At 09:41 AM 28/12/2006, CW wrote:
or whatever dialup because of one basic reason: it's super
cheap. People who want to pay $15 or less a month stick with dialup
and find it just fine because all they want is email.
And that's all well and good. Here's the problem this creates for
Antivirus software.
Out of the box, first install:
Avast! daily update: 85k (about a minute or so on dialup)
Norton Internet Security 2007 out of box first update (as of
yesterday): 73MB. Over a dialup connection: HOURS
You're comparing Norton's first update vs Avast's daily
update. While I hate Norton and don't use it, that comparison is
completely invalid. What is Avast's first download plus their first
update? I'm sure it's smaller than Norton's pig of a download, but
once again, I wasn't talking Norton.
You have a very good point about the size of the downloads, but since
I wasn't discussing this, I'm not sure how it's relevant. NOD32's
downloads are small as are Sophos' downloads.
So, who do I think has more up to date antivirus? I seriously doubt
it's the person with the norton. Hell, even Symantec gets this and
in their corporate product, the MicroDefs downloads are small and daily.
Chris, you're taking the worst case (Norton) and then trying to use
it to disprove my argument (arguing, I guess, that free is always
better.) That's not realistic. I don't use or recommend Norton AV
products. No one in their right mind does. I'm arguing that if you
are going to bother with an AV at all, you might as well spend some
money and get the best you can. I base that argument on the
following: 1)AV isn't expensive - you spend $15 per month for the
Internet plus, say $500 for a computer. So you clearly have about
$680 to spend on computing in the first year. AV, (at approximately
$49 for NOD32) is 7% of that cost. Even after the first year a
renewal ($39 for NOD32) vs $180 for Internet is still only 22% of the
total cost of computing. If you can afford $15 a month, surely you
can afford an additional $4 a month for the best AV you can get (if
you prefer, you can get Kaspersky in place of NOD32, the prices are
virtually identical.)
Antivirus software is only as good as it's ability to quickly update
and recover. Avast! has small updates that can be retrieved or
quickly inserted even into a screwed up box. And it's
boot-time-scan provides it an outside of windows utility that does
an effective job of wiping out virus before windows restarts.
I would argue that an infected box is not repairable from within its
OS. Perhaps Avast is doing something no one else has been able to do
and is a much better AV. I haven't used it so I don't know - and I
don't have time to run regular comparitives against all AVs, so I
have to assume Virus Bulletin, AV Comparitives, etc do a good job of
doing that. Avast doesn't show well on AV-Comparatives - in the
August tests, it caught 2 out of 10 polymorphic and 91.69% of the
rest. NOD32 (which I'm simply using as an example since it is also a
lightweight AV) caught 8 out of 10 polymorphic and 98.61% of the
rest. In the November Pro-Active tests (an even better test, from
what I understand) Avast caught 18% and NOD32 caught 53%. I don't
see how anyone can compare the two.
Outside of a well updated BART, Avast provides one of the more
effective solutions to fixing a virus infected PC.
Any repair shop worth it's salt would be running an offline test of
some sort. I'm not talking about that situation. I'm talking about
the end user.
If you have a PC you know is infected, and you run out and buy NIS
or McAfee to save you, I wish you luck because you're going to end
up totally hosed. Because both of the products require a reboot
before they update, by the time you get back up into windows both
products tend to be pooched before you get a chance. And sustaining
a large download while you're infected, even on a broadband
connection is nigh impossible. Neither offer effective pre-boot
execution, and even if they did, since both of them shipped with
massive engine flaws (both have entirely new engines available for
download since they went out in retail box) even if you could get a
scan how accurate would it be?
Ok - I'm still not sure where Norton/McAfee came from - I certainly
didn't bring them up - and I would agree that there are better
options. But if you're infected, you take it to a shop, let them
clean it up and then put a good AV on. Or put on an AV before it
gets infected. Once again, this doesn't bear on my argument because
I'm not saying Avast is no good. I'm saying that any AV is so cheap,
you might as well spend money on one and make sure you are getting
the best rather than trying to do it on the cheap and hoping.
1) Is this an AV that can stay current with updates on it's own? An
AV that isn't current is worthless (to use your condom example: a
condom may be 98% or whatever, but leave one sit in a hot wallet for
weeks and it's worthless)
I never disagreed with this. I use NOD32 because it updates very
rapidly (checks every hour.) Kaspersky is supposed to have the
fastest updates, so I guess if that's the bench mark, then that might
be the one to use.
(2) Is this an AV that can effectively recover from being subject to a virus?
I never talked about this. I don't think that can be measured, in
any case. A virus could be built to specifically take out any
AV. That doesn't make the AV useless, just exposed.
(3) Is this an AV that the end user can understand and will not
turn off due to bells/whistles? (You don't know how many people
turn of McAfee or Norton altogether because of constant pop-ups and
reminders from their software offering them "other software" from NAI/Symantec)
Once again, I didn't argue that one AV was better than another. I
certainly NEVER argued that McAfee or Norton was better than
Avast. If you go back and read anything I've said in the last couple
of years on AVs, you'll see I use and recommend NOD32, which pretty
much solves all the things you are complaining about here. I also
know plenty about NAV and McAfee, and have pointed out the problems
with them repeatedly on this list. Stop treating me like a neophyte.
Your fundamental argument is: if you aren't using the best, you
might as well use nothing.
Wow, I must have been totally unclear. My argument was supposed to
be: If you can get X for free and Y is better but costs very little
more, go with Y. I recommend Open Office because it's free and MS
Office costs $250+. I recommend Audacity because Audition is around
$300. But any of the top AVs run around $50. That's chicken feed
when one compares it to the cost of the hardware, Internet access or
even the OS. So I can't see the value in free AVs that aren't as good.
By that token, I could argue that anyone who isn't using a
Packet-Level Antivirus Firewall scanner is completely wasting their time.
How much does one cost? Perhaps my argument fits here as well - but
of course, I wasn't talking about firewalls.
There are tons of people who pay for AV software I don't consider
very good. And tons of AV software out there for pay that isn't
very good (even in lab tests). Is Avast! etc. constantly "#1"
no. But is it real world effective? Far moreso then most of the
over-the-counter for purchase crap people run into at their local stores ;)
So since Avast free is better than Norton, that means no one should
ever spend money on AV software? That's insane. I think it's
reasonable to assume that Avast Pro (for pay) is better than Avast
free. If Avast Pro is in the $50 range, then my argument still holds.
You're argument appears to be: If some for pay AVs aren't as good as
Avast, then everyone should use Avast. I don't buy that argument,
but you're free to use whatever you like.
T
