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________________________________ From: Tim Vander Kooi To: NT System Admin Issues Sent: Thu Jul 03 14:14:36 2008 Subject: RE: Your fav AV? I must admit that I have never had to make a call to PSS for support, I use the forums (Microsoft’s, Sunbelt’s, and others) for help when I need it. And honestly the contract with Microsoft isn’t really any more expensive than support contracts with any software company. I know that my maintenance costs per year for NOD had gone through the roof the past 3 years. It was very cheap when I originally made my purchase, but it went up considerably once they moved to v.2 and v.3. From: Andy Shook [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:33 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Your fav AV? For me, that’s the reason I haven’t gone to FF and DPM; the cost of PSS. I think it would be wicked cool to see both products in production but what options do I have if need help after exhausting online resources? Plop down $225 per incident or a very expensive contract? I don’t think so. Not to mention the time needed to research issues. As a one man IT shop, sometimes I’ll call support quickly and farm the issue to them b\c I don’t have the cycles to spare. FWIW, one of my good friends/turkey hunting buddies is now the subject matter expert for DPM in North Carolina, so I have that but it’s not fair for me to mooch off him…all the time. ☺ Any comments as I anxiously await the release of VIPRE? 2.5 hours until my holiday weekend begins… Shook ________________________________ From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 12:24 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Your fav AV? That’s what PSS is for. Either them or Rod Trent. :-P From: RAY ZORZ [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:16 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Your fav AV? I also expect my new car to come with a warranty so I'm not paying to fix shoddy workmanship. >>> Tim Vander Kooi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 7/3/2008 7:40 AM >>> Mike, So if you buy a Chevy and a part goes bad do you refuse to take it to a dealer to have it serviced putting all your trust in only local small shops with hit-and-miss quality and reliability? That’s the same argument that you just made regarding anti-malware, since it is obviously in the manufacturer’s best interest to make a shoddy product so you have to get it serviced more often. The same argument can be made for any other product ever created, and yet quality as a whole in our world continues to improve as opposed to degrading. My personal approach is to buy the best product available for the solution I am in need of. I used to be a huge fan of Eset and NOD32 (I believe I actually got a number of people on the list to start using it), but I believe that their product quality took a hit when they went from v2.x to v3.x (I had been using it since v1.35 or so). I still think that Eset makes a good product also, but in my opinion it is no longer as good as ForeFront IMHO. And if you have ever dealt with Microsoft before then you know that the left hand definitely has no idea what the right hand is doing, you’re lucky if people in the same product group are all on the same page. TVK From: Mike Gill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 7:46 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Your fav AV? It’s weird for me to think about paying MS for software to cover the insecurities in their own software. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that Client Security could catch more problems than maybe everyone, as they would know best how to attack the issue for obvious reasons. This also makes a case for why they would be the best choice. But to need the software there must be problems to justify the solution, so for Forefront Client Security to be successful, it’s in Client Security’s best interest that the client isn’t secure. It’s not a big deal when one guy fixes another guys problem, but when you’re paying one guy to fix his own problems, I guess you better trust that one guy. And stay away from BitDefender. Their new v3 enterprise solution is just not thought through. I don’t know what they were thinking and all the acknowledged bugs I’m finding are show stoppers and killing me. -- Mike Gill From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 4:28 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Your fav AV? I just went through removing NOD32 and installing Microsoft’s ForeFront Client Security product and I am thrilled. FF does deployment via AD integrated policies allowing for all machines to be covered with no manual installation required. It has anti-virus and anti-spyware capabilities (it found, and removed, a fairly large amount of spyware that NOD had not picked up), but it also does “Security State” checks where it looks at the overall security “stance” of your computers. i.e. – It will inform you of machines with blank admin passwords, passwords without expirations set, admin groups with “too many” members, Windows security updates missing, and a lot of other things. These security checks give you a view into your overall security situation that I have not seen provided by other products yet. Great product IMO, Tim ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
