chat on F-Secure & Norton 09 NOT A COMPARISON

In the US has a 3 license for 60 bucks, it also says free upgrade to 2009...I already have a license so just a heads up my gut feeling is both F-secure & Norton will release 09 version saturday or sunday...I like F-secure & I tested Norton it runs clean but there still are some doubts for me there, I may not get it this year...

 

I'd definitely go for F-Secure.

 

Both provide good security... Not sure which one you already have a license for, but given neither is horribly bad, if its working for you I'd just stay with what you got.

 

...gut feeling?

 

gut feeling & that the most recent Norton I downloaded was announced as the last & they usually release 9/1...

 

I did not know that, thanks for the info.

 

I have licence for both F-Secure and Norton. And have tried both their betas.

Of late F-Secure has become a resource hog and has not kept pace with features found in other suites.
Incomparison, Norton has improved by leaps and bounds. Its smaller and faster.

If 2009 of the two were in comparision, I might be inclined to go for Norton.

 

Both F-Secure and Norton are very -Heavy- on the system.
In terms of Detection Rate and Malware Removal Ability,
F-Secure is, by far, the winner.
So, if I had to install either F-Secure or Norton, I would prefer F-Secure.

Cheers,

 

Hi

Isn't Norton 09 really light?
Do you have any evidence to back up your statement of F-secure being much better than Norton?

Thanks

 

Well, my parents PC (where I used FIS 2008 ) got hit by some spyware which kept killing F-Secure off.
I got in touch with F-Secure Support, they asked me do do a F-Secure Online test that too failed to find anything. Their answer, you have VISTA ISSUES !!

Anyways, I ran eScan MWAV it found the spyware. Then on confirmation, I removed the gunk using Ad-Aware 2008.

So my experience with F-Secure hasn't been pleasant. And if you see most AV-Comparative Proactive my point is vindicated.

 

That's only heuristic detection. F-Secure's main power is DeepGuard. That last time it was tested (2007) it detected all the threats without using signatures.
http://www.f-secure.com/f-secure/pressroom/news/fs_news_20070620_01-eng.html

 

No offense.
But DeepGuard didn't protect against that spyware infection. So I am skeptic of F-Secure from my experience. And that Deepguard test too old. I am not sure you can use it in today's context.

In comparison Norton gives you decent heuristic scanning protection and also 0-day protection (like Deepguard) using SONAR. So from my point of view, Norton is better.
Plus Norton 2009 is soooo much lighter than F-Secure and it doesn't take up 300 MB hard disk space.

 

Well, DeepGuard isn't perfect, no offence but, since your parent used it, maybe they didn't take much attention to the pop ups?
We haven't seen F-Secure's 2009 heuristic detection tests yet, maybe they improved it.
I have seen Norton miss spyware(and malware) much more than any other antivirus I tried, not only one time like in your case.
About lightness: Yes, Norton is much lighter indeed. However F-Secure uses more than a single engine, which means it must be heavier.

 

f-secure may be heavy but its very good at protecting and didnt let me down.

 

@vijayind
DeepGuard is very powerful and detects many many 0day threats (including lots of spyware and ZLOB variants). The amount of alarms triggered by DeepGuard is very much lowered. The alarms that show up are quite informative and easier to understand than Kaspersky's for example.

 

Well I had set, FIS to automatically disinfect/quarantine any threats. Still I don't rule out the eventuality that Dad could have missed it.

But IMO, the any AV should have a strong scanner. Else we could all just use HIPS like DefenseWall and throw out AV software. The point is, that socially engineered attacks may fool people to let there guard down and get infected.
So at the core, the AV heuristic/signature scanner should do the job. Any AV that doesn't do this well is mediocre at best, be it Norton or F-Secure.
Single engine or multiple engine, efficiency is should be high. For 60 MB more RAM, I expect atleast 20-30% better results than single engine products.

Till 2008, neutral 3rd party and my own tests have shown that F-Secure lags behind Norton (which isn't all that great a product itself) on my parameters. In 2009 ?? We can speculate. But from what I have seen from the respective beta. Norton has improved more than F-Secure. So IMO, the gap is likely to widen and not shrink.

But this is purely my opinion, no offense to any anyone.

 

So probably DeepGuard would have catched the spyware.

Anyway, you think that antiviruses should have a better heuristic detection, so that even non savvy users can surf safely without clicking any popups? The problem with heuristic detection is that it can be bypassed easily. I have seen samples getting past the heuristic detection of ALL famous avs, only by a little hex editing and packing. But they couldn't get through the HIPS of some avs(including F-Secure). Still, as the years will pass HIPS will become more and more Intelligent, so easier to use. But until now, an av without any behaviour blocking system, that relies only on signatures and heuristics is a lost av.

It sure is good if an AV has both very strong heuristic and HIPS functions, still the HIPS functions will prevail on new threats in the end.

 

Just to point out that the malware that hit my parents PC was some Zlob variant. Some rogue AV program ( can't recall the name).

May be DeepGuard might have detected it. But when accidentally novice users by-pass behavioral blocker pop-ups. The AV suite should still be able to protect the user, in order to be called Powerful and Good. So a overall good product should have excellent protection at all layers, not just the first layer.

Thats my view-point. Due to which between Norton & F-Secure, I would choose Norton (for now).

 

Norton 2009 is not heavy at all (I have been beta testing NIS 2009)- in fact, it is as light as Nod32, Dr. Web, or Avira. F-Secure is a resource hog on my machines- I would not use it.

 

I agree heuristics can be by-passed. But Norton has HIPS called SONAR. And in Norton 2009 they have integrated almost all of NAB into SONAR. So I don't think, that in any way SONAR would be inferior to DeepGuard.

So my conclusion is:

Norton has SONAR same as DeepGuard of F-Secure.
Norton also has a better scanner than F-Secure.
Norton also takes less resources.

Add all of that up, Norton seems to have a edge (when compared with F-Secure).

 

I see. We'll see comparisons about Sonar and DeepGuard in the future Av-Comparative tests I gues..

BTW What do you mean by better scanner? I don't think that Norton has a better detection rate than F-Secure.

 

In our tests DeepGuard detected all rogue AV's during the last couple of months (WinAntiVirus / PowerAntiVirus ect.).

@emperordarius
DeepGuard won't show it's potential during the current proactive tests preformed by AV-Comparatives. As far I remember IBK was planning to change this in 2009.

@[topic]
In the 2009 version F-Secure will replace the 3rd party scanners with their own Hydra engine witch has quite some potential. You'll get 3 real-time engines (AVP, Hydra and DeepGuard) plus Blacklight for rootkit scannning and removal.

 

Yes, it does (as of 2008 family).
See the AV-Comparative Proactive list.

Norton got STANDARD grade, while F-Secure was too low for grades. Plus the amount of FPs for F-Secure where also higher.

 

Did you test also NAB/Sonar ? Is it as good or better ?

Both F-Secure and Norton have undergone surgery and both have new engines. So we can give benefit of the doubt to both of them, until comparative tests arrive.

 

@vijayind
Please notice that NAB and Sonar are two different things. NAB was also included in our testing, and is quite well at detecting rogue programs as well. Downside of NAB is that the rogue applications or other 0day threats are getting installed and quarantined after the 'installation process'. DeepGuard most of the time fully prevents it from installing.

I'm sorry I can't publish full test reports since it's classified.