Kaspersky v Norton

meggsy

I've been using Norton Internet Security 2007 and yesterday upgraded free to 2010 although I had been looking around to change.

Very impressed already, it looks good and as nuttyslackass says it is not slow any more

Chipping

anewhope wrote: »

The main problem with all in one suites such as what Norton offer is that they offer very little real world protection, but they're wrapped up with so much that a consumer is left with very little clue about what is effective and what is not. Everything other than the virus scanner in an all in one suite is ineffective and not necessary. That goes for phising filters and firewalls.

Most of the simple and free anti virus programs are more than sufficient, and changing your DNS servers to point at OpenDNS will give you an additional layer of security that will protect you from phising, you do not need the overhead of link checkers to do that for you.

Software firewalls, especially those that are host-based, are ineffective full stop. They offer no additional protection but give the overall impression they do. A false sense of security is worse than having no security at all.

Totally agree with you with the first part.:beer: Unfortunately, not with the last bit.:o

The anti-virus is only meant to prevent dodgy software from entering/running on your system and any malicious changes, it is not meant to prevent intruders from breaking into your system or from stealing your data over a network. That is what the software firewall is for. The two things go together to provide proper security.

If you have a gateway router with a firewall in it (and other things such as NAT), you are reasonably secure from intrusions from the Internet, but I don't think its enough, especially if you have a home network.

What happens when your PC becomes exposed to the Internet by accident (gateway set-up badly, broken into, or bypassed)? The gateway does not protect you from attacks from your local network. You could get an intruder accessing your local network, maybe through wireless - in which case your PC would be exposed. Also, the anti-virus will not prevent a piece of seemingly 'genuine' software that you install and run, without being aware, which then starts sending all your details over the network/Internet (method used by organised criminals).

You need the software firewall to protect from all these - it checks what is being sent over the network and to where from your PC - the anti-virus will not and the gateway will not. Ofcourse, if your firewall throws up a warning and you don't answer it correctly - you are no longer protected. Then your comments about the firewall being useless become true.

PHISHING
Although some software firewalls can block websites if you tell them to, they generally do not try to protect you from Phishing attacks (where some website or email pretends to be your bank or other and you send them personal details). Privacy protection can warn you when your personal details are being sent over the network (if its set-up correctly), and web browser 'Phishing filters' can warn you that a website is dangerous.

:T Your OpenDNS suggestion is an excellent one to help prevent Phishing. You can also use it to control the sites your children can access (definitely an essential thing).

cajef

nuttyslackass wrote: »

Don't use kaspersky... It'll cause you network printer problems and email (outlook) problems, it's difficult to use if your a little unsure with comps.

Well that is a new one, I have been using Kaspersky for several years, now on the 2010 version and I have never had any network printer or outlook email problems.

Chipping

Its a long post but here I've tried to simplify the results of the various comparison sites to help readers, because it takes time to go through the sites to understand them. Please don't interrogate me about the 'results' I've put here - they are gross simplifications so are not fully accurate but they do (I believe) give a general idea of the results from the web sites. If you have time, go to the sites and judge for yourself.

Also note, the sites here test either firewalls or anti-virus - most of the popular products, such as Norton and Kaspersky, supply a suite of security programs that include both a firewall and anti-virus.


https://www.av-comparatives.org
This site regularly tests ANTI_VIRUS products for security, mistakes, and scanning speed (it was already mentioned by MoneySaver 'iviv').
summary-reports, main-tests, performance-tests

There are a lot of things tested here - its not just about detecting malware, e.g. how many times falsely identified malware (false positives) - which is a big security problem because users will start ignoring genuine alerts if there are too many.

They test every quarter and the summary results show their product of the year at the end of every year. Here are the winners: 2008 Avira, 2007 ESET, 2006 ESET, 2005 Kaspersky, 2004 Kaspersky. In 2009 its looking like ESET again, however, Kaspersky & Norton are close, Avira having fallen behind.

I've done a quick & nasty (& v.oversimplified) analysis & ranking of some of the products (selected as they are popular or stand out or are mentioned in this thread) as follows (1, 2 & 3 points allocated to 'standard', 'advanced' & 'advanced+' ratings and points added together for the 2 year rankings):

2009: 1. ESET, 2. Kaspersky/Norton, 3. McAfee, 4. Avast!/Avira/F-Secure, 5. Microsoft, 6. AVG
2009+2008: 1. ESET, 2. Avira/Kaspersky/Norton, 3. Avast!/McAfee, 4. AVG, 5. Microsoft, 6. F-Secure


https://www.matousec.com
This site regularly tests how secure FIREWALLS are and publishes the overall result in a nice table: products-ratings

The results are interesting: of the ones relevant to this thread Kaspersky is great (96%), Norton is so-so (66%) and not recommended. ESET, McAfee, Avira, F-Secure, and a load of others are 10% or below. Interestingly, Online Armor, Comodo, Outpost and PCTools *all free* are all at the top with 92% to 99% and rated 'excellent'.


https://www.passmark.com
This site tests the speed only of some functions of some ANTI-VIRUS products (as already mentioned by 'emmalj').

Here is their ranking (done Sep/09):
1. Norton (146), 2. ESET (131), 3. Kaspersky (119), 4. G Data (110), 5. SourceNext (101), 6. AVG (90), 7. Panda (89), 8. Trend Micro (77), 9. McAfee (69), 10. F-Secure (65).

These results, although showing the latest Norton to be quick, only show that it is quick for a subset (a large subset) of functions. They also show that there's very little difference in overall speed between Norton, ESET and Kaspersky. Functions, such as, slowing down of sending/receiving email, memory hogging during scanning, and slowness of shutting the PC down, have not been measured. In addition, the relative performance may be different on single processor PCs and PCs running something other than Windows Vista.

In the Passmark results a whole bunch of products (as per other sites above) have not been included, so these results are of limited usefulness to Moneysavers.


My opinon for 2009 products based on the above:
For anti-virus there does not seem to be much in it between ESET, Kaspersky and Norton.

For firewalls only Kaspersky and some of the free ones seem to stand up to the task, all the others are not recommended.

For speed, its anyone's guess. The one test above shows Norton, ESET and Kaspersky again being similar, however, there could be quicker products from the many that were not tested. I've use the FREE Online Armor firewall and Avast! anti-virus on a resource limited laptop and they appear quick (un-intrusive).

Final verdict seems to be any of: Kaspersky suite, ESET AV + top firewall, Norton AV + top firewall, or to save money Avast! AV + free top firewall. Top or free top firewall here being Online Armor, Comodo, PCTools or Outpost. I know Comodo throws up a lot of warnings initially that might annoy some users.

Money_Grabber13579

emmalj wrote: »

Hi, hope you don't mind me jumping in here. I work for Norton, and we're really interested to hear your feedback. We actually agree with many of you - a few years ago our software was really slow, and customers weren't happy. So we completely re-engineered the software and now we have third party independent testers showing that Norton 2010 is the fastest internet security software available - this report can be seen at passmark.com

Like many of you say, however, it's down to personal choice and personal need. If you want a internet security suite that protects you against phishing, trojans, spyware, malicious websites and other threats, has a firewall, and has customer support as part of the product, then (obviously) we'd recommend something like our software. There are many options out there though and lots of reviews so do take a look at Passmark or Av-comparatives or the computing magazine websites for reviews and pick the software that suits you.

Thanks... Emma

You work for both Norton and Yell.com? I smell SPAM. (See her other post for info on what I'm talking about!)

Chipping

digitig wrote: »

Dr_Beaker wrote: »

Sorry Emma, Customer support is useless, it's now done from India and they appear to be totally incompetent, if the fault is outside their checklist, as was the case with me, they haven't a clue what to do.

Dr. Beaker.

I have found Norton technical support second to none, and is one of the things that keeps me with Norton. First line support seems limited to checklists, as you say (which does the trick a lot of the time), but when they run off the end of the checklist they escalate the problem to second line support who really know what they're doing. Why is the fact that it's from India relevant? Their English fluency is fine -- sounds a bit racist to me.

Dealing with foreign support sites is frustrating as Dr Beaker already pointed out and the majority of them are in India -no racism here, their methods are set-up by Brits & Yanks to save themselves money (and their english has been excellent). My experience with foreign support has been very poor - at best a waste of my time in virtually every case. To the point that I would urge anyone to avoid using the product of any company that uses them (Norton???). :mad:

I know its not me, I am courteous on the phone, and do what they tell me. But, when they start to fob me off by telling me to call a free support centre in the US, even after I tell them I'm in the UK and it won't be free for me as its an international call, I know I'm being taken for a ride. I have never had my problem escalated by them, even when I have requested to speak to a supervisor (usually it turns out that they suddenly are the supervisor!).

Rant over. :silenced:

Chipping

Final tip: when installing the big suites that come with Kaspersky, Norton and the like avoid installing all the 'nifty' little things they bundle with them, unless you absolutely need them. Those things can slow your computer down and sometimes they can't be got rid of later without uninstalling the whole thing.

For example, the email scanner is not needed if your email is already scanned by your ISP before it gets to you (and the virus scanner and spyware scanner will pick up anything it misses). The network protection usually does very little indeed apart from slow down your network and prevent you from doing things you want. The phishing filter is already provided by a number of web browsers anyway (e.g. IE7) so don't need to install a nasty intrusive version. If you're not going to load up your privacy protection with the information you want protected (e.g. credit cards, addresses) there's no point installing it. Back-up software - get a free one...etc, etc.

Hope this is still appropriate to the thread.

DKLS

There isnt enough money on the planet for me to install Norton again.

Eric_Pisch

I have used AVG free for nearly 4 years on my home PCs and never had an infection (i support over 500 PCs and 10 servers) in conjunction with spybot search and destroy and firefox with no scripts installed (and windows update on)

Norton's a funny old thing, many of our 100+ laptops come with it pre installed and its an absolute resource hog / bloatware monster, and it gets defeated alot.

Ironcily there server side products are extremely good.

sharkfin_2

What about McAfee. Any thoughts