[ACA529]

Hi all,

I purchased NOD32 a few months ago and I'm LOVING it. I recommend this antivirus for anyone. It's quiet, and it's fast. It will warn you if you have downloaded a virus (I have found that Norton doesn't do anything and neither does McAfee).

You can get the trial here: http://www.eset.com/download/index.php

[masterjim]

Originally Posted by Avianca

Hi all,

I purchased NOD32 a few months ago and I'm LOVING it. I recommend this antivirus for anyone. It's quiet, and it's fast. It will warn you if you have downloaded a virus (I have found that Norton doesn't do anything and neither does McAfee).

You can get the trial here: http://www.eset.com/download/index.php

I agree. Microsoft,Dell and Canon also use NOD32. Lightweight and fast.

[ferrija1]

That's just how they advertise it, lightweight and quick.

It's a great AV.

[espressoguy]

Have used it for 3 years.

[norton850]

I agree. I haven't decided yet if I like my Kerio firewall.

[ferrija1]

Nice sig, scatteredmin.

[jaymanson]

I'll always stand by my signature. I'm always interested in testing my protection further though, so I'd love to get some feedback on what I use. I have a mid-to-high spec PC, so I'm always interested to hear about better performing free apps. So far, since moving away from commercial security applications to free ones, I've had no problems (have previously lost some files thanks to ZoneAlarm Pro Security Suite).

I'd be grateful to anybody who'll help me test different combinations of free apps

Jay

[ferrija1]

jaymanson, there are some things wrong with your signature....

1. You shouldn't have more than one anti-virus app. running at one time. they can conflict and make things worse.

2. If you were running all those at the same time, you computer would be slower.

3. 100% security is impossible. Even with Sandboxie, it's impossible.

[jaymanson]

Originally Posted by ferrija1

jaymanson, there are some things wrong with your signature....

1. You shouldn't have more than one anti-virus app. running at one time. they can conflict and make things worse.

2. If you were running all those at the same time, you computer would be slower.

3. 100% security is impossible. Even with Sandboxie, it's impossible.

Hi ferrija1,

Thanks for your feedback. After my disaster with Zonealarm pro I do take security very seriously, so I'm grateful for any feedback!! Could you clarify some things for me though:

1) The only anti-virus I run is AVG so I'm not sure what you mean there? Spyware Terminator checks spyware / adware, Comodo is a firewall, and Cyberhawk is a HIPS system (protects against zero day attacks; i.e. suspicious behaviour rather than virus signature detection)

2) I personally have no slowdown issues - my PC is ready to go in 15-20 seconds from power-on. Like I said, I have a mid-high spec PC so I would be interested to hear what PCs run these applications with speed problems. I have tested this combination on a 533MHz PC with 128Mb RAM running XP pro to no major speed problems compared to normal startup. It's a PC I keep for testing web apps on a dial-up connection which I call 'The Dinosaur'

3) You're probably right there - I was chatting to a security advisor the other day about sandboxes and we've agreed that even they can be bypassed. For the most part, however, it's as close to 100% as you could possibly get. 100% security is only as attainable as the user who controls it, and we feel that users themselves likely create the majority of problems by their own actions!! A sandbox will contain all browser and application based attacks if used properly - as I said, I want some examples of where these things will fail!! Please give me more specifics rather than general statements! I'm a web designer with an above average understanding of other areas, but I'm not so pig-headed that I can't learn a few things!!

Jay

EDIT: I've now slightly modified my sig to reflect what I just said; i.e. sandboxing will not protect 100% on its own but layered with other security should do the job!! please prove me otherwise as I want to know!!

[ferrija1]

Originally Posted by jaymanson

1) The only anti-virus I run is AVG so I'm not sure what you mean there? Spyware Terminator checks spyware / adware, Comodo is a firewall, and Cyberhawk is a HIPS system (protects against zero day attacks; i.e. suspicious behaviour rather than virus signature detection)

Hmmmmm....

Protects against both known and zero-day viruses, worms, trojans, buffer overflows, rootkits and even some spyware.

It still has the conventional way built-in.

3) You're probably right there - I was chatting to a security advisor the other day about sandboxes and we've agreed that even they can be bypassed. For the most part, however, it's as close to 100% as you could possibly get. 100% security is only as attainable as the user who controls it, and we feel that users themselves likely create the majority of problems by their own actions!! A sandbox will contain all browser and application based attacks if used properly - as I said, I want some examples of where these things will fail!! Please give me more specifics rather than general statements! I'm a web designer with an above average understanding of other areas, but I'm not so pig-headed that I can't learn a few things!!

Jay

EDIT: I've now slightly modified my sig to reflect what I just said; i.e. sandboxing will not protect 100% on its own but layered with other security should do the job!! please prove me otherwise as I want to know!!

It still is a bit misleading (especially saying with Sandboxie and those anti-malware apps. give you 100% security), you may want to say something like a "strong layer of security" instead of 100%.

NOD32 is the best antivirus tool you can find on the internet at this time.

i recommend it to everyone.

[ACA529]

Out with the Norton that is annoying and uses up lot's of resources and doesn't do anything! -- In with the NOD32 that is quiet, and uses barely any resources, and is very good at detecting things.

[jaymanson]

Wow - to be honest I was so drunk when I typed that last post, I don't even really remember doing it If only I could actually speak that coherently when I'm pi$$ed

I'm still not convinced that I should not use an anti-virus program like AVG alongside a HIPS program like Cyberhawk. They both work in very different ways - AVG holds a database of specific virus signatures which it then checks against all files during a scan, while Cyberhawk does not hold any database or look for anything specific but rather watches out for suspicious behaviour in the system by any application, virus, spyware, etc.

AVG can only detect viruses when their signature is uploaded to the program via an update so that's why Cyberhawk is there to protect against these types of zero day attacks. However, it does not have the virus treatment abilities of an anti-virus application so I do still need AVG in place.

If you are using NOD32 then you are actually already running both AV and HIPS together - eset have just built HIPS into NOD32 and called it ThreatSense Technology. I've personally never used NOD32 but I'm sure it's a great AV, however all together those 4 applications I'm running right now are using less memory than this Firefox window I have open, and the kicker for me is that they are free

[ferrija1]

Originally Posted by jaymanson

I'm still not convinced that I should not use an anti-virus program like AVG alongside a HIPS program like Cyberhawk. They both work in very different ways - AVG holds a database of specific virus signatures which it then checks against all files during a scan, while Cyberhawk does not hold any database or look for anything specific but rather watches out for suspicious behaviour in the system by any application, virus, spyware, etc.

AVG can only detect viruses when their signature is uploaded to the program via an update so that's why Cyberhawk is there to protect against these types of zero day attacks. However, it does not have the virus treatment abilities of an anti-virus application so I do still need AVG in place.

If you are using NOD32 then you are actually already running both AV and HIPS together - eset have just built HIPS into NOD32 and called it ThreatSense Technology. I've personally never used NOD32 but I'm sure it's a great AV, however all together those 4 applications I'm running right now are using less memory than this Firefox window I have open, and the kicker for me is that they are free

They can still conflict.

I've personally never used NOD32 but I'm sure it's a great AV

Just like you say those 4 apps. are great....

[ACA529]

Yeah, running more than one AV's can easily conflict.