Computer Security — OK, So I Changed My Mind A Little…
- 10
- Add a Comment
- No Related Post
A few weeks ago I wrote about the security applications I used on my own PC. I made the statement that I don’t like security suites, preferring stand-alone programs that tend to do one job well and take up fewer resources than the big cludgy suites like McAfee, Norton and ZoneAlarm. (Forget AOL! It should be declared an Internet traffic hazard.)
At that time I was using ESET’s excellent NOD-32 anti-virus, along with Comodo’s Firewall Pro and Comodo BOClean anti-malware, backed up with Ad-Aware SE Personal. NOD32 and Comodo Firewall Pro were the top-rated programs in their respective classes, and BOClean rates right up there along with them. Both Comodo products have the additional advantage of being free, while NOD32 is a steal at $29.95 a year for a two-year subscription.
Those are still excellent choices, together or separately. The firewall, however, had a bug that — despite my downloading and reinstalling several updates — would not go away. It would forget my allowed applications, and would randomly pop up a complaint about Firefox, or tell me that the anti-virus wanted to access the Internet. I was moderately annoyed, but it drove my lovely bride nuts. (A superb psychotherapist, she is somewhat cyber-challenged, though mostly through lack of exposure.) Comodo was wearing out its welcome, and looking around the Web for solutions to the pop-ups was fruitless.
BOClean was doing its job, but — while it didn’t affect my 3.2 Pentium D home machine — it slows down the old Athlon 2800+ at work quite a bit. Since I do some processor-intensive stuff from time to time on the home machine (big image files), I thought I might look at replacing it anyway, when I got around to it.
On November 5th, ESET released their Smart Security suite from beta, incorporating NOD v.3. As it happened, my subscription for NOD32 expired on the 6th. Smart Security is priced a bit higher than NOD32 was, but includes a firewall, malware protection and a spam blocker. Since I use Gmail I don’t worry about spam, but the suite sounded like a good solution, and it got excellent reviews on the Web. So, since ESET were offering me an upgrade discount, I figured what the heck. I wanted the NOD32 v. 3 upgrade anyway, so didn’t have much to lose.
After installing ESET Smart Security, the first thing I did was check to make sure it had downloaded all necessary updates. Then I ran a bunch of online security checks. ESS passed them all with flying colors. I already knew I had (arguably) the best anti-virus around, and the firewall and malware applications seem to be flawless as well. The whole shebang takes up less than 40 MB of RAM, and there is no discernible hit on performance, even during scans, although that might not be true of some older single-processor machines. I backed up the malware scanner with Spybot Search and Destroy, and I’m a happy, un-hassled cybercamper. Best of all, the stupid warnings are gone, gone, gone. (Comodo, take note…)
You could do worse. In fact, considering some of the tales I’ve heard about certain “name brand” suites, you could do a whole bunch worse. This suite rocks, and they seem to have avoided the kitchen sink approach. That’s what happens when you write code from scratch (Micro$oft, take note…) and we’ll see if ESET’s next release lives up to their first entry into the security suite business.
[tags]anti-virus, malware, spam, ESET Smart Security, computer security[/tags]
10 Comments
Charlie Nable
November 16th, 2007
at 8:49am
I am commenting about the comodo firewall forgetfulness. It was really a pain having to get the pop-ups for things that were supposed to have been remembered by comodo.Frustration gets the better of things plus google and I found the solution.It seems that somewhere and something along the way that comodo works, user permissions to the keys in the registrywhere comodo keeps the application it is supposed to remember are changed. These are restricted when the comodo memory loss occurs. Googled and found subinacl.exe and reset permissions to allow administrator and system permissions to the registry and voila comodo again remembers. I resort to this subinacl utility whenever the comodo memory loss occurs. Hope this helps.
Charlie
Jon Chorney
November 16th, 2007
at 8:51am
Hello Bill,
Your experience with Comodo matches my own at home and apparently that of many others that I’ve seen in forums. It just periodically loses track of the rules in place and it can be a maddening experience. Eventually, I gave up and bought the SunBelt personal firewall which seems to do a pretty good job. Since I also have a hardware firewall in place, and run in virtual mode whenever I’m using the Internet, I’m not overly concerned about its shortcomings.
I use NOD32 Enterprise 2.7 here at work on my 50 workstations and 16 servers. I do hope you will let us know about your experience with their Security Suite. I am considering upgrading to it for selected workstations and the more real-life information I can get, the better.
Jon
Bill Webb
November 16th, 2007
at 9:27am
After having used ZoneAlarm Pro for years, and then Comodo, I actually found ESS’s unobtrusiveness alarming until I’d checked it a few times to see that it was doing scheduled scans and logging stuff. I’m very impressed so far. You can’t tell when it’s running on my PC — period — and it uses less RAM than Spybot Search and Destroy.
As far as Comodo is concerned, any program where I have to edit the registry to keep it working the way it’s supposed to is a non-starter in my book. Now that I know what the problem is, I’m even less impressed. Name me a type of program that needs clean, accurate code more than a software firewall…
llseenm
November 16th, 2007
at 11:34am
Well, I’m not sure that running a utility every time I get yet another pop-up from my firewall is really a solution. Isn’t it easier to just respond to the pop-up? Anyway, since my Sunbelt license expired right about the time I read your original article, I too opted to try Comodo. However, when Sunbelt sent me an Email offering a discount to renew, I gladly went back to the kerio firewall. After less than 2 months with Comodo, I had 8 instances of Firefox in my programs list.
Charie Nable
November 16th, 2007
at 1:16pm
Please allow me a rejoinder for this comodo memory loss.I forgot to comment that the loss happens when I uninstall some programs which have been monitored by comodo and used registry cleaners to purge them from the registry as most of us do.I surmise that since at default comodo is set to protect its own registry keys then maybe the deletion of the keys might have triggered this protection to prevent any further deletion.Comodo must have changed the permissions for the relevant keys as a protection. And using the subinacl utility puts everything in order. Maybe.
Charlie
Mortifer
November 18th, 2007
at 6:16pm
I Am I huge fan of ESET’s NOD32 version 2 , I tryed their Security Suite thinking they would have made a awesome Suite. I have found a couple of little bugs with it and have chosen to go back to version 2 of thier Antivirus till it has been tested a bit more. I found either the Firewall or antivirus in the suite was causing webpages to load a little slower (using firefox) and when I tryed to access my router (Dlink DGL-4300) the page would not load properly and took about 8 seconds to come up.
I’m all for ESET still, but word of warning people. Test everythings running right before recommending to all your friends.
Geoff
November 19th, 2007
at 6:26pm
I had the same problems with Comodo for a little while as well, but they went away. The bigger problem I had is that both Firefox and Opera would frequently drain all my processor and hang. In my experience, the most common software conflicts come from firewalls. So I tried switching to an older freeware version of Jetico. Problem solved.
There are lots of good firewalls, most of which will cause a software conflict with various applications. It’s always a trial & error process to find the one that protects you AND plays nice with your setup.
ZoneAlarm caused problems for me, but it works perfectly for a friend. My dad uses Sunbelt-Kerio, but I had conflicts. Jetico seems to do well right now, but it’s only been a couple weeks. We’ll see.
Bill Webb
November 19th, 2007
at 8:35pm
Commentary: system and suite continue to run perfectly, with no glitches. No router problems, no slow loads. I’ve added and deleted over a dozen programs for testing purposes thus far, and noted no complications with installs, running or removal.
Re the Comodo memory loss, or whatever it is: it occurred regardless of whether I’d fiddled with the registry or not. In fact, it was so consistent that for a while I thought it was losing its memory every time it updated. I have no theories about it. It’s not my problem, it’s theirs.
I won’t recommend software that needs to be configured or tweaked in order to work properly. This column is written for ordinary users. I try to avoid fixes that involve anything other than adjusting preferences, and won’t recommend programs that don’t work properly “out of the box,” although I might use them myself. For that reason I am unable to recommend Comodo, regardless of any fixes via the registry, etc. I play games with computers all day long, but I write for folks who don’t know a registry from a voting machine.
My Recent Posts On Windows Fanatics (In Case You Care) ~ Digital Zen
May 21st, 2008
at 9:23pm
[...] Computer Security — OK, So I Changed My Mind A Little… [...]
ESET Offers 90-Day Free Trial Of ESET Security Suite ~ Windows Fanatics
October 20th, 2008
at 6:25pm
[...] security suite that I covered the other day is now available for free trial, with no obligation. As far as I know, anyone can sign up. As you [...]