Kaspersky 7 vs NOD32

[hjf288]

So I read that NOD32 isnt doing too well in its detection compared to Kaspersky - and Kaspersky is now apparently pretty damn light, so lemme ask - whats the fastest performer out of the 2?

Im using NOD32 on Vista at the moment and dont particularly wanna change but if I can get better detection at the same if not better performance.

Why the hell not? XD

[AndyD]

Kasperksy Internet Secuirty is better than the NOD Internet Securirty, I tried both, Kasperksy is better for people with less knowledge about comptuer stuff, I think NOD had a better firewall though...

I made the switch from Outpost which I believe is one of the best firewalls out there. Made the switch because of their inability to get a working Vista version out. With that said, I see nothing in KIS 7.0 that is lacking in comparison to Outpost. The one thing that bothered me is it's affect on bandwidth for those on how bandwidth connections but the switch to KIS 7 from 6 made a huge difference.

I urge everyone to give it a try. You get two very good/mature security apps in one. Plus, it's very easy to find KIS on sale for almost nothing even though the msrp is something like $75. I paid $5 after rebates for mine in May through Frys

[SnowRanger13]

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. :D

:laugh: so true

[celestialspring]

Same here :(

I've been a LONG time NOD32 user, and tried KAV6 a while ago, didn't like it.

Installed KAV7 yesterday - WOW!

2 Trojans (6-different infections) found on my PC.

Worst of all, you go to NOD32's forums and you write: "NOD32 didn't detect this on my system (found it w/ KAV)" and a MILLION FRIKKIN FANBOYS will say you're a trouble-monger, downloading exquisite virii on purpose and preetending to be infected and that despite your infiltrations NOD32 remains a better product.

That turned me off. big time.

As soon as KAV markets v7 final I'm buying a license. Even though my NOD32 has 7 more months to go.

Second that. The KAV demo detected so many viruses which my resident NOD32 didn't.

[IceDogg]

But what about the problems with Kaspersky. I'm not trying to put it down, but that sure would give me something to think about. I know not everyone is having that problem, but it's a big one in my book.

[+orgitnized Subscriber¹]

I'm sure I've responded in enough posts similar to this one and I'm sure this will always be a topic of discussion on Neowin. What makes me happy about it is the fact that you guys seem like you are security-conscious, which is something I love to see. (irregardless of age) That's what seems to bring me back to threads like this. It's the people sharing their experiences with the software; good, bad or indifferent that make them worthwhile reads in the forums.

My shortest answer in any of these threads will most likely be "you should feel pretty darn safe from an AV standpoint if you are using one or the other". I'll add a bit more below.

Lol, NOD32 let in 13 viruses when I done a test on my crappy Test Laptop.

Kaspersky is slower but it detected all of them.

I've been using KAV7 beta and it's pretty stable but there are a few memory leeks and other things that get a tad annoying.

I'm using your quote because this seems to be commonly heard by me from end users that may have missed some of the configuration settings they could have activated with NOD32. Of course, I am not at all saying that you don't have it configured correctly - I'm simply saying that this could be possible for posts like this.

Some of the people who have been recommended to use NOD32 are also given the link to Blackspear's Guide for some of the extra NOD32 settings, which improve upon detection ratings, as opposed to a software product that is simply configured in the Typical setup fashion and then allowed to run with no other changes or tweaks to the scan engine.

Without boring you guys with a ton of details I'll offer that Kaspersky seems to set itself up for better detection than NOD32 out of the box and that (on some machines) has an affect on what is detected. NOD32 takes more work on the back-end post-install to configure it to really get those engines working for you to detect the sneakier items.

I can say that there are reasons for both...Kaspersky wants the better detection right out of the box, and NOD32 wants to keep things a bit more neutral or system compatible out of the box - until you, the end user or admin decides to activate what needs activating or configuring. That's my take from the experience from myself and plenty of other users, company conversations, observations, etc. It's a catch-22 for me though guys...I end up turning things ON with NOD32, and I end up turning things OFF in Kaspersky.

Kaspersky out of the box ... inefficient but has a high detection rating

NOD32 out of the box ... efficient but has a medium detection rating

And I don't think one is right and one is wrong ... it's simply a different company practice, that's all.

NOD32 and Kaspersky are the two top A-Vs, try 'em n pick the one you like better.

In the simplest forum posting to get to the bottom line, I think Hankyone says it best.

I resell both of these products and I simply evaluate a network or PC, laptop, etc. and choose one based on system specs, environment, management, etc. There are factors when choosing either or, but in the end I feel that I have provided a great solution for a client no matter which one I have chosen to propose to them.

have they fixed the memory hog when Kaspersky starts up?

The only real thing I've gotten out of that when version 6 was being used was the Startup Scan causing this behavior. Mine would literally run for hours and not stop and eventually sap my system's memory. You could really feel the load.

In the later versions of 6 they have made it feel lighter, but my support experience has been to disable the scan altogether.

====================

Right now I am using NOD32 and my laptop has been just fine with its protection. I had used KIS6 in the past and found that something eventually breaks it. (But once again, your mileage will vary from mine)

And in its defense, an MS update could be breaking it...who knows? But when I would update from an existing version (just a minor build update), my NIC would stop working. It would be present in device manager but it would not be listed if I did an IPCONFIG, nor would I be able to communicate with it anymore, period.

Never have I had so many problems with Kaspersky since I started using KIS...and this makes no difference if I wipe the settings first, and uninstalling, or installing over the top. It's just the way it has worked for me. When I started using the workstation version, I could install Windows XP SP2 from scratch, then install Kaspersky Workstation and the machine would BSOD on reboot and I'd have to re-format and start over.

Never have I ever had NOD32 give me problems like that, ever. It makes me a little nervous around Kaspersky products...because I'll be honest, I never really worried about making sure a PC was imaged before installing an AV package, but Kaspersky scared me into doing just that.

And on the flip-side, I use a BartPE CD with KAV 6.x on it to remove viruses and spyware from machines. Most times (these days) I'll get a spyware infection and it'll infect winlogon.exe. For those of you who have gone through ridding a PC with spyware infecting that file, you know it's not the easiest thing to get rid of with a standard spyware scanner.

KAV always detects and removes it, and then I use a backed up copy of the winlogon.exe file and restart and the PC is good to go. Even as a spyware scanner KAV is quite a "willing and able" participant.

Those are just my thoughts on this and sorry it was so darn long. Hopefully some of you found some useful information somewhere inside all the ramblings :p

[L3thal Veteran]

Thanks for the setup guide provided. Tweaked my NOD32 quite a bit following the guide.

[CloudEngineer]

what's an anti-virus?

[soldier1st]

i did have a few probelsm with kis in the past but nod32 has never given me any problems but if your not sure about it load up extra protections and thats all u need and do ur research on stuff.

[nXqd]

@Ghost96: Thanks for the link

Happily tweak my NOD32 ( which is simple, fast )

nXqd

[+orgitnized Subscriber¹]

Glad you guys found it useful.

I found out through my own experiences that if your quarantine gets ... well ... out of hand, it will cause performance hits on your workstation.

When you follow Blackspear's guide, you quarantine files no matter what. So in most cases, viruses are simply not cleaned, because these days the files are malicious to begin with and don't require a cleaning. They simply need to be removed. Of course, not all the time, which is why his settings are so safe to use.

BUT, sometimes when you check 15 different POP3 accounts (insert reason here) and NOD32 scans and quarantines those files, most of them will be quarantined 2x with Blackspear's settings. The first time will be during the clean attempt and the second time will be when it moves the file to quarantine.

Now this could have been changed in the later revisions, which I have since them resolved by other means on my end. But what would happen is the quarantine folder would get so filled up it would cause very noticeable startup delays when my laptop started.

I think I had mentioned this way back in the past but never posted about it in the forums because I simply took care of it on my own through a cleaning process. When NOD32 starts, it does a security check to make sure everything is looking fine with its internals. Part of that process scans the quarantine folder and I had literally tens of thousands of viruses in my quarantine from my POP3 accounts. I would notice a lag after having about 500-1000 viruses present in that folder.

I found out by going doing a filemon trace with the popular tool from sysinternals (now owned by Microsoft) when I had a suspicion it was a file lag issue. The trace file starts the record process upon boot by request. So when I checked it out I noticed that it would scan every single file in the quarantine before NOD32 would really be ready for use on the laptop.

So if you use batch files, CCleaner, or any other program that allows custom folder additions, consider making it routine or part of another scheduled app to delete what is in the quarantine for NOD32 on a regular basis if you deal with a lot of quarantined files.

I'm sure not many people will find they need to use any of this information but if someone has this issue and finds this post, they'll be glad they read through it.

[NEVER85]

what's an anti-virus?

I wouldn't wanna use your computer.

[Hani]

what's an anti-virus?

i hope you're kidding

[CloudEngineer]

I wouldn't wanna use your computer.

lol, why not, it runs very well.

i hope you're kidding

nope, not kidding, i don't see the need to run antivirus on my pc. A little bit of common sense goes a long way.

I havn't had a virus on my system since, well, i've never had one.

i only run av software on pc's that are used by others in the home though, sister's pc, brother's pc etc.

[MrBear5587]

I loved KAV 5, but for me, KAV 6 was a big let down.

It gave me nothing but problems, so after using KAV 5, I moved to NOD.

Haven't tried KAV 7, I know it's already being marketed in France, but when the American/UK Kaspersky site markets V7, I'll trial it. May use that if the problems I had in V6 are gone.

That being said, I'm currently using NAV 2007, and am very happy.

[soldier1st]

nav2007 is one of the worst beasts out there,it will control you unless you break it and use something better.

[magik]

NOD32 v3 Security Suite will kick ass once the final version is released. I'm using NOD32 2.7 now and it works great for me, very fast and great detection. NAV2007 seemed to have slightly better detection, but it was still a resource hog (but not as bad as previous NAV). I have not tried Kaspersky...

[NEVER85]

nav2007 is one of the worst beasts out there,it will control you unless you break it and use something better.

NAV 2006 and earlier were like that. 2007 was completely re-designed to reduce memory usage and increase detection/removal rates. It's a much better product than it used to be.

That being said though, I'd still take KAV or NOD32 over it.

[Guest Jeremy of Many]

Neither. Common sense, computer sense and good software.

If you get a mass infection, backup data, format, use DeepFreeze or Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost, etc.

People seem so picky about detection rates and memory usage. If you run out of memory, it will go to the swap/page file which uses a fraction of your HDD space as virtual memory. "Thrashing". Use the memory you have. That's not to say you should use Norton. Avoid.

Regardless of what infection you have, either should maim it. But why not take steps to avoid it as mentioned above and not bother with anti-virus.

Some people even think that if you don't have a firewall or anti-virus installed that you'll automatically become infected. LOL

[+orgitnized Subscriber¹]

The more I hear about "common sense", the less common it seems to be, and some people have quite a skewed view on what they believe to be common sense when referring to computer safety. And to be honest, loading up some type of AV protection on my PC seems to be common sense to me.

Computer sense definitely comes with a price and much time invested. And the software, like Acronis or Deep Freeze does as well. Say what you want about Deep Freeze, but it won't stop you from getting infected, period. It's software to keep the PC static, that's it. You can be infected for a month on a machine that you don't reboot and broadcast plenty of traffic on a network and bring it down. And this could happen with a virus 3 years old. So using AV software with even out of date definitions would keep you protected from such a threat.

And irregardless of who shares the same opinion or disagrees with me, I'll tell you this: the day you walk into a business (as an IT guy) and talk about "common sense" and "computer sense" and Deep Freeze and didn't want to bother to install AV is the day they stop the interview and walk you right out of the building. Then again, they might hire you just to find out what the boss says to you when you ask him why his PC got infected and why he didn't use his common sense to stop it from happening.

Go into any reputable PC shop and ask them whether or not it's a good practice to load on some type of anti-virus protection and just tell me what they say...I'm curious.

Look, I simply don't see how removing a layer of workstation security and replacing it with some type of workaround that should supposedly work if you use "common sense" doesn't scream oxymoron.

[Evera]

Why not have this "common sense," with an extra security of an anti-virus?

And yes, I believe that being smart about browsing the internet is a great way to avoid viruses, but it's better to have something there in case you miss something. And you might be infected without knowing it.

Anyway, why would you want something like deep freeze? You have to unfreeze it every time you want to install a program to be there every time you restart, which might implant a virus, leaving a huge hole because you don't have antivirus :/

[nXqd]

Is nod32 a good spyware/malware anti ?nXqdIs nod32 a good spyware/malware anti ?nXqd

[L3thal Veteran]

NOD32's engine is built for virus, trojan, and spyware detection, so yes, it is good with all that.

[Premgenius]

Waiting for NOD32 v3 to be released and Eset Smart Security looks very good indeed, gonna trial it before recommending it

[soldier1st]

so for kaspersky is this kis the one you want or the kaspersky antivirus?also common sense wont save you once/if you've been infected.the day viruses n bad stuff are no more(LOL thats funny)then there will be no need for av,i tried kaspersky and it picked up something nod32 missed and the bad trojan was in my system32 directory and i use common sense and it still wont protect me,common sense would if we had no internet.

[Neo Razgriz]

Kaspersky Internet Security 7 is a fortress - albeit an overprotective one sometimes. I love it, and it's fortified my PC for over 2 years. I wouldn't switch to anything else.

Especially not ****** Norton!