F-Prot v3.16b - REVIEW

More relevant screenshots here; https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=10006

Although an older version is shown, screenshots are relevant to latest version.

Only difference is that the Integrity Checker shown in the old thread is no longer part of the F-Prot package.

 

@Blackcat
Thanks for the link, didn't notice your review yet
I hope you agree with me when I say that F-Prot is the most underrated AV ever, it's such a nice product but people seem to forget about it

 

Hi there Style .
I saw where F-Prot claims to update every few days . Is this true ? Not that , that is a bad thing but , compared to the top rated AVs which update , at least , every day . Can you enlighten me please ? Thanks and hope you are well my friend .

 

They mostly release a update for their virus/trojan database every two days and for their macro database every four days, they also release updates in the weekend anyway
I keep track of the updates this two weeks and post the database update dates ok

(don't be fooled, they're very fast with updates when a new big threat is there like MyDoom, they're the fastest or one of them...)

 

Thank you guys .

 

Here's an important word about updates: Their web site doesn't always show the latest virus definitions. However, the updater will always grab them as soon as you run it.

They have been known to update several times in one day if necessary.

F-Prot is one of the best, especially when cost is considered.

 

Uhh... NOD costs $39 in year 1 but only $27.30/year thereafter; whereas F-P costs $29 every year. Thus, for one computer, in just 21 years you would have paid less for NOD.

But seriously, the *real deal* with F-P is that 1 license covers 5 in-the-family computers. Now THAT deal is not matched by any other AV I know of.

 

Not trying to seem hard here but , that is not the point ! It is fine CONSIDERING cost . Guess what ? Cost means nothing if the program stinks . High OR low ! What matters is how good is it ? I am still a bit concerned about the update frequency . I am happy with what I use . Just curious about others . Trying to learn all I can . Style . Does F-Prot use heuristics to help ? Thanks

 

Thanks Ron . Very helpful . Glad to see that

 

I don't know why anyone would what any other Antivirus besides NOD32 I have tried many myself and found out that many are system Hogs, but Nod32 is not and there record since 1998 it's been on top of the Charts!!


Good Better or BEST!!

Cheers,

dagolag

 

Does that mean that you agree?

he he

dagolag

 

Have we ever disagreed ? lol . Of course I agree my friend . Heck . I would probably agree with you if you were wrong . lol . Only kidding . Hope you are doing well .

 

PLEASE read the title of this thread. It is a review of F-prot, not another chance for a plug for NOD. Also please notice that the title of this forum is "other antivirus software." NOD has its own forum. I'm sure if people went to the NOD forum & began plugging F-prot or any other AV, the mods would quickly do something. Why don't the mods act similarly with respect to the OT threads by dagolag?

 

May seem like a simplistic question or two, but has anyone actually used this version 3.16b, and has anyone had any problems with it?

I have. And I have found it to put a HUGE & obvious, performance hit on my system. I'm speaking about the RealTime Protector here. I didn't really check the OnDemand scanner.

I also noticed that the RT Protector icon did not show in the system tray when I switched users (on XP). Protection was still enabled, but there was not icon. And therefore no was to disable the RT Protector had I wanted to.

As I have had no problems with 3.16a, I have since reverted back to that version.

Few comments I'd like to make:

It was mentioned that 316b is only using a miniscule amount of memory. I noticed that also. But, the amount of memory used, is not necessarily indicative of the "hit" (performance wise) a program may put on a system.

http://virusscan.jotti.org/. To me, that site is very insightful. As some have noted, F-Prot performs very poorly there. It misses a lot. Kaspersky always seems to pick up on the malware. I feel that this stems from F-Prot doing less well on on more recent types of malware - worms, trojans, ... where it would tend to do better on "typical" virus's (if such a thing exits). KAV seems to excel at these newer types of malware.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/. F-Prot has always done well there. Not in the top tier class - that belongs to KAV, but in the next tier down. And it has always outperformed may of the other AV's.

Confusing to me how there can be such a disparity between what it seems I'm seeing from those two sites.

I have a small sampling, 72 files, of "real" malware that was really on my brothers computer. My samples are a bit skewed cause they were all found by KAV. Also KAV will note some files that have the potential to do harm, but that are not necessarily in & of themselves harmful. Like a CMOS eraser program.

Anyhow, of those 72 samples, only 25 were picked up by F-Prot. I have test other AV's on those same samples. AntiVir picked up 16 more, & Trend picked 11 more samples then did F-Prot.

Does that make those programs better then F-Prot, not necessarily.

My methods are not scientific & certainly my number of samples is not large enough to really be meaningful, but still I feel there is some validity to what I am seeing.

The F-Prot interface. Well, I have long used the DOS version of F-Prot. That has a very clean, simple to use, & understandable interface. I like it. The Windows version of F-Prot does not fair as well IMO. It could be better. It should be better. A cleaner interface would give the program a much nicer feel.

I have looked at a lot of AV's as of late, & not really any of them gave me what I felt was a very good interface. I like feedback. I like options. I like to be informed when something is happening. I like to understand what the consequences of my actions are. IMO, F-Prot is a bit above average in that repect, but still could be better.

Overall, I have been pleased with F-Prot (except for this 3.16b release). I think it does its job & does it well. It could be better.

AV program updates. The programs themselves. F-Prot only updates the program itself every so often. Two, or three months, or more, depending on circumstances. Compare that to Norton, where you are deluged by program updates - almost as often as definition updates.

AV definition updates. I think some are all concerned about having multiple updates in one day. To me at least, that is not a big deal. I feel that F-Prot does more then an adequate job with updates. Offhand I don't recall ever seeing more then one update a day. Normal frequency would be daily, or every two days or so. With macro updates a bit less often. Again to me, that is more then sufficient.

The definition updates are relatively large. 2MB on the virus defs, & 250KB on the macro defs. Some AV's have larger updates, some would tend to have much smaller updates. It's a toss up in that respect.

With just normal day in & out running of my system, I have no problem with F-Prot. But when I want to go & experiment, & when I might go to a more "suspect" site, I'll then double or triple check F-Prot's all clear, by also checking using other AV's. I have found the mwav scanner to be excellent for that purpose (http://www.mwti.net/antivirus/mwav.asp).

 

To all,

As bellgamin notes, this is a thread on F-Prot. Please try to stay on-topic. We all understand the other AV's come into the discussion with respect to intercomparisons of our experiences/impressions/performance rankings, but let's keep that discussion centered on F-Prot. Thanks,

Blue

 

FProt does not update as often as needed. It was very slow to get the first JPEG exploit and when the second came out it was the last I believe to update. I sent Frisk the sample and they didn't even understand that the sample was a new variation and said they had coverage. They didn't and everyone had it. It was embarrassing.

Having said that, I really liked FProt except for the horrible XP GUI and the no configuration in XP. I can't believe that hasn't been fixed. I can't comment on the current version because I trialed the earlier very light version which, I gather, has changed substantially.

FProt still does not scan ADS correct? That is a significant shortcoming.

 

We are using the new version at work and we have noticed no detrimental effect of the RTM. But we are seeing a considerable slowdown in the on-demand scanner compared to previous versions.

I (we) have always used a layered defense with F-Prot when visiting high-risk sites; generally using a real-time AT scanner backed up by another on-demand AV scanner.

 

I agree. Perhaps this is one result of the fact that F-Prot often (not always) updates rather more slowly & less frequently than other highly ranked antivirus programs.

By the way, returning to the matter of F-prot's heuristics -- I note that heuristics are available ONLY during an on-demand scan. The Real-Time Monitor apparently doesn't utilize any heuristics at all.

Also, to activate heuristics for an on-demand scan, one must work one's way through several pages of the "Wizard." Moreover, the "neural" method of heuristics scanning (whatever THAT is) is not activated by default, but must be intentionally selected.

It almost seems like Frisk has hidden the heuristics check boxes so that people won't easily locate & activate them. I wonder why? Finally, the apparent non-availability of heuristics for real-time monitoring seems very odd to me. Does anyone have a theory?

 

Thank you, bellgamin.

Acadia

 

F-Prot's heuristics have always turned up an army of false positives on my system - it especially seems to dislike Norton Cleansweep reporting that it has several hundred dangerous files in it (maybe it's mistaking it for Norton AV... ). I'm as puzzled about the neural network option - neural nets seem a rather inappropriate method of detecting viruses since they need many examples to "learn" and viruses have tended to be a moving target, changing as new methods, environments and payloads develope.

 

sorry for the late reply...
at first they had questions if they should send something... but i wanted to see how F-Prot reacts when it finds a virus... So they pointed me some harmless samples, so with the harm part removed from the code...
this way i was able to see how it reacts when finding a virus...

 

Did other F-Prot users notice the extreme big database updates today? I counted over a 600 (upto over a 800 I heard from others) samples added!!!