The Ever Changing World of Anti-Virus

So, every few years everyone has to pick a new player who is the best in the Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware market. I'm talking about the pay for business side not the free stuff. And it appears the decision has never been harder to make than it is today. We have seen spyware particularly invade computers supposedly protected by such industry touted solutions like AVG Business Edition, Symantec Endpoint Protection, and others lately. It seems nothing actually totally prevents these intrusions which often cause more down time than actual viruses!

Go too far and the actual software preventing viruses and spyware causes huge overload on the computers and server, which is just as bad as the spyware itself! We have seen Symantec Endpoint Protection dog out computers daily and cause them to be unusable.

Kaspersky, Norton, Avast, and others don't seem any better. In fact we have avoided Norton like the plague for years now.

The best thing I have found is NOT for business use, Microsoft Security Essentials. There is a business version but it requires a huge server investment just to get started. Malwarebytes is great to remove and prevent malware but does not cover virus and email activity. AVG has failed us by letting too many intrusions get by, and Symantec Endpoint is doggy.

So my question again goes to my wonderful beta testers in the world of gaming! YOU!!!

In your opinion, what solution best serves the needs of corporate anti-virus/anti-spyware and on what do you base your opinion?

Discuss....and thanks in advance for your opinions.
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eset nod32

http://www.eset.com/us/



What I want in a solution:

reliable, updated regularly, light weight, doesn't set off false alarms, blocks malicious web sites, helps prevent malware when possible, doesn't think my games are a hack, doesn't set off anti-cheat software

oh and I want the price for all of that to be as close to free as possible
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EVGA 980ti FTW
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Same as it's always been.

I don't run anything at all personally, Chrome w/ adblock and noscript pretty much covers everything.

For other uses, I still use Combofix more than anything else for repair, but no real clue on preventative software. Obviously I was there for AVG and Endpoint Protection. We use Kaspersky at the new job, but it hits the hard drive quite hard a couple of times a day. It's definitely better than some things, but worse than others. Haven't ever used nod32 but everything I've heard about it is good. The problem is that you'll never find a solution that truly prevents crap. The one thing we do that is absolutely effective is for some of the PD machines. Our PD officers have thin clients, they're set up to only be able to save to a certain location on the network and limited in what they can execute. Each time they log off the VM resets to it's original configuration.

The anti-virus/anti-malware game is one of catch up. The definitions will always be behind. Personally, the only real solution to the problem is education. People get this stuff because they don't know any better and until that changes it will always be an issue (and I know, that doesn't do TU any good.)

I still use Avast free and it seems to work damn well......that and Chrome on all my PC's and parents PC's seems to have prevented pretty much anything. Oh and putting the parents on Gmail etc and telling not to click links lol.
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detox wrote: eset nod32

http://www.eset.com/us/



What I want in a solution:

reliable, updated regularly, light weight, doesn't set off false alarms, blocks malicious web sites, helps prevent malware when possible, doesn't think my games are a hack, doesn't set off anti-cheat software

oh and I want the price for all of that to be as close to free as possible

For corporate I do not know. We use Sophos at work and it is almost worthless.

For personal I like the paid for real time Malwarebytes.
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Core i7 4790K
16GB GSkill 1866
Geforce GTX 970

ESET NOD32 is the only solution I've come to trust and trust completely.

Years ago I made a stupid decision to install a sketchy version of Symantec Corporate AV on my wife's then Windows Vista machine. It cratered and I suspected that it dumped shit on my network. I'd been using SAV set like a drill sargent, updating regularly, scanning weekly on all my network drives. When SAV missed the infected sketchy file before install I looked elsewhere. My brother recommended ESET because of its speed, fast updates, its speed, lightweight, and mostly its speed...

I bought it on his recommendation, installed it on my workstation and started scanning 4 SATA drives, all with their own scan windows open. I was HAMMERING my system the point that Firefox (pre-Chrome days) took minutes to open, and the entire time my CPU usage was less than 5%. Their scanning engine is written in assembly language (heard from rumor) and is awesome. Within a few hours it found something like 18 viruses dormant in files that SAV had completely missed. They weren't system infections but files I had obtained that had sketchy things inside. SAV should have caught them, no excues for them.

The interface is easy to live with, it doesn't throw ads all over itself like some of the free AV software. It has a lot of client protection layers and catches script hacks in all the browsers. It will even tell me if my OS is out of date. You can get a license pack from NewEgg on sale every couple weeks for cheap, like 4 computers for $30/year.

If you haven't used it, try it. You'll come back and thank me (us). For what its worth, I'm still using just the AV solution, NOD32, but they do have a firewall integrated version that is about the same price if you get it on sale.

They have a full corporate version that is reasonably priced and provides a REALLY robust server component. I think I paid about $300 for 5 computers, the server, for 3 or 5 years.

Microsoft Security Essentials is awesomesauce. I'm sorry to hear it's a hassle for business use. It works so well, and doesn't invade what I do from day to day.
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Advocating the end of the world since July 1995.

Wait, WTF, people are actually saying M$ made something that is NOT utter shit?
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K-SWISS Power cologne. Who knew you could bottle the scent of boner?

Thanks Sevnn. I'll give it a try.

MSE is indeed awesome but it's not for corporate, it is for 10 computers or less from what I understand, then it is a license violation above that.

I'll check out NOD32.
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Fatal0E wrote: For corporate I do not know. We use Sophos at work and it is almost worthless.

For personal I like the paid for real time Malwarebytes.

Nothing should interact with Lotus.

Least of all people.

no comment
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Anreill wrote: Nothing should interact with Lotus.

Least of all people.

Menos wrote:

Anreill wrote: Nothing should interact with Lotus.

Least of all people.

Agreed. The FAA is finally moving off of Lotus to MS. We're going to be using their cloud for government solution.

Every year Lotus Notes is the number one complaint in the employee feedback stuff.

Speaking of NOD32 family security packs for sale... 5 pack for 19.99 from the egg.. I know it's newegg but this isn't a bad deal.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832114014&nm_mc=EMC-EXPRESS032313&cm_mmc=EMC-EXPRESS032313-_-EMC-032313-Index-_-SecurityUtilitiesSoftware-_-32114014-L07B

+ $60 off w/ promo code EMCYTZT3141, ends 3/24

Menos wrote: Agreed. The FAA is finally moving off of Lotus to MS. We're going to be using their cloud for government solution.

Every year Lotus Notes is the number one complaint in the employee feedback stuff.

I'm just a user so all I know is what I've heard in the grapevine. My understanding is it will by MS hosted. Their cloud for gov is supposedly fully compliant with all of the relevant regulations.
I could be completely off base though.

We use Sophos at work. I don't know of any outbreaks so it has protected us, but my experience as a user has been pretty poor. Scans bring our machines to their knees, configuration seems cryptic, updates are not smooth, and in general I despise it.