What's closer to KAV.. NOD32 or Avast?

Thought this might for an interesting discussion...

In terms of Unpackers, detection of Malware, (Not just Viruses) and Frequency of updates, what would you say is the closest to KAV?

 

Not sure any AV can touch KAV honestly. I have ran almost every quality AV there is and I am KAV all the way now.

KAV really impressed me........ when TDS 3 informed me that I had about 7 diff trojans on here....eTrust said I was clean.....I ran my TMIS (new one) on demand scanner which found and supposedly removed them all.....Only to install KAV 5 and have it find every single one of them still on here.....KAV cleaned me right up.....bought KAV 5 couple days later.

 

I am currently in the try before you buy mode here, and have tried various different AV's and I do have to say that I love KAV 5. I also love NOD32 just as much. I believe KAV does a much better job at detection, but even the new KAV 5 just runs too slow for my likings. I am not just talking about slower scanning speeds either, it also slows down various things on my computer, like shut down and start-up times, time it takes for a download to start and the save as box to appear, etc. I like NOD32 for it's speed and next to no resources it uses.
I haven't tried the new Extendia dual scanning engine AV yet, but from what I have read I would say that would be closest to KAV 5 over NOD32 for unpacking etc.

 

Did anyone mentioned avast! ? Oh yeah its not with the big boys doh
Most of people underestimating the avast!'s power. But well,sure stick with the KAV or NOD32...

 

I would say Avast has better unpacking, little better other (trojan etc.) detection than NOD32. For frequency of update, NOD32 is generally more frequent it seems, though neither have such a frequent update cycle as Kaspersky.

 

I have seen days when Alwil team issued updates three (3) or more times per day. If nothing special every 2 or 3 days.

 

RejZoR:

Why do you like Avast so much?

 

Because it was mentioned in the topics name... and because its very good AV and i try to tell this to others. But most of people just don't want to try it because they are afraid of something (god knows what that could be).
It has great ITW detection (forget VB100% tests,they suck),very good trojan detection (i can say its way better then NOD32 ),packers support is quiet good and it can detect majority of spyware files (and trojans) with its generic detection (usually named as Win32:Trojan-Gen).

 

RejZoR,

Can Avast compare with F-secure?

 

dear Straight Shooter, i thought you are a straight shooter but this question is quite a tricky one. in general nothing comes close to KAV. be it unpacking, update interval or malware detection. apart from those AVs using AVP engine, i'd say unpacking capability is good in NOD32. mainly because of the fact that the ESET guys update this unpacking capability with their signature update just like KAV though not that regular. in malware detection McAfee comes right after KAV with Panda and F-Prot following closely. update frequency is another trick question. sometimes for an AV a single signature does it all and for another AV different signature is required for different variants. so its not wise to compare. anyway as i'm very unwise i'd like to vote for Panda for its daily unfailing updates. sorry i couldn't give a combined/optimized result.

 

Avast is a good free AV, but it is nothing compared to commercial AVs like KAV, NOD32, even Norton. Its only heuristics are for email detection, it has a (admittedly not too bad) false positive problem (I've gotten a couple from it), it slows down older computers badly, it takes up an unnecessary amount of HD space, and the skinless interface looks godawful and is difficult to read to boot.

I must say, though, the fast updates are nice. NOD32 has a similar update frequency, though.

 

I'd say Avast! comes closer to KAV, and thank god too. That's because NOD32 is faster than both, uses less resources, and has far better heuristic detection than both. Another good thing is that neither Avast! nor NOD32 detects as much useless crap as Kaspersky.

 

I disagree with dos. I keep coming back to KAV. It has so much stuff in the database that I'll take some crap there along with the rarer baddies. It seems like Avast and NOD32 are fairly comparable in some tests. So I'm not sure one's really closer to KAV. I'd choose NOD32 because of the heuristics and lighter resource usage.

 

Ok and we are again in the beginning. Heuristics. When people hear this word they just get high because this is so oh and so feature. It has nothing to do with update servers (if they are down) or with anything. Sure it can catch some parasites,but most of the load is on signatures anyway.
As far as i know NOD32 has the best heuristics,but as my friend Kobra tested majority of AVs,avast! scored much better then NOD32 (and Sophos,AntiVir,Norman,Panda and so on).
Samples were mixed of worms,trojans,droppers and other malware. Not just ITW samples (as i said VB100% is a strange organisation when you get close to their "way" of testing). Hm where are then heuristics? Um oh yeah...

Ok here is the Kobra's testing thread from avast! forums:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=5248

 

If you visit http://www.norman or http://www.nod32.com and do a little bit of research, you'd see how many ITW viruses have been caught by NOD32-AH or by Norman's Sandbox. ITW viruses are the REAL thing. Of course, you may or may not agree with me but that’s ok.

Also if you research carefully you'd see that Heuristics/Sandbox doesn't work on every type of Malware. There it will not detect spyware or some binary viruses.

Judging AV capabilities by downloading and throwing 300 viruses on it is very misleading.




tECHNODROME

 

Yeah well how can avast! without any heuristics catch more samples then NOD32 or Norman with it Sandbox techonology? My only point i'm trying to say is that AV doesn't suck if it lacks those fancy high named features...
There is always talking only about heuristics all the time(i realized its not that damn important),but most of people don't realize that generic detection does more job then heuristics in these days. And this is the strongest point of avast! as far as i was able to test/see from other ppls.

Btw VB100% do the same thing,they throw samples to AV. Its the only way to test doh...

I'm not trying to flame or anything,i just say whats on my mind...

 

Think about Heuristics as additional weapon. Virus signatures are still widely used and we know it.

Some AV companies think every virus should be detected weather ITW or not. On the other hand some AV companies will only add detection to virus that could become an ITW virus.

Tests such as Kobra’s have been discussed many times here and elsewhere. I won’t waste my time on it.

Then you shouldn't care about it.

avast! is a very good product and I got no doubts about its capabilities. I own it myself.

Now if we could get heuristics + generic detection? Vlk?

Yes. VB is reputable company/source. Can't say Kobra is...

That’s why we got places like this... To speak our minds.


tECHNODROME

 

Is it (VB100%)? After i have seen numerous stupid fails of avast! (with explanation of Alwil programmers and quote of VB100% notes on why did it failed i lost the last "hope" for the trustwothines of the tests. I'm wondering how pissed are other AV developers on the same problems as Alwil enocuntered in VB100% tests... AV fails because VB100% tester didn't know how to turn On-Access scanner on?

EDIT:
Sorry for some offtopic...

 

Explanation is usually within VB Magazine. But you need to subscribe to see it all otherwise it’s very misleading.


tECHNODROME

 

Do you think chat with Vlk isn't enough?
Anyway that table tells me exactly NOTHING. Sorry,but from technical aspect its useless. Why don't they add note why did AV failed? This is what i call misleading ppls...

 

Agree w/TD. And--as is the norm for these tests--"what constitutes a virus" is, to put it mildly, loosely defined. As Randy Bell correctly pointed out in that thread, some AV's tag adware as trojan horses. Some don't. Some AV's detect "joke programs". Some don't. The question the user has to ask him/herself is "What kind of protection do I need, and what software do I want to use to protect myself?"

Avast is a very good AV, with great generic detection. KAV is a very good AV with incredible unpacking and detections for everything under the sun. It can be debated whether that's a good or bad thing. NOD32 has great detection of the threats most likely to affect the average user. It's heuristics are incredible for new and unknown threats coming from the internet.

Different strokes for different folks.

 

See my post above about judging AVs. VB test is astart and If it was usless, no AV company would care.

Anyway, I think you should look forward to another test from Kobra.

They usually do but in magazine.


tECHNODROME