eTrust EZ AV v. Avast! AV -- opinions please

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Ellis
  • Start date Start date
D

David Ellis

Norton AV realtime causes application start time to double. McAfee's
web site is not navigable, so far as I can tell. Avast! automatic
updates are infrequent. I'm familiar with the corporate version of
eTrust; it has a clean user interface and frequent automatic updates.
I don't need 25 copies. :=)

Assuming one is willing to buy the product and pay annual dues, which
of the AV programs is the best choice for a WinXP stand-alone computer
at home? Why?

--David
 
David said:
Avast! automatic updates are infrequent.

Is daily not frequent enough? <g> The program checks for new data
every four hours as well.

Additionally, Avast! data updates are very small, usually on the order
of only 3 to 6KB.
 
Is daily not frequent enough? <g> The program checks for new data every
four hours as well.

Additionally, Avast! data updates are very small, usually on the order of
only 3 to 6KB.

I am not terribly familiar with Avast but CA Etrust is very conservative
with what they define as a virus convered by their anti-virus updates and
spadware covered by their extra price product which handles spyware and
adware.

They also seem to be somewhat behind in timeliness of new detections
compared to McAfee.
 
Personally, I really like Trend Micro's PC-cillin suite. Very light on
resources. I was a NIS2005 user before, which quickly pushed me away from
Symantec.

Juan
<David Ellis> wrote in message
| Norton AV realtime causes application start time to double. McAfee's
| web site is not navigable, so far as I can tell. Avast! automatic
| updates are infrequent. I'm familiar with the corporate version of
| eTrust; it has a clean user interface and frequent automatic updates.
| I don't need 25 copies. :=)
|
| Assuming one is willing to buy the product and pay annual dues, which
| of the AV programs is the best choice for a WinXP stand-alone computer
| at home? Why?
|
| --David
 
Additionally, Avast! data updates are very small, usually on the order
of only 3 to 6KB.

Unless there is a repository of virus signatures from which AV
publishers can draw, it seems the quality of the latest signature file
retrieved would hinge on the budget size of the AV publisher. Aside
from running the AV software of choice for a long time without an
infection, how does one judge the quality of the signature shipment?
--D
 
<snip
I am not terribly familiar with Avast but CA Etrust is very conservative
with what they define as a virus convered by their anti-virus updates and
spadware covered by their extra price product which handles spyware and
adware.
By "conservative" do you mean eTrust will call something a virus when
other AV software may not?
--D
 
By "conservative" do you mean eTrust will call something a virus when
other AV software may not?
--D

The opposite of that. They reserve large categories of malware for their
extra price product compared to McAfee and AVG (which happen to be the
other two I am familiar with)
 
David said:
[Beauregard T. Shaghasty wrote:]
Additionally, Avast! data updates are very small, usually on the
order of only 3 to 6KB.

There were two updates in the last 12 hours. One of about 1.6KB and
one of about 3.1KB.
Unless there is a repository of virus signatures from which AV
publishers can draw, it seems the quality of the latest signature
file retrieved would hinge on the budget size of the AV publisher.
Aside from running the AV software of choice for a long time
without an infection, how does one judge the quality of the
signature shipment? --D

I doubt if the quality of the signature file has anything to do with
the *size* of the download. Or the budget of the publisher.

The size does depend upon the skills of the programmers. Avast is
smart enough to add new records to a local database (table) rather
than making you download the entire file every time a new virus record
is added.
 
As said:
Avast is smart enough to add new records to a local database
(table) rather than making you download the entire file every
time a new virus record is added.

Same with EZAV, version 7; you just download the patches.
 
Jafo said:
Same with EZAV, version 7; you just download the patches.

Ah, good for them. Smart. BTW, Avast has updated three times in the
last sixteen hours. Must be a busy day in Virusland. All small files,
of course. <g>

I like to think of them as "data updates". "Patches" sounds so ...
Windowszy.
 
The opposite of that. They reserve large categories of malware for their
extra price product compared to McAfee and AVG (which happen to be the
other two I am familiar with)
What is the "extra price product?"
 
David said:
[Beauregard T. Shaghasty wrote:]
Additionally, Avast! data updates are very small, usually on the
order of only 3 to 6KB.

There were two updates in the last 12 hours. One of about 1.6KB and
one of about 3.1KB.
Unless there is a repository of virus signatures from which AV
publishers can draw, it seems the quality of the latest signature
file retrieved would hinge on the budget size of the AV publisher.
Aside from running the AV software of choice for a long time
without an infection, how does one judge the quality of the
signature shipment? --D

I doubt if the quality of the signature file has anything to do with
the *size* of the download. Or the budget of the publisher.
The comment was about "budget size," not download size. If there 's no
connection between how well heeled the publisher is an the quality of
the signature file, what does determine the quality and how will I
recognize it? --D
 
The opposite of that. They reserve large categories of malware for their
extra price product compared to McAfee and AVG (which happen to be the other
two I am familiar with)

I realize it is bad form to reply to one's self, but I thought I would
expand on my comments.

Download yourself a copy of this crapware from our net.friends at
adsavior.com:

hxxp://adsavior.com/ads/banners//inst201.exe

Send a copy of this to (e-mail address removed), another to
(e-mail address removed).

CA will tell you:
FILE CONCLUSION
inst201.exe clean

The Windows PE (I386,EXE) file "inst201.exe" has been determined to be
clean.

Researcher comment:
Adware


NA (McAfee) will tell you:
inst201.exe |current detection |downloader-ue | trojan

You decide who to believe....
 
David said:
David said:
[Beauregard T. Shaghasty wrote:]

Additionally, Avast! data updates are very small, usually on
the order of only 3 to 6KB.

There were two updates in the last 12 hours. One of about 1.6KB
and one of about 3.1KB.
Unless there is a repository of virus signatures from which AV
publishers can draw, it seems the quality of the latest
signature file retrieved would hinge on the budget size of the
AV publisher. Aside from running the AV software of choice for
a long time without an infection, how does one judge the
quality of the signature shipment? --D

I doubt if the quality of the signature file has anything to do
with the *size* of the download. Or the budget of the publisher.

The comment was about "budget size," not download size. If there 's
no connection between how well heeled the publisher is an the
quality of the signature file, what does determine the quality and
how will I recognize it? --D

I understood what you meant by budget size. Your statement seems to
imply that a company that doesn't do billion-dollar business would be
less than worthy. I do not see a correlation between their budget and
their quality.

How will you recognize the quality? Test it against some known virus
files...

I've written some pretty worthy software myself over the years, and
I'm still working on my first million. <g> Gettin' closer, though.
 
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