What should ESET improve?

Discussion in 'NOD32 version 2 Forum' started by izi, Jun 23, 2004.

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What should ESET improve?

  1. Virus detection (viruses, trojans, malware, worms...)

    59.7%
  2. Better and faster support

    16.4%
  3. Improving program compatibility

    6.0%
  4. Improving program components

    9.0%
  5. Heuristics

    9.0%
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  1. Stan999

    Stan999 Registered Member

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    Hey Blackspear,

    He is becoming pretty cognizant of the potential for being infected and hackers out there. He starts the NOD32 on demand scanner each evening when he has finished using the machine. He also uses Ad-aware and an online scanner from time to time.
     
  2. Blackspear

    Blackspear Global Moderator

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    Great to see :D

    Cheers :D
     
  3. tazdevl

    tazdevl Registered Member

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    I've done a fair bit of software product management/development from requirements to roll-out. I do know and am not surprised. BTW I'm not talking pretty graphics and animations.

    Back OT, seems like there is a trend with better support for "other" signatures. Anyone know how many signatures are in the DB to date?
     
  4. Sibilant

    Sibilant Registered Member

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    I think that the biggest improvement would be in the GUI also. To reach a bigger audience with this product needs to be more user friendly.

    My parents are very computer illiterate. They can navigate Norton Antivirus after about a 10 minute lesson. My dad noticed that I have recently switched to NOD32 and I told him how great it is and how happy I am with it. He downloaded the trial version and gave it an hour. Discouraged, he reinstalled NAV.

    It doesn't need more graphics, just a more organized GUI. My degree is in software engineering so I know how much bloat is involved with graphics. I think the amount that is currently employed is good. You need to look professional and it certainly does that.

    Maybe predefined levels of security [Low-Med-High] and Depth of Scan[L-M-H]. Anything to make the user experience easier. It could also have easy and advanced modes.
     
  5. sir_carew

    sir_carew Registered Member

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    Frankly speaking I prefer better heuristic, features than an easy and clear GUI. Same with Firewalls. For example: 3 Firewalls: Sygate Pro, ZA and look'n'stop. Of those, ZA has the better GUI however Sygate Pro and look'n'stop are superior in inbound protection. Most firewall sucks same with AV. AV and Firewall that has a beautifull GUI but the protect sucks, uses (EAT) ram.

     
  6. Cameron

    Cameron Registered Member

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    I say "ALL OF THE ABOVE and more"

    can never have enough protection,speed,support
     
  7. Blackspear

    Blackspear Global Moderator

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    Good suggestion :D

    Cheers :D
     
  8. Sibilant

    Sibilant Registered Member

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    Even simple things like this could make a big difference. Maybe add a couple of wizards in the setup.
     

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  9. Alec

    Alec Registered Member

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    Basically, I would like them to just keep working on the actual AV engine, signatures, and heuristics like everyone else. But, if you are going to talk GUI, I do have a few nitpicky things that I would like to see implemented.
    1. Why not just make the NOD32 control center GUI a single window with a splitter bar? I'm not a huge fan of the two window format, even though they do sort of snap together. It seems a little clunky to me when I need to switch, say, from the fixed size AMON panel window to one of the log windows which almost have to be resized much larger to be of practical use.

    2. Make sure to have window placement and sizing be persistent between reboots. It doesn't currently seem to be. It's sort of a pain to have to open the AV center, switch to one of the log windows, and then drag to resize the window and columns everytime I want to view a log. Can't these settings just be stored in the registry?

    3. Perhaps the NOD32 GUI on-demand scanner could just be integrated as the right-hand pane in the NOD32 control center GUI? It's not a big issue, but why have the control center spawn a new window when perhaps it could just host it within it's own frame?
    Definitely do not try to emulate the NAV GUI. As I remember Norton, McAfee and many of the rest use a fixed size window. I absolutely hate fixed sized window GUI's. Plus, they make them too simplistic and devote screenspace to things like green/red lights, huge checkmarks, etc. Sure, they try to be simple, but I find them to be worse than useless, they are condescending. I just want a simple to use, GUI that allows me to resize windows and columns, easily view configuration settings and logs, etc. I don't need smiley faces and dancing clowns in my AV scanner. ;)

    Well, anyway, those are just some of my humble observations on GUI issues. Again, I would like to stress, that they really aren't that big a deal to me, and given the choice I would prefer the devs just spend their time on detection issues... but I figured I might as well put them down on the wish list. Eset, I think you guys are doing a great job! Keep up the good work.
     
  10. Pigman

    Pigman Registered Member

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    What I really wish for most is right-click options for the Control Center's system tray icon... It would be nice to be able to turn AMON and IMON on and off without opening up the control center.
     
  11. rdsu

    rdsu Registered Member

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    Yep, this will be great, and also the possibility to change the profile... ;)
     
  12. iwod

    iwod Registered Member

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    Totally agree
     
  13. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    Since when has Pc-Cillin, McAfee or KAV 5.0 become "bloatware"? I will grant that NAV since the 2002 version has become "bloatware" to some extent. PC-Cillin 2003 is lighter than NOD32 on my older W98SE box! Yet it has a NAV like GUI that is easy to use and that sends any virus to a real quarantine. McAfee 7.0 has a good, easy to understand GUI and it was about the same as NOD32 in resources. KAV 5.0 also has a good GUI and it doesn't use Windows graphics. KAV 5.0 is supposed to be some glutted monster but I don't find that at all. On my XP box, it is faster than NOD32 when IMON HTTP scanning is turned on. NOD32 slows down my computer unacceptably when IMON HTTP is turned on whereas KAV has almost imperceptible slow down. KAV, of course, takes twice as long to scan the C drive than does NOD32 but that is because it scans twice as many files. KAV also eats lots of RAM when scanning some complex file but I have lots of RAM ....might as well put it to use.

    So, I'm not contradicting myself at all. :) As for Windows graphics, all that does is add the pretty colors for NOD32. Turn that off and you can still have a better GUI. You will simply see NOD32 displayed in the colors of your XP theme instead of its own colors.

    But actually, now that I have XP with lots of RAM, I am fine with NOD32 becoming somewhat heavier if that is what it takes to get a GUI that makes sense. The current one is too confusing and cumbersome and bulky. The screens for setting up the profiles for NOD32 scanner are especially bulky, confusing and irritating to use.

    NAV 2005 has something NOD32 needs badly and that is a way to disable AMON for X number of minutes whereupon it then is re enabled automatically. So many times I have disabled AMON for software installation and forgotten that it was disabled and left it disabled. A blinking icon would be better than nothing but I use transparency for my tool bar and sys tray because the XP tool bar is way too fat and obtrusive (and cannot be narrowed like it can in W98 so that the tool bar is barely visible-auto hiding is not the same thing) so I have to minimize it somehow and I wouldn't see a blinking icon easily. What NAV 2005 has is great and I think Eset should imitate it.

    I also don't understand the reason for double windows and having to resize the log windows every time is irritating.

    NOD32 will never make it big time without an easier to use GUI. I want to make it clear though that by easier to use GUI, I don't mean take away configurability. For instance, KAV 5.0 has almost no configurability and I wouldn't use it for that reason.
     
  14. Technodrome

    Technodrome Security Expert

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    Try PC-Cillin v 11. It has many useless features, heavy graphics and little or no engine improvements. Used to be 7.5 MB program, now its over 30 MBs.

    If you ever load McAfee on you machine, watch for mcshield and CPU usage.

    KAV used to be a very light AV. It’s all ended when they released version 4. It became a bloody bloatware. Period.


    Yes, you are! :)

    Here is what you said when NOD32 2.0 was released.
    Just for the record. No changes were made to the GUI since 2.0 release.


    NOD32 GUI isn't pretty as Norton's and I agree with you. But look at NOD's advantages (lighter, smaller size, faster, better detection etc.)


    tECHNODROME
     
  15. Alec

    Alec Registered Member

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    Whew! Reading your first few paragraphs I thought that I might have to totally disagree with you. KAV 5 is a perfect example of a GUI having gone from bad to much, much worse, IMHO. They tried to simplify and streamline. I'm sure at the request of many, many users and in the hopes of attracting the "casual, CompUSA, I don't want to learn too many things" type of user that NAV has always appealed to. In the process, they have gutted almost all of the configurability as you noted. It has all been replaced basically with a "Protection: Low, Medium (Recommended), High" slider. I'm sorry, but that is NOT the type of AV I want. If I had wanted that, I probably just would have stuck with NAV. I want to be able to specify scanning down to the exact extension if I want to. I want to be able to turn heuristics on or off. I want to be able to select whether I scan zip, rar, etc. archives or not. I want to be able to specifiy exclusions. Etc. Etc.

    Not to mention, but they now utilize the *ack* fixed size window *ack*, the big green checkmarks, enormous tabs, and the big magnifying glass cutesy graphics that I loathe. They compound this by abusing the hypertext paradigm by replacing any real user interface with underlined pseudo-hyperlinks to functionality that can bring up any and all sorts of other ill-functioning, fixed aspect dialog windows. The sad thing is, that I can tell that they tried to put some effort into it, what with all of the time invested in graphics and all... but that they totally lost sight of useability (just as Norton had a few years ago before them). If you want a prime example of a bad UI design, just dig into the "View reports" hyperlink and tell me that this functionality isn't totally hosed from a user's perspective.

    No, at this point I can't think of a single alternative AV vendor who's GUI I would actively seek to emulate. NOD's interface is better than almost all of the alternatives. If they would just make the changes I outlined above and if they would include the right-click, context menu support on the taskbar icon as Pigman suggested, then I would be quite happy with the GUI.

    BTW, I would disagree with your assertion that KAV is only slower due to the more extensive number of files it scans... but that is likely the subject matter for another thread in another forum. Also, IMON HTTP scanning must be part of the beta. Either that, or I'm just ignorant, because I don't believe I have that in my version of NOD32. I doubt that I will enable that functionality, in any event.

    I do have a question for you, though. Do you disable AMON on every software install? Or have you just had problems with specific programs? I just leave it on, and I haven't encountered any issues.
     
  16. sir_carew

    sir_carew Registered Member

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    You've reason.
    What about ZA Pro 3.0 and above?
    More friendly GUI uses more memory.
    I prefer program capabilities and not a GUI. NOD GUI is clear to use and use few memory. ESET: Keep the current GUI.

     
  17. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    What is PC -Cillin v 11? I had PC-Cillin 2003. I know 2004 included a firewall that is problematic but I didn't try that version and version 11o_O

    I had McAfee 7.0 on my W98SE box and was very impressed and it wasn't bloated. I loved it until I tried to use OE (which is my default Email client) and IE (which I rarely use) and found that it had destroyed both. McAfee had a beta engine in release candidate status to correct the problem but I didn't want to fool with it, however, had I not had that engine problem, I would probably have gone with McAfee 7.0....not 8.0 though.


    Ugh...how is 8.8MB bloatware?




    I was trying to be nice and say positive things . Time was if you didn't do that here you got crucified/ugly bad karma and I didn't feel like going through that again. (Karma is not a toy as Paul seems to think. You don't play with something as powerful as karma). I did think the color was pretty. :) But then I realized you only get the color if you turn on Windows graphics. That is a total no-no for W98SE boxes which I had when version 2 came out.

    Randy Bell says NAV 2004 is about 10MB. So the only big one here is this PC-Cillin 11 that I have never heard of before. I suspect NAV is bigger than Randy thinks though and it has stuff like IM scanning that I don't need. But it and PC-Cillin 2003 have proper quarantine which NOD32 doesn't have nor does Kaspersky. This is important to me. Plus, I don't use IMON and I am disappointed in the "improvements" in AMON in the beta. If KAV had configurability and proper quarantine I would probably go with it although I don't like that it scans for adware. NAV has DRM and very poor support and McAfee is a mess now and is being sold and PC-Cillin still has the bad bug I discovered and Trend engineers promised me would be fixed in 2004 but wasn't. So, NOD32 warts and all :) is the best of the lot.
     
  18. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    I have plenty of RAM on my XP box so using more memory is not a problem. It would be on my W98SE box though. KAV 5.0 doesn't slow this XP box and if doesn't, I'm sure using a little more RAM for a better GUI would not bother me in the slightest.
     
  19. anybody

    anybody Guest

    It bothers people traveling on laptop. I think the best of the both world is to have two version, one light and one "sharpen". I don't mind the current look of NOD32. But, I do mind if NOD32 uses just a little more memory. My laptop is very old and still running stable and I cannot find the RAM for it anymore. I am happy with it and plan not to change in the new future. I have 192MB of RAM not really a "low memory" system but all the rest of the AV still run real slow. Plus, I have to reserve ram to run AT/firewall. BTW mine is a P3, not very old laptop.
     
  20. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    It is MUCH worse than NAV! It is designed for the OEMs and supposedly the Personal Pro version will be configurable and 5.0 Personal users will be granted an upgrade key to the configuration part of Pro. So, I'm keeping my eye on this.


    I know. View Reports is non-functional. Absolutely awful and certainly NOD32's is far, far better. I have no quarrel with the reports part of NOD32 GUI. Especially since the beta has fixed the bug that was causing NOD32 to crash every time I tried to copy anything from any report. :) However, I LOVE the fixed size window and I don't see any large green check marks and there are NO enormous tabs in KAV 5.0! I love the GUI except there is almost no configurability, quarantine doesn't work and the view reports is non-functional but otherwise, it is what I want because it is like NAV and PCCillin and McAfee. I want configurability in a WORKABLE EASY TO UNDERSTAND GUI. That does not mean I want simplistic choices. I don't want words like "hide" and "quit". Who uses those? Strange choices. I don't want profiles setup to be so cumbersome and it is extremely easy to forget the drop down menus when setting up profiles...I have done it every time I have set a profile up. I want to EASILY be able to set up scheduled scanning right from the GUI. I could go on and on...but essentially the problem is, to put it bluntly, NOD32 feels like a foreign GUI. I want it to feel like an American GUI. NAV, KAV 5.0, PCC, McAfee all feel this way.

    Yes, IMON HTTP scanning is part of the beta.


    I disable AMON on almost all installs. I disable everything in the sys tray except volume and my Nvidia settings. We had a big discussion about this over at dslr recently and the majority of users said that they never disable the AV or anything when installing. I do because the installer says to do so and I don't want to risk having my installation messed up which has happened on the few occasions over the years when I didn't do this. Folks at dslr were saying that they don't run across applications asking for everything to be disabled before installing. Well, I sure do. Almost everything I install instructs one to turn off all running Windows applications. I got lazy a few months ago and didn't turn off AMON I think it was (could have been NAV 2003 that came on this box and that I had on it about a month) when I installed new Nvidia drivers and I had a mess. I don't know if that was why, but Nvidia does say to turn off AV.
     
  21. Alec

    Alec Registered Member

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    Well, I have done some software development, and in the vast majority of cases I would say that disabling the AV is unnecessary. Certainly you are correct, most application installers do tell you to exit all running applications prior to installation. However, this is usually just a blanket disclaimer by the developers... sort of like when they say in their install that the software is licensed "as is" and that they won't be "held liable" for resulting damages from use of their software. Basically they don't want phone calls from users complaining about how they can't install the software properly when they maybe have 30 active applications running doing all sorts of weird things. If you don't say it, there is always some joker out there that will be running an extremely complex mix of apps during the install.

    In the vast majority of cases, though, user mode applications do not absolutely require these "lone" installs. If you think about it, you really can't get a totally "lone" install anyway since even with all of the applications closed, your modern WinNT/2K/XP OS will likely have 20-30 active processes still running in the background. With user mode apps, the main thing I believe is the possibility of another app perhaps locking a key registry hive, a key directory, or a key file. This is probably pretty unlikely.

    With the AV, your fear, I would imagine, is that the resident AV engine might view a part of the install as viral activity. However, this would probably only be likely if the install in question was really more of a patch to current files than the install of new files... even then I doubt most AV's would be triggered. True, you may have to be more careful with kernel mode installs (drivers, certain services, OS components, etc.)... but like I said I have yet to have a single problem and I have installed quite a bit of stuff with both NOD32 and ZA active.

    Anyway, certainly you should continue to do what you feel comfortable doing. I just wanted to share my positive install experiences without being overly compulsive about trying to kill all active processes to do so. (PS: Installing new video drivers can often be a crapshoot even in the best of circumstances. There always seems to be something that has to be resolved before your back to where you started. :( )
     
  22. Paul Wilders

    Paul Wilders Administrator

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    Ladies and gents,

    A polite request: please stick to the subject from this poll/thread, and refrain from discussing ins and outs from all sorts of different Antiviruses extensively. We have an "other antiviruses" forum available for that ;).

    Thanks in advance,

    paul
     
  23. AgentX

    AgentX Registered Member

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    NOD32 is definitely one of the best AVs out there, both in terms of ITW detection and
    the scanning speed. However, there are a few glitches which I'd like to see ironed
    out in future, if ESET engineers decide to emphasize more on program features and
    optimizations than on the usual eye candy.

    I'd like to see NOD32 armed with:-
    1> (Self) Process protection, like what KAV offers.
    2> Improved trojan and other malware detection.
    3> Statistics/numbers of malware detected by NOD32, like everyone else offers.
    4> More optimized GUI(NO eye canDy!). I don't like to see NOD32 in WinAmp outfit.
    5> A better quarantine, with encrypted file-system design.
    6> Frequently updated downloadable installation executables. The current one comes
    with December' 2003 signatures. Update it once a week.
    7> HTTP/FTP downloadable cumulative/daily/weekly signatures and engine files.
    8> Better unpacker support.
    9> Improved zoo malware detection. Make it optional with a checkbox choice.
    10> Last but not least, (argh!) make those "secret" beta versions available for the
    rest of us, thus enabling more users to report incompatibilities and bugs, resulting
    short beta cycles and less hassles for Eset people. And, post other tidbits like the
    imon HT-fix on the main download site, to make it little easier for the endusers to
    download and test them at their will.

    Pardon my never ending expectations. :)

    Regards,
    AgentX
     
  24. Sibilant

    Sibilant Registered Member

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    I think that the "Visual" part should be left exactly the way it is. No more graphics and/or fancy buttons. It looks professional without looking like a video game. I want it to use the least amount of processing power possible.

    I think that the configuration should be improved. Have NOD32 start out in easy mode with a slider that says Low-Med-High secruity. Under that have a button that says advanced that will give you the same fine tuning capabilities that it already has. Right after the installation and reboot have the user go through a wizard to set up passwords and automatic updates and things like that. Their would be no performance loss with this kind of improvment.

    People who are already fans of NOD32 and powerusers would stay for the fine tunabity and performance. People ask me what I would recomend for software all the time since I'm in the field. I love NOD32 but would hesitate to recomend it to anyone but a poweruser. I usually recomend NAV or McAffe.

    If NOD32 kept the same performance and improved the ease of use...not only would I recomend it, I would start snatching up their stock.
     
  25. Sibilant

    Sibilant Registered Member

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    Amen!
     
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