Right, so my family is changing out ISP and as such I'm worried about the security that comes with the service. Currently we have Norton with Comcast, but our new ISP uses Kaspersky. Is it any good compaired to other security suites?

Thanks!

Anything is better than Norton and, from my experience, free ones don't work. I've used Kaspersky before but not for long.

Don't have to use it...

I use roadrunner and just found out they use CA :shrug:

Only NOD32 is better in my book, though Kaspersky has a MUCH better firewall (ESET Smart Security is horrid, only their AV is good IMO)

Though I doubt I'd use any AV my ISP offered, but that's just me personally (I'm also slowly doing away with their DNS servers too). ISPs just giving me the Internet is already more control over me than any other company has (except maybe Google )

Our family desktop uses it and it slows it down horribly. It forces itself to load before everything, be it internet, USBs, etc. I refused to have that [censored] installed on my own computers.

I hate to break it to you, but Norton ain't as bad as people make it out to be. Is it the best on the market? No, but it is not the worst.

BTW: I am using Kaspersky as well. I do like it, but find that I sometimes have to disable it for one reason or another.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials on all of my PCs. IT works out very well and is free. I used to have Norton 360 but it didnt seem to be doing a very good job so I switched.

If it's not the worst, I'd like to know what is. I had nortons about 7 years or so ago, and my computer had to be reformatted 3 times in 2 years due to viruses, and I didn't download anything off of non-secure official sites, and I didn't browse anything other then namebrand type sites(i didn't use myspace/facebook/other social networking sites, or any suspicious sites, or any fansites). If thats not the worst, then I'd hate to see what really is, cuz it must offer no protection at all. not to mention, nortons is a pain in the ass to un-install, it roots itself into your system and doesn't let go for the world.

I used Norton for about two years, and the only time I ever got a virus is when I reinstalled windows (something I tend to do periodically) and like a [censored] forgot to reinstall Norton. After reinstalling it I discovered all that Norton had been doing for me but wasn't aware of because it didn't inform me of every little thing that goes on, the way that some other Anti virus programs do.

I switched from Norton after getting some advice here on the forums on different programs... and my subscription was nearly up, so I wanted to try something else.

That has to be the single WORST thing I've ever read. Any AV that doesn't inform you and just does things in the background automatically is TERRIBLE.

What happens when there is a false positive on a system file? This happened recently with McAfee Small Business on Windows XP. Borked the computers, it did. AVs should always ask for confirmation from the user.

I would reccommend NOD32 and Comodo Firewall but if you want a security suite Kaspersky is great. However one thing to keep in mind is the newer version, while still good, are getting more bloated and are a bit heavier on resources. I noticed on my moms laptop the 2011 version seems to make it a bit slower than it should be, but it is the best for them and I didn't look at too many settings to free some stuff up.

So when compared to Avast! does Kaspersky still stand?

That's a matter of opinion. I don't need to be informed of every little thing that happens every single time Norton blocks a cookie or whatever. Viruses, adware, and intrusion attempts, fine, but I don't need to be notified of every single thing that my Anti virus does.

False positives are the reason that I don't ever rely on just one program for protection. In addition to Kaspersky, I also have Spyware Doctor, Malwarebytes, as well as the Firefox addons No Script, Better Privacy, and Add Block Plus.

I would appreciate next time that you didn't insult my intelligence by insinuating that I don't know what my AV is supposed to be doing. Just because I don't need to be informed of everything going on in the background doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to my browsing history. Nevermind that I can very easily open up my AV and ask for a report of my AV history.

Sheesh, some people. :facepalm:

Microsoft Security Essentials is the best free option IMO.

Apparently no one knows how to answer a question as simple as "Is Kaspersky any good" as in "Will it work well?"

So unless anyone has anything useful to add, mods can lock this please.

Actually two people know how to answer a question like that.


Translation: "Yes it is good."



Translation: "No it svcks."

Never used it myself, so I can't comment. Used Avast for a long time and have always been very pleased with it. Switched to Microsoft Security Essentials on one of my PCs since I heard many good things about it, I have no complaints thus far.

Yes, It works fine. I am currently using it with no issues.

Am I the only one who uses Avira?

Tested it out on the family laptop for a few months until the nag screen drove us all nuts.

What do you expect? You ask about the quality of something that has alternatives that don't cost any money. It simply makes sense to compare it to other, similar, free products that take no real effort to acquire instead, rather than simply pretending that the A/V you are asking about is the only one in the world.

I use it and I like it pretty well. Sometimes it interfers with games, and randomly eats up a good bit of CPU, but the fact that it can easily be turned off while playing games/doing something CPU intensive is really nice. It gets the job done, and I haven't gotten a single virus yet, but whether that is because of Kaspersky or knowing what to avoid online, I don't know.

There's no way to say this without it having a good chance of being taken as snobbish: but this isn't a matter of opinion. An antivirus should always tell the user when it finds an infection. The best of the best do this via email alerts, otherwise it needs to tell you as a messagebox or balloon. Updates should be done silently, yes, but any detected infection needs to be reported as well as whenever the virus definition is out of date. The reason why an antivirus always needs to inform the user can best be illustrated as followed:

1. Antivirus A does not inform the user of when it removes infection. One day Antivirus A updates and the virus definition mistakenly lists SystemCritical.dll as a trojan. SystemCritical.dll is an extremely important file that helps Windows boot up, and without it your computer will fail to boot. Antivirus A proceeds to put SystemCritical.dll into the virus vault and goes on the with the day without telling User. User proceeds to turn off the computer as he doesn't need it on at the moment, or to install some updates. When he tries to boot it back up he can't, since SystemCritical.dll is in the virus vault. Safe Mode also doesn't work as SystemCritical.dll needs to load for Safe Mode too.

2. Antivirus B does inform the user when it removes an infection. Antivirus B also recieves an update that mistakenly lists SystemCritical.dll as a trojan. It notices the file at some point through the day and pops up a huge message saying "Generic.Trojan.Backdoor.dll has been detected in SystemCritical.dll" with a "Remove to Virus Vault" and "Ignore" button. The good user that he is, he puts it in the vault and does a Google search of the file and comes across a forum post of countless others with the same problem, where it becomes quite evident it is a false positive. User then removes SystemCritical.dll from the virus vault and has no further issues.

You may think this is far-fetched, but it isn't. It happens -All the time- with pretty much every AV out there. You can't even begin to list the amount of times this happens.

So yeah, it should update in the background, but it needs to inform the user of any virus detection. To not do so would be a failure of the antivirus. Heuristic engines by their nature are not foolproof, and as such they need to be verified to keep them from making mistakes.

Also your false positives solution is a non-solution. Multiple heuristic engines just increases your chances of false positives, also it does nothing to stop a silent false positive issue. Granted, it's a good idea to have multiple on-demand scanners (not real-time, though) for cleaning a contaminated system (in case one can't do the job), it won't help you in the false positive problem that results from an antivirus getting a false positive and silently putting it into the virus vault (or worse, deleting it). The virus vault is encrypted, so nothing can see what is in there. In order to do a self-test for whether something is a false-positive you must have the following critera:

1. Be alerted to the potential infection (which if you have silent removal, you can't, once again pointing out the flaw of silent removals)

2. Have other on-demand scanners ready to check the potential infection

3. Have an up-to-date virus definition list for the used scanners

Without all of those, you cannot check for false positives. Also, while NoScript, ABP, and Better Privacy are great extensions, they do nothing about false positive issues.


Eh, I did. To be more explicit: we use it at work on Windows XP and Vista computers and it works fine on both. However, we use 2010, not 2011 which I have read many times runs very poorly on XP.


If I understand the OP correctly, he can get Kaspersky for free from his ISP.

I have noticed this as well. It's also one of the reasons why I shut it off sometimes.

Avoiding shady sites is always good advice. :yes:

I wasn't so much referring to you, and yes, it comes free with the service.

I also have Windows 7, if that helps.





:P