Re: Antivirus software is the new protection racket

Vanguard
Date: 05/14/05 

Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 11:53:17 -0500

"Sammy" <hhi_info@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1116084737.642863.219230@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Vanguard wrote:
>> http://www.av-comparatives.org/ (but I have seen some difference in
> CPU
>> usage). High CPU usage doesn't NOT necessarily dictate loss of
>> performance. Even if a process runs at Normal priority, it can
>> relinquish its process when another wants equal or higher priority
>> execution. Even zombies know that trick: run heavily when idle but
>> throttle back when inuse.
>
> While I'm not an expert in this field, as I've admitted before. I do
> have some associates who are. I am thus, aware of this. However, as I
> said before; Norton is showing a noticable effect on the system speed.
>
>> Were you comparing ONLY Norton AntiVirus against the other AV
> products
>> regarding performance, or were you comparing the full suite of Norton
>
>> Internet Security against just an AV-only product? It's been awhile
>> since I've seen someone purchase *just* Norton AntiVirus when it
>> represents 75% of the cost of the suite (i.e., for a few bucks more,
> you
>> get the suite instead of just one component of it).
>
> I have been advised against purchasing and/or installing the entire
> package. I was told not to buy the antivirus either, but as you can
> see; I didn't listen. :(

The last version (of NIS that includes NAV) was 2003. It seemed a
decent product back at that version and I have also had coworkers that
have noticed a "significant" performance impact with 2004 and 2005
(although 2004 seemed worse than 2005). I work in the software QA group
at a software development company so we're no dummies here (in fact, if
we call the helpdesk, they just immediately dole out a pre-purchased
problem ticket number for Microsoft because they already know they can't
answer our questions). When my NIS 2003 subscription ran out (although
I know of ways to get around it), I decided not to continue with Norton
anymore for firewall and anti-virus solutions. I'm not as vehemently
against Norton as some others and their corporate anti-virus (SAV) still
works well (and better than their consumer NAV product).

> While I can accept the fact many assume everyone is an idiot here, I
> sir am not. While I do not have expert knowledge of computers, I do
> have associates whom I trust that do. I have already been educated as
> it were regarding all of this. I personally would use the term
> lectured, but to each his own.

Often a respondent doesn't know everything the user did or know their
expertise level and, frankly, it is often a waste of time to get all
that info. There are posts that are so terse as to encompass any
possible answer and those that are just a bit shorter than War and
Peace. Typically you have to start with low expectations and minimum
common denominators in assuming what the user did and what they
understand and build up from there. If you start at too high a level,
whoosh, it goes right over their head.

>> When I switched from Norton AntiVirus to CA EzAntiVirus, I noticed a
>> just perceptible performance increase. However, I have yet to see
>> AV-Comparatives (or anyone else providing as comprehensive a test)
> show
>> the coverage for EzAntivirus so I'm in the dark as to it coverage. I
>
>> see lots of users saying to use AVG or Avast simply because they have
>
>> free versions, but their coverage sucks - but then I really don't
> know
>> how good is the coverage by EzAntiVirus.
>
> What exactly do you mean by the coverage issue? And do you have
> references I could read regarding it?

AV-Comparatives (http://www.av-comparatives.org/). Unfortunately they
only show coverage for about a dozen products. Too many so-called
reviews are just an end-user overview and are worthless for knowing how
well the product actually fares against all viruses. 

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