PC anti-virus 2005
REVIEWS
ALWIL Software Avast! 4 Home
RATING 3
PRICE Free for home use
DETAILS www.avast.com
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| Decent virus protection doesn’t usually come for free, but Avast! proves that it’s possible |
PROS: Costs nothing; catches viruses
CONS: Slightly fussy email integration; no script detection
We’ve not seen any software from ALWIL before and we were intrigued to discover that the home edition of this software is free to download and use for non-commercial purposes. It comes with a choice of interfaces: a simple one for scanning your system and a more featured one that allows you to change default settings for the different scanning modules. These include mail, instant messaging, file system and a P2P module that allows you to scan files coming in from shared networks such as Kazaa, iMesh and BitTorrent.
The free Home edition does not include the ability to detect harmful scripts and our results confirm that you are at risk from malevolent Visual Basic code if you rely solely on this program for protection. It missed all our samples, but detected all the viruses, positively identified one of the Trojans and suspected the rest of the Trojans. A computerised male voice warned us about this suspicion, while a female voice told us about the confirmed viruses.
There is no scheduler, and if you want one you’ll need to spend £25 on the PRO version, which also includes a script blocker. It has an interesting feature called the Virus Recovery Database (VRDB), which scans the files on the hard disk and stores information about them. If they become infected with a virus, the VRDB will help to repair them. The main gripe we have with this program is that its email integration is not straightforward. It claims to protect email accounts automatically, but this really means that it will change your Outlook settings to use Avast! as a proxy for scanning messages. You need to enter details of your POP3 and SMTP servers manually when the Wizard runs. All the other programs here that can scan email do not require any settings changes.
Avast! 4 Home provides reasonable protection, doesn’t cost anything but is beaten on ease of use and performance by the free package from Grisoft.
COMPUTER ASSOCIATES ETRUST EZ ANTIVIRUS 6.3
RATING 3
PRICE £17 inc VAT
SUPPLIER Computer Associates 01753 577733
DETAILS www.my-etrust.com
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| It won’t win any design awards, but eTrust EZ Antivirus is a decent virus detector |
PROS: Attractive subscription price after the first year
CONS: Looks clunky; not as effective as some
A very poor interface can make a clever program so tricky that it becomes unused and, therefore, useless. ETrust EZ Antivirus’ interface is not so bad that you won’t want to use it at all, but you won’t want to spend much time with it either. It gives the impression that it is lacking in features, it’s grey and it ignores the Windows XP style adopted by most software developers in the 21st century.
It might look nondescript, but it is good at catching viruses. It flashed up its warning after we’d finished downloading our infected email. It caught all the viruses and scripts and one of the Trojans. It missed the most obvious Trojan, though, and we were able to connect to it from our attacker’s computer across the network. We’re marking eTrust EZ Antivirus down because, although it’s attractively priced, these days any anti-virus program worth its salt should detect this common Trojan.
A personal firewall would mitigate some of the risk, and if you buy ZoneAlarm with Antivirus (£10 inc VAT) you’ll get a combination of both. The antivirus software is from Computer Associates too, but it has even fewer options than this version. We don’t like to compromise when buying security software, but this is one case where the low price might tempt us. McAfee VirusScan costs roughly the same to update after the first year’s subscription has run out, but it’s around £14 more to buy upfront. Most of the non-free products charge an average of £17 per year, which makes eTrust’s £11 look attractive.
ESET NOD32 2
RATING 3
PRICE £27 inc VAT
SUPPLIER www.aspect-systems.com
DETAILS www.nod32uk.com
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| You’ll have to spend some time with NOD32 before you see past the interface and discover all its features |
PROS: Pretty accurate; reasonably priced
CONS: Unusual, unintegrated interface
The designers behind NOD32 clearly didn’t want to hide their clever anti-virus programming behind a dumbed-down interface. The package consists of a number of modules, and these are apparent in an unfamiliar Control Center. There are no nambypamby Windows XP-style buttons here. Instead, you deal with Resident modules and filters.
These modules are called AMON, DMON, IMON and NOD32, which didn’t mean anything to us until we’d clicked on each one and saw labels referring to them as the Resident module, MS Office document monitor, Internet Monitor and NOD32 module. This last module is probably the most useful on a daily basis. It allows you to scan floppy disks and local hard drives and perform an ‘in-depth analysis’. The help file does not explain what this is, but we found that it enables an Advanced heuristics setting that could potentially improve its ability to detect viruses and Trojans.
NOD32 did well with our collection of files, missing only two of our Visual Basic scripts, which it allowed to run. This means that it’s not the most accurate program on test, but it didn’t do too badly.
As the infected emails entered our test system NOD32 displayed some dramatic alert windows. It also halted our email download session when it detected each file. In our hurry to avoid a stalled download we chose the wrong option and, as a result, we downloaded most of the viruses. However, NOD32’s Resident module caught them once we saved the files from email to disk. There is a setting that allows NOD32 to handle incoming email viruses automatically, without the interfering warning pop-ups.
Perhaps Eset should now make the interface friendlier. Those with an interest in viruses will be pleased with this product’s technical interface, but as it stands NOD32 reminds us of older Kaspersky products that were very competent at finding viruses but looked scary to newcomers.
F-SECURE ANTI-VIRUS 2005
RATING 5 - BEST BUY
PRICE £26 inc VAT
SUPPLIER F-Secure 01223 478800
DETAILS www.f-secure.com
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| Even the advanced settings aren’t complicated |
PROS: Effective, good-looking and fantastic value
CONS: Not the cheapest to renew after the first year
F-Secure is a relatively new discovery for us, and when we fi rst saw its anti-virus software last year we were impressed with its excellent detection ability and friendly interface. Its price was a little high, but that didn’t stop us giving its Internet Security package our Best Buy award. Anti-Virus 2005 is a straightforward anti-virus package; there’s no firewall, so it is less expensive.
F-Secure Anti-Virus 2005 is one of the least expensive products on test, beaten on price only by the free packages and eTrust EZ Antivirus. It is better than all the cheaper ones, though, and some of the more expensive ones, notably NetZ InVircible 7 and Panda Titanium Antivirus 2004. Its annual update price dropped recently to a reasonable £18 per year, but this is still worthy of attention before you invest in the software.
Its interface is clean and easy to use and when we downloaded infected emails its pop-up listed the viruses as they were downloaded but didn’t halt the rest of the download.
The program comes with a decent scheduler, and virus definition updating is flexible. If you have a broadband connection you can schedule download times and exclude times where you might want to use the connection for other purposes. Dial-up users can also schedule times. It will detect when certain programs are running and prevent an update which is useful if you’re running a backup.
As a nice touch, the installation CD holds a bootable Linux distribution that lets you scan a PC without loading Windows. This is an undocumented feature and our CD had virus definitions only two months old.
This is one of the best anti-virus programs that we’ve seen to date. It is one of a small number that detected everything we threw at it, it looks good, is easy to use and is great value for money. It deserves our Best Buy award.
GRISOFT AVG ANTI-VIRUS FREE EDITION
RATING 4
PRICE Free for home use
DETAILS www.grisoft.com
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| It might look a bit old-fashioned now, but you should have seen it before |
PROS: Effective and free
CONS: Still showing its age, even after an update
As we went to press Grisoft released a new version of its free anti-virus software. The results are promising, as the previous free edition was looking long in the tooth. This latest one is in effect the same as the previous AVG 7 Anti-Virus Professional Edition. It has a better interface than the old free version, and the only noticeable difference between this product and the one that would have cost £25 a year ago is that it doesn’t have the Advanced Interface option, which remains reserved for the Professional Edition.
The lack of the Advanced Interface is not really a problem. You can get to all the settings you’ll need using the Basic Interface, with only a small amount of extra clicking to find the right options.
In terms of virus detecting, we can’t fault AVG. It picked up every nasty file we sent it, and the email scanner was unobtrusive. It removed the attachments from the email messages and sent them to the Virus Vault, where you can delete or restore the files. It can display different categories of captured files, so you can see the Trojans or worms.
The scheduler is very basic, programming the system to update itself and run a full system scan once per day. If you try to create a new schedule a pop-up advises you to buy the Professional Edition. This is slightly annoying, and it would be better to see only those buttons that you can actually use, or at least have a visual indication that some are inactive. At least the unavailable menu options are grey, so you won’t choose those by accident.
This is the best free anti-virus program we’ve seen. It still looks a bit old-fashioned, but it’s hard to complain when it costs nothing.