share anything - I'll take a look.

 

[marcopaone]

Norton. Definitely the best.

 

[ForgottenSeer 72227]

On my gaming rig:

WD with tweaked settings via configure defender.
Its built in
Will work with every version of windows 10 (future updates)
Not in your face
Has improved on its capabilities.

Laptop

Eset internet secuirty
Very light weight
Very good signatures
Very configurable
Low FP’s

 

[Nightwalker]

I am using ESET Internet Security 12.

1- It has a powerful web filter that makes browsing safer and more confortable.
2- Good signatures/heuristics with a low false positive rate.
3- Light , non obtrusive and very configurable.
4- Great PUA protection.
5- Good support and it is cheap where I live.

 

[Andy Ful]

Despite this not being AV related, I do have a question if you're willing to answer.

Q: If a new feature was going to be added to Shadow Defender, what would you like that feature to be? If you cannot think of anything new you would want in it, then is there anything you'd want removed?

I am so used to it, that I would not change anything. I am not sure about the new version, but in the older versions, committing the folders with many files was not optimized. So, If the user installed an application and wanted to commit the whole disk, then the changes were made for many hours.

 

[roger_m]

I'm currently using 360 Total Security Premium.

It is extremely light. It got noticeably lighter after the release of 10.0.0.1175 in August.
It prompts me whenever it detects a threat and lets me choose what to do, rather than auto quarantining and if it's a false positive or a PUP I want to keep, I can tell 360 to whitelist it.
The Premium license was cheap on eBay.