Love, Hate, Like, Dislike about ESS

[surfer1000]

Hi folks, im new to ESS and after having a successful trial, i purchased a 3 year licence. I have now been using the program for about 2 months and I thought id share my feelings on the program.

Im using the latest build on Vista Ultimate 32bit.

Lets start with the good stuff!

Love, the fact that the program installs without the need of a reboot, i find this amazing, for an Anti-Virus!
Love, the fact you can export/import your settings.
Love, that all my ports are "stealth"
Love, that the firewall never bothers me, not once! (Set as default, Automatic)
Love, the fact that the programs uninstaller does exactly what it says on the tin!
Love, the way Eset just concentrate on making a great AV product, and not add bells and whistles like "Tune Up" & "Back Up Online" utilities.
Love, having UK based technical support on the phone.

Like, the nice clean GUI.
Like, the responsivness of the program.
Like, Eset listing a changelog for the program.

Dislike, Generally no updates at the weekend. I have read other posts about this and that its not a problem, but look at it this way.....if there is enough new viruses that we get 3-5 updates Monday-Friday each day, surely that must say that if none are issued at the weekend there must be a higher level of security risk! I can only hope that that virus writers dont eventually expolit this fact with Eset users.
Dislike, not having a pop up notification of when email is being scanned.
Dislike having to have the Anti Spam Module installed, and the fact that disabling it causes a "!" to appear in my protection status window. It spoils the look!
Dislike, my licence details sometimes disappear with certain updates, then eventually reappear with a newer update.

Hate, the way the program goes back "6 months" if you take test mode off, why oh why does the program simply not revert back to how it was from the initial install???
Hate, having to completly uninstall and reinstall when a newer build comes out. Also the only way of knowing if a newer build is out is by searching for it. I know about the RSS feeds but there is a few days delay from the program release until it makes it onto that!

On another note i was disappointed with the time it has taken Eset to ensure Vista SP2 compatability, i had the SP2 update sat in my windows update area for a week before it was safe to install. I find this pretty poor.

Also the lack of responce from Eset staff with regard to the "Hips" feature of ESS, why cant we get a straight answer.

[Marcos]

-{ Quote: "the way the program goes back "6 months" if you take test mode off, why oh why does the program simply not revert back to how it was from the initial install???
" }-
The update servers provide stable modules to users. Distributing newly compiled modules to all users around the world would be a big big mistake that would jeopardize all our customers as well as ESET's reputation if millions of computers would start crashing. Neither Microsoft releases service packs as automatic updates immediately or after a few week since making them first available to the public.

-{ Quote: "having to completly uninstall and reinstall when a newer build comes out. Also the only way of knowing if a newer build is out is by searching for it.
" }-
That's not necessary, but recommended. We don't recommend installing a newer version unless you're having an issue that's been fixed in the newer build as newer builds may introduce new problems despite in-depth pre-release testings that take place before each release. As it's been already mentioned at Wilders' in another thread, a program component update for v3 users is being distributed to v3 users who'll receive the latest stable v3 version automatically.

[funkydude]

-{ Quote: "The update servers provide stable modules to users. Distributing newly compiled modules to all users around the world would be a big big mistake that would jeopardize all our customers as well as ESET's reputation if millions of computers would start crashing. Neither Microsoft releases service packs as automatic updates immediately or after a few week since making them first available to the public.
" }-

That's what you think, what you don't seem to realize is firewall module 1040 and ESS v4 ARE NOT STABLE. Infact the closest you've came to stable is 1046. As far as I see, the only reason this is still on 1040 is because you haven't made 1041+ work with ESS3.

I posted that months ago, but ofcourse, it was ignored.

[surfer1000]

Marcos i think you have missed the point about the update modules.

Unchecking test mode should revert the modules back to the "original" modules that were there when the full program was installed!

This current system Eset has simply does not make any sence, reverting back to very old modules.

If ive installed the program with firewall module 1045, then enable test mode to get 1046 if i disable test mode it should go back to 1045 not 1040!

This gives your users major inconvenince of yet again another uninstall and reinstall just to get the modules back to current!


Funkydude may of hit the nail on the head with his view, but if what he says is true, then you should surely have separate update servers for version 4 so that the program can "update" itself back to module 1045.


And about the -{ Quote: "having to completly uninstall and reinstall when a newer build comes out. Also the only way of knowing if a newer build is out is by searching for it.
" }-

Its fine saying its not neccesary but recommended, but really its best practise to uninstall then reinstall any new or newer program on Windows in fact even Microsoft advise it.

Im dumbfounded that you dont recommend installing a newer program version unless your having problems.........THIS IS SECURITY SOFTWARE!......Any normal person will be wanting the latest build of a security suite, just for peace of mind!

It would be great news for all of your users if the program builds could update themselves, just like my old suite "Bitdefender" did. There was no such thing as a "newer" build to install with them, the program just updated itself to the newer build and showed the latest build number accordingly.

I know this is too much to ask for current version 4, but it should be seriously looked into for version 5!

[Marcos]

The current release version of the firewall module available at the update servers is 1040. We plan to replace it with the latest version 1047 shortly which means the firewall module will stay at v. 1047 and won't be downgraded after disabling test mode.
Generally, for newer modules to be made available to all users, these must first prove to be stable and working. That's why the older version 1040 is currently available at the download servers. Even if it's not problem free, it poses much less risk than if a newer version was to be made available to everyone shortly after it's been created.

Until the firewall module is updated on the update servers, leave test mode enabled if it contains a fix to an issue you'd been having with the older module.