Do the 'add on bits' nmake a difference?

I have been looking at the various posts for all the types of AV discussed in this forum.

For some a basic AV is what they want and it suits them well - e.g. F Prot and perhaps Anti Vir. Other AV's are now coming with rootkit scanners (including Anti Vir), antispyware modules, HIPS modules, some type of sandboxing modules, HTTP scanners, e mail scanners etc.

So my question is; are these add on's really required, do they make a huge difference in protecting your machine, are they are marketing ploy? Is this a phase to era where AV's will not really be AV's but a single product providing muliple layers of protection?

Best wishes.

 

In my opinion, these "addons" can be very useful tools in the constant fight against malware. As you can see in the screen shot the suite I run has a few.

 

some add-ons like email scanners and http scanners are useless marketing fluff, which provide no real benefit over the traditional on-access file scanner, although there are some exceptions where they might cover some weaknesses. But there are some features that are definitely good to have, like firewalls, HIPS-like behaviour blockers, and exploit blockers.

Having said that, there's no suite out there that can match layered defense in terms of theoretical malware: however some of the better suites are definitely adequate enough to handle the "real world" malware.

 

email and HTTP scanners are no marketing BS or fluff (or whatever you want to call them).

 

Bigc, what AV does Blink use?

 

I think Norman

 

Email scanners may be redundant now since most ISP's provide their own internal AV scanning. For example my ISP uses McAfee AV and Postini antispam. I have yet to receive a virus via email and what little Postini misses Windows Mail antispam catches it.

HTTP scanners are important though.

 

I think the add ons can make a big difference in the amount of protection offered. However, I think in general you are better off piecing together different programs rather than using an all in one.

 

Yes, it uses Norman AV