Sophos antivirus review

You probably haven't come across Sophos antivirus, because it's enterprise software, which means the company's target consumers are small- to large-scale organizations instead of home users.

I'm generally against 'elitist' software like these, but Sophos seems to have a loyal customer base so I thought it deserved a review. I've been using Sophos for almost six months now; I don't like it, and the only reason I still have it is because my university gives me a free copy. Read the rest on AV Scan

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AV Scan is up

I've finally relocated my anti-virus related articles to their own new blog: http://avscan.blogspot.com. Now it should be easier looking up reviews than on techqi; I'm leaving the old posts as they were with a note mentioning the change. I intend to transform techqi to a sort of webzine in the near future. Hm, what do I do next?

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Antivirus reviews 2008 (part 3)

This is part 8 in my Optimizing Broadband|Windows|Firefox series and part 3 of my review of this year's antivirus software. Concluding episode covering free antivirus apps.[Antivirus software reviews: jump to avast! Antivirus 4.7.1098 Home Edition review | Avira Antivir 7.06.00.268 Personal Edition Classic review | AVG Anti-Virus 7.5.516 Free Edition review | Conclusion | part 1 | part 2 | Anti-spyware reviews | Firewall reviews | this is part of a series on optimizing broadband, Windows and Firefox: here's the intro page with the table of contents.]
Note: I no longer update this page. For an updated and easily navigable version, check out AV Scan.


Free antivirus software have certainly come a long way, and can no longer be ignored on grounds of incompetence. I've had free antivirus succeeding in situations where the big names all gave way. Here are the top 3 antivirus software:


avast! Home Edition
Alwil product page | top

The latest version of avast (v4.7.1098) is reportedly very good. I have friends who are long time users of avast, and they're happy with it. I myself used it for a couple of weeks. It's good: it has a good boot-time scanner, and it's much better catching viruses and malware now. It's light on system resources, too. avast is clearly the best free antivirus out there, although I can't really say it's as good as a decent paid antivirus (it did, however, catch worms that Norton and an older version of McAfee missed). avast's download servers aren't the best (or at least the ones they have in Asia aren't); like all free antivirus software, their real-time scanner needs improvement; and once it's running on your PC you'll get lots of false alerts (mostly update-related). I had a very weird problem with a previous version of avast (v4.6; I forgot to test it on the latest one): I use a DD-MM-YY date format on my computer, but avast seems to recognize only MM-DD-YY. As a result I couldn't use the software after a point; avast kept reminding me that my license had expired. I wrote to Alwil (the company) about it more than once, but didn't get a reply. The problem wasn't fixed in the upcoming weeks, so I decided I had had enough. The avast icons, spinning on their own (one of them) in the system tray, is a sight that I can't stand (why do you need to have spinning, bloated-looking icons?). And although avast has many skins available, the interface needs to be much more intuitive.
Summary: decent detection rate, light on system resources; poor interface, support is poor
Price: free


Avira AntiVir PE Classic
Avira product page | top

Let me put it this way: AntiVir is a good free antivirus, but it suffers from some issues avast doesn't. (I felt) AntiVir had a better detection rate than avast (contrary to the reviews you'll read), or is just as good. The interface is nice, the red umbrella icon is pleasing, and the real-time scan is definitely better than avast. The latest version (v7.06.00.268) is, unfortunately, buggier than the previous one. My MSN Messenger refused to run anymore once I installed AntiVir; the website is agonizingly non-intuitive; it takes ages to run the complete scan, and worse, it alerts you when it finds a virus and refuses to move on until you've specified an action. The last feature alone is enough to turn off many users.
Summary: good/decent detection engine, nice interface; buggy, slow scan speed, have to treat infections one at a time
Price: free


AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
AVG Technologies product page | top

AVG is, quite frankly, the most popular free antivirus out there. According to reviews, it has a good detection rate and offers solid protection. From my experience, it's horrible, and its popularity and critical acclaim (5 stars by CNet and a VB100% award) is one of my great software junkie mysteries. It can't catch viruses, and seems to avoid malware altogether. It's not really RAM intensive, but definitely is heavier on system resources compared to AntiVir or even avast. AVG Technologies (formerly Grisoft) isn't really responsive to virus outbreaks, and the updates dealing with a particular situation often appear too late. Last but not the least, the interface gets the job done, but seriously, seriously needs cosmetic surgery.
Summary: poor detection rate, updates aren't up-to-date, ugly interface
Price: free


Conclusion | top
It's clear that the bigshots in the game are rapidly losing ground. McAfee and Norton users are already switching to newbies like Kaspersky. Kaspersky, NOD32, F-Secure and BitDefender are all excellent software, although excessive RAM consumption seems to be an incurable trait of antivirus applications themselves. It's also interesting to note that it's getting harder to pinpoint a clear winner anymore -- the distinction between a good and great antivirus is not so distinct. I'm especially surprised at McAfee's situation: in recent times they've come up with a great Site Adviser tool that enjoyed tremendous popularity, but the company simply hasn't managed to cash on it.

All the big names in the antivirus arena have flopped big time. McAfee still suffers from a stupid interface and RAM consumption issues, Norton has its bugs and uninstallation problems and Trend Micro's track record is so bad of late that nobody's even bothered to give it a try. Some antivirus software that have been around for a while, such as Panda, are yet to hit the mark. Kaspersky is clearly poised to become the next major antivirus brand. It's received excellent reviews and users are rarely unhappy with it. The only competitor that can really be a threat to Kaspersky is NOD32, which has perhaps already surpassed Kaspersky's virtues. BitDefender has suddenly raised the bar for all antivirus software by offering a substantially cheaper price tag. You can almost be sure there'll be a trend of all major brands being forced to lower prices as well, which is a good thing for us users. Kaspersky needs to lower its price if it wants to hold on to its ambitions, and F-Secure will remain as underrated if it doesn't come cheaper.

On the free front, my advice: don't use free antivirus software unless you absolutely have to. Despite what you might have heard or read, they're not as good as their paid counterparts. Real-time scanning is an area they need to concentrate on, and the lack of finesse they all seem to suffer from is something that should have been solved a long time ago. If you're absolutely cash-strapped, tryout avast and AVG to find out which best suits you.

I missed out on some brands: CA (formerly eTrust EZ Antivirus), Comodo and BitDefender Free. I haven't tried any of them, although it's worth pointing out that Comodo is still in beta and BitDefender Free is only an on-demand scanner. You can also scan your computer for viruses free online from Trend Micro, Panda, and BitDefender websites; I tried Trend Micro and BitDefender's online scans but they always terminated prematurely due to one issue or another.

All that being said, it really depends on what antivirus best suits your computer. Read the reviews and decide for yourself. If I were you, I'd go for NOD32. I currently use Kaspersky but am planning not to renew my subscription, due to the problems I mentioned. If you're on a budget, go for BitDefender.

Next: anti-spyware, adware, registry cleaners and such

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Antivirus reviews 2008 (part 2)

This is part 7 in my Optimizing Broadband|Windows|Firefox series and part 2 of my take on this year's antivirus software. Covers NAV, McAfee and Trend Micro.[Antivirus software reviews: jump to Norton Antivirus 2008 review | McAfee VirusScan Plus with SiteAdvisor 2008 review |
Trend Micro AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware review | part 1 | part 3 | Anti-spyware reviews | Firewall reviews | this is part of a series on optimizing broadband, Windows and Firefox: here's the intro page with the table of contents.]

Note: I no longer update this page. For an updated and easily navigable version, check out AV Scan.

This brings us to the biggies, and Norton is probably the biggest antivirus brand that's out there, so let's start with that.

Norton Antivirus
Symantec product page | top

Symantec has this habit of coming up with minor variations of Norton every year: they're more or less the same, or only rarely significantly improved (some say v2007 was a leap ahead). Norton can be a real pain at times: some of its updates have reportedly been chaotic (a bit like Windows in that department, eh), and from my experience, it's poor at catching viruses; the excellent/good reviews it keeps getting every year is perhaps due to Symantec's aggressive marketing policies than anything else. I've used Norton longer than any other software (yes, any kind of software). The current version is 2008, but its update servers are, still, slow; and since its the bestselling antivirus in the world, all the hackers seem to be intent on exploiting its weaknesses. Moreover, its uninstallation process is (and has always been) terrible: it just won't remove all the files, so you have to do that manually. And, it's more RAM-hungry than many of the newbies that do the job much better.
Summary: grossly overrated antivirus, poor detection rate, uninstallation process doesn't remove files.
Price: $39.99 (1 user)


McAfee VirusScan Plus
McAfee product page | top

McAfee could certainly have boasted at one point of time for having bested Norton in popularity rankings. We used to think it was the most 'solid' antivirus program out there, and we were right back then. But excessive RAM congestion has always been McAfee's prime dislikeable feature. Even today if you're running McAfee on an average PC, you'll surely notice an overall performance drop in your desktop experience. Most other antivirus software have improved greatly, and McAfee can't really claim it's the best or hardest on viruses anymore -- probably in any department. The interface badly needs a sensibility implant (you'll get cautioned if you don't have McAfee Internet Security or Parental Control on). Perhaps the company needs such an implant too: how else would you explain failing to cash on the very useful and popular SiteAdvisor tool? And of course, SiteAdvisor alone can't be enough to hope users will stick around with the antivirus. Among the improvements, McAfee scans links while you're chatting away on AOL or Yahoo IM (though it doesn't support the latest versions till date). Funny: McAfee won't scan your computer upon installation, but once installed will proclaim you're protected.
Summary: good detection rate, can scan links within some IMs; the big daddy of RAM hogs, clumsy interface.
Price: $39.99 (1 user)


Trend Micro AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware
Trend Micro product page | top

You might not think of PC-Cillin as one of the antivirus superweights, but a few years back TrendMicro had certainly won the hearts of many with its flagship product. Today the name has changed (it's ugly and longish), but it's still fast, and installs like a breeze. Updating is easy -- but the update server seemed slow. I remember trying everything I could sometime last year to clean my PC of a worm infection. PC-Cillin found it, but couldn't fix or delete it. In other words, the virus seemed to take over PC-Cillin in a snap, because after that PC-Cillin couldn't even find it! I didn't have the same virus on my computer, so I couldn't check how v2008 fared against it. In general, Trend Micro products have a history of failing to detect old viruses; even macro and boot viruses. The latest version has got a facelift, can scan links while chatting within AOL and Yahoo IMs (supports latest versions), seems faster, and certainly nails malware better. Independent reviewers haven't really shown much interest in reviewing Trend Micro yet, so you can't find any data on the internet. In other words, there's no statistical evidence that this antivirus performs better than another. From my experience, it feels like a much-improved piece of software.
Summary: good detection rate, can scan links within some IMs, good interface, fast; lack of performance data
Price: $39.95 (1 user)

Next: what's the best antivirus out there? (part 3: freebies and conclusion)

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Antivirus reviews 2008 (part 1)

This is part 6 in my Optimizing Broadband|Windows|Firefox series -- and is part 1 of my take on this year's antivirus software. Non-geeky and honest.[Antivirus software reviews: jump to BitDefender Antivirus 2008 review | Kaspersky Anti-virus 7.0 review | ESET NOD32 Antivirus 3.0 review | ZoneAlarm Antivirus review | Panda Antivirus 2008 review | F-Secure Anti-Virus 2008 review | part 2 | part 3 | Anti-spyware reviews | Firewall reviews | this is part of a series on optimizing broadband, Windows and Firefox: here's the intro page with the table of contents.]

Note: I no longer update this page. For an updated and easily navigable version, check out AV Scan.

Intro
Linux users are lucky: there aren't really many viruses that target them. Even Mac folks don't have to lose sleep over virus attacks too often. But life for us Windows people is different. Much of our digital worries hover about the possibility that a single malicious program could turn the world upside down.

To make sure I'm insured for the next digital doomsday, over the past few weeks I've checked out all the major brands of antivirus software, including free antivirus software (all latest versions till date). My poor PC had to go through a horrible degree of abomination, but in the end my finds were sure worth it. First of all, you should know that

• this isn't a data-centric report. I neither have the intention nor the resources to come up with that kind of thing (you can check out Download.com, About.com, Consumer Search, PC Magazine and PC World for stats; amazingly, the test results differ across these reviews even when they're using the same parameters. Also, google to look up a particular antivirus version review).
• what I've come up with is a plain-talk user account. However, I've tested (read 'applied') different home user versions of standalone antivirus software on my PC under the same conditions (courtesy of Acronis TrueImage; OS: Windows XP).
• all prices mentioned are in US$ and generally include a 1-year virus definitions subscription.

All the major reviews this year seem to be bent on hailing BitDefender or Kaspersky. You should know that each year it's different; a few years back the tussle was between Norton and McAfee, and after that PC-Cillin and Kaspersky broke in. There always seems to be a general drift towards celebrating a particular antivirus brand. But trust me: they're almost always wrong. Or they do all their testing on alien PCs (no pun intended).


BitDefender
BitDefender product page | top



This year's champ won many hearts with its price tag: a one year subscription for 3 users (yes, that wasn't a typo) costs only $23.96. BitDefender is a vastly improved product in its current incarnation (the current version is 2008), although version 9 (the last one I used) was good too. BitDefender did a good job cleaning up my PC; it looks sleek these days, and scan speed seems to have slightly improved. However, my chief complaint against BitDefender is it eats up a lot of your RAM. And a hell lot: in fact, if you're using an older machine you might even think your PC has crashed for good (I tested it on a 2.0 -something GHz Celeron, and it's going to curse me for the rest of its days).
Summary: good detection rate, great price tag, improved interface; slow scan speed, RAM hog.
Price: $23.96 (for 3 users)


Kaspersky
Kaspersky Labs product page | top


I've used Kaspersky since its infancy, and the thing I like about it is the way it updates its database. Kaspersky responds to security threats fast, and scans all Internet traffic in real time to block viruses before they are saved to disk. Kaspersky isn't impenetrable, as its fans (including myself) used to believe. But then again that faith stems from the fact that it's so good at catching viruses -- if not the best. It scans well and fast (unless you're using the highest settings), and one might argue that the relatively high $59.95 price tag for a single user license is worth it. The interface is better than before, but could be better; it seems to eat up more RAM than its previous versions. The problem with Kaspersky is an almost silly one: its update mechanism often fails, leaving you in minutes of sluggish online experience; worse, it will then keep nagging you even if your virus database is only a few days old, making the situation seem much worse than it really is (many users, especially people who use dial-up, rely completely on weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly virus definitions downloads). The situation really gets on your nerves when you discover that Kaspersky is downloading all the files it needs, but somehow can't update its database. While you can adjust the way Kaspersky updates, it's worth pointing out that the auto-update is perhaps its prime feature. You get the idea. The latest version is 7.0.
Summary: good detection rate, quick to respond to virus outbreaks; update mechanism acts weird at times, eats more RAM than previous versions, interface could be better.
Price: $59.95 (1 user)


NOD32
ESET product page | top


You might have heard a lot of praise for NOD32: professional virus testers use NOD32, and its virus detection engine is considered the industry benchmark. It really is that good. It's not heavy on RAM, and the updating process works like a charm. Most review magazines have long blamed NOD32 for its unintuitive interface, but version 3 and over fare better in that department. I feel NOD32's interface shortcomings was (and continues to be) much exaggerated. Eset (the makers of NOD32) recommend Eset Smart Security for home users, which includes a firewall and costs $59.99 for a one-year single user license. I'd suggest you go ahead with just the NOD32 Antivirus (v3.0), which costs $39.99, and use it alongside a stand-alone firewall.
Summary: great detection rate, good update mechanism, latest interface is much more intuitive, light on system resources.
Price: $39.99 (1 user)


ZoneAlarm Antivirus
Check Point product page (antivirus) (security suite) | top


ZoneAlarm is perhaps best known as a great firewall, but these days the company (Check Point) has started offering an antivirus as well. It's essentially a variant of Kaspersky (version 6.0?), but it's not as good. It scanned really, really slowly; it doesn't have enough options for scans; it fared poorly in cleaning up registry entries generated by malware; it came up with false alerts (an area where other antivirus programs have improved greatly); and I really can't trust Check Point on effective user support or disaster management, because they're into firewalls, not antivirus software (and, the antivirus they made sucks). The only reason I'm discussing ZoneAlarm Antivirus at all is it's part of the ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite (v7.1) -- and the bundle comes pretty cheap at $49.95.
Summary: good detection rate, not heavy on the wallet (as part of the ZA Security Suite); slow scan speed, can't clean up leftover registry entries, lacks scanning options, Vista support issues.
Price: $29.95 (1 user); $49.95 for ZA Security Suite (1 user)


Panda
Panda Software product page | top


I liked the looks of Panda Antivirus: any antivirus software that's called 'panda' deserves praise :D Panda Antivirus (v 2008) installs quickly, and its real-time scanner is good and even underrated. But the good part stops there. Panda doesn't seem to respond to new threats quickly enough, and once installed, your PC takes an annoying while to boot (not to mention the panda head icon that appears on the bottom-right corner of your screen and gets on your nerves soon enough. You might even end up appreciating pandas less). Independent reviewers seem to be uninterested in Panda as well, which makes it hardly a popular choice. Worst part: Panda eats up a lot of your RAM.
Summary: good detection rate, affordable; slow scan speed, RAM hog extraordinaire.
Price: $39.95 (for 3 users, 1 year)


F-Secure
F-Secure product page | top



I ended up using F-Secure for almost the entire trial period. The new version is massively improved and it detects viruses fairly well (reviews have traditionally underrated F-Secure's engine). It updates quickly and frequently (in small files, a lot like Kaspersky) too. The reason I gave up on it is it eats up a lot of RAM. In that respect, it shares the same curse as BitDefender. It's also pricey.
Summary: good detection rate, good update mechanism; pricey, RAM-intensive.
Price: $97 (for 3 users; the price is actually €65.90 on the company website)

Next: (part 2: the biggies)

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