McAfee vs NOD32

Which one is better for a home pc with Zonealarm PRO 5.5, AT Ewido and Tauscan, and Spysweeper, Ad-aware, Spybot etc., McAfee Virusscan 9 or NOD32 2.12




Asus A7V8X-X
Athlon XP 2800+
512 RAM

 

I like mcafee but the newer versions don't excite me much, I would go with nod if I had that choice. Nod is a very good av and is getting better all of the time.

bigc

 

Both are good, but NOD32 is my choice(for now).

 

According to the latest antivirus comparative at av-comparatives.org McAfee beats NOD32 in every single category of detection, 98.04% to 95.50% for NOD32. These categories includes DOS viruses, Windows, Macro, Script, Worms, Backdoors, Trojans and other Malware/Viruses.

Personally i use McAfee, easily one of the top 3 AV programs, along with KAV of course. And if/when McAfee goes to daily updates for the home user, it will only get better, not to mention the new 5000 series anti-virus engine that should be coming out in a few months.

Having said all that, i think you could throw NOD32 in that top 3 list as well. A solid AV program no doubt, though their trojan detection rates can (and are) get better.

 

mcafee has usually always beaten out nod in tests. i personally use nod.
mcafee is a huge program with lots of ads wanting you to buy this and that with anoying pop ups. does it have good detection yes. nod just runs so much smoother and so much more hidden out of sight.

 

While i would agree that the Security Center in McAfee is more than a bit annoying, i don't recall it hitting me with all kinds of pop-ups. NOD32 is a great AV no doubt, and light on resources to boot, but if you compare the 2 programs simply on their ability to ward off virus infections, and isn't that we're all looking for? then McAfee is the stronger of the 2.

 

Im a mcafee man myself. Like nod though to. I hate norton. Mcafee is far better in my opinion all around even resources than norton. Dont care for the security center on mcafee though. As far as the resources I dont see where it matters anymore not on new computers. If you gonna run a old computer might want to get nod, but mcafee runs fine on mine and ran fine on a 600 mhz to.Most computers now these day have enough ram etc.. for you not to worry about resources. Them test say mcafee has a higher detection rate, I dont much weight on them test though. Seen a good many that said complete opposite of what others said. Btw mcafee never has given me popup ads etc... every since uh version 4 or 3.

 

I've used both. Both run smooth. Both run reasonably light. NOD32 has more configurations. McAfee has much better trojan detection. NOD32 has more frequent and smaller updates. McAfee has no popups, just a security center that can easily be disabled. McAfee and NOD32 are almost the same download size. McAfee usually beats NOD32 in tests. NOD32 has very good heuristics.

These are two of my favourite, I recommend you try them both (one at a time of course).

I also recommend you use a program such as Total Uninstall:
http://www.martau.com/tu2_download.php
This will help to clean any leftover files and reg entries.

 

NOD 32 is my choice. Is great, i have tried almost all the other AVs. The new BETA even better of all previous versions of NOD32.

 

McAfee: Better Overall Detection, A Lot Less Configuration Options, little useful Security Center is installed without asking.

NOD32: Better Heuristics, Much more configurable, More resource friendly (in most cases) but not as good in overall detection.

The Final Choice is Yours.

PS: I'm using NOD32 Beta right now and works very well.

 

Someone said that McAfee has better detection rates, according to av-comparatives.org. But at www.virusbulletin.com McAfee didn´t get the 100% Award in the last NT test, while NOD32 did. Virusbulletim just test av´s against viruses or test av´s against trojans too?

 

Hi,

When I tested the various products a year ago, I couldn't get myself comfortable with McAfee's once/week automatic updates - and downloading the updates each day manually was a pain. Eventually, I settled on KAV 4.5 which updates multiple times each day. McAfee has announced they intend to go to once/day for their Home edition some time this summer, but I have always really disliked how McAfee treats their home users. The enterprise product is far lighter and easier to use, and gets the once/day updates before the home users? Why? I think it is a very poor way to treat customers.

With that said, NOD32 with Ewido should give you comparable detection rates to McAfee. The only product that might do better than this combination is KAV, which out-of-sight with its detection capabilities. It has basically made all of my ATs and ASs obsolete. So I would probably go with NOD32/Ewido at this point and if you have a little extra money, I would definitely buy ProcessGuard and RegDefend for added defense. Both are very light on resources, considering the amount of protection (rootkits, keyloggers, etc.) they provide and well, well worth the money. Prevx Home is also excellent, but definitely takes more resources than the other products. It is free.

Rich

 

I used KAV 5 past year, the trial version, and I liked it. But when I tried to use KAV 5 again, some weeks ago, when the windows XP SP2 starts, appears a Blue screen of death... And I think McAfee 9 is lighter than KAV 5.

I have the McAfee virusscan enterprise 8.0i too, but I don´t think it´s lighter than McAfee 9. With virusscan enterprise, when i open limewire or azureus, it gets a lot of time to open these aplication

Is not teatimer (spybot S&D) as effective as regdefend? I use teatimer, do you think I shoud change?

I´m brazilian, so don´t take notice of my English...

 

Hi alvd,

I have had similar issues with KAV 5.0 and flat out dislike this version of KAV. I never recommend it. I am still using 4.5 because it is very stable and uses the same database and detection engine as 5.0:

http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=61&st=20

As you can see from this discussion, KAV 4.5 will continue to have up-to-date database and detection support for some time to come. Given that you are having problems with 5.0 (as many, many users have), then you can purchase 4.5 from ICE Systems as I did.

http://www.ice-kav.com/contact.php

You would have to contact them for a link to the 4.5 download (either Personal or Pro). Any 5.0 license key will work with 4.5. I highly recommend KAV 4.5 for its overall detection capabilites. I monitor online scan fairly frequently and it is very rare that some malware is not detected by KAV but is detected by another product.

http://virusscan.jotti.org/

As for RegDefend, I think that this is a very importantant product. Like ProcessGuard and Prevx, it provides "proactive" defense. That is, it monitors registry areas (it comes with a very good set of areas which can be enhanced as I did so that it matches RegRun), and _prevents_ any new entries _before_ they are applied to the registry. This is different from Tea Timer which detects changes _after_ the fact and tries to remove them. By then, it may be too late.

There are several new products in this security category. Besides ProcesssGuards (which is fantastic) and Prevx (I have grown to like this product alot, even though it caused me lots of grief when it was initially released), there is a new product called Safe and Secure, which is also getting some attentioni on Wilders (there is a long thread on this product).

So, in answer to your question, I would say that RegDefend would be a very good replacement for Tea Timer. I certainly made the purchase. I have judged that the few up-front-dollars that I spend to _prevent_ installation of malware on my system is very well worth it. Check out the forums here on Wilders for ProcessGuard and REgDefend and see if you like what you see.

Rich

 

i´ll test RegDefend, and now I´m using PrevX...Do you think is necessary to run both aplicattions or prevx do something like Regdefend do? It will not take a lot of memory?

 

I run both, I just lower the settings that monitor the registry in Prevx.

Really impressed with RegDefend.

Hope this helps...

Cheres

 

Hi,

I also run them both. There is overlap, as Blackspear has indicated, but I find both products valuable. I have noticed that some registry events that RegDefend monitors, are not picked up by Prevx and vice-versa.

Rich

 

Hi Paul,

Next time it occurs, I will make note of the series of events. Simply stated: Most of the times that I get an alert from RegDefend I will get an alert from Prevx (Prevx's alerts usually come second in the series). For me, this is _not_ annoying, since I enjoy watching my defense at work (sort of like watching the Blue Angels fly ). However, there are times when I receive an alert from RegDefend, and I will not be alerted by Prevx and vice-versa. This does not concern me, since I do not think each program is covering all of the potential areas in the registry. However, if you would like to know the specifc entries, I will keep a look out for one, and try to catch it. Sometimes it is difficult, because I will give permission through RegDefend and I will just notice that there is no subsequent Prevx alert. Maybe others can elaborate if they have had similar experiences.

Hope this helps,

Rich

 

alvd,

You have to decide between the detection rate of McAfee and the configuration, light resources and heuristics of NOD32...

The new beta version of NOD32 it's more fast, and it's seems that now NOD32 have a much higher frequency of signature updates...

My choice goes for NOD32, but McAfee is a great AV...

Regards

 

Absolutely. This was the main reason why I uninstalled McAfee when it came with my recently bought PC. I knew that I didn't want it after the 90-day trial (I installed KAV 5.0). In light of this, go with NOD32. It is a fantastic AV and with Ewido as AT, you should be well protected.

PS The other big reason I uninstalled McAfee is that it requires ActiveX enabled. Bad...bad...bad!

 

Well, what if you take a look at the latest "retrospective/proactive test" at AV Comparatives.org? Who beats who there?
This shows which anti-virus program is nice to have to protect from new unknown threats.

 

I use nod (beta) in combination with Ewido - believe me this is a great combination. Light on resources and heavy protection. According to Firefighters tests - this is at least equal to Mcafee (thanks Firefighter).