Any AV out there that can beat ESET NOD32's adv.heuristics???

I know there are antivirus products in the market that may have a slightly better signature based detection.

But since I'm mainly a gamer, I very rarely download any illegal pirated software, I purchase all of my games. I only download updates & patches from trusted sources. I have very high knowledge when it comes to computers / smartphones / hardware & technology and bla bla bla.. You get the point

In other words... a powerful heuristics detection engine is the most important factor in an antivirus product for people who use their computers like me, only download from trusted sources, using a good firewall and etc.. (I'm using emsisoft's Online Armor btw)...

It have happened more than once that NOD32 have been the first antivirus software that have managed to block new worms and unknown viruses thanks to it's outstanding heuristics engine..

But I don't feel 100% safe using NOD32 these days since some people claims it's signature based detection is below pair... Is that really true?

And can I continue using ESET and feel safe relying on NOD32's heuristics engine will have a greater chance of detecting still unknown threats than the competition? Does NOD32 still have the best heuristics engine or have some other company managed to beat it's advanced heuristics detection??

Much text for a simple question, my english isn't the best so it takes time for me to explain stuff so people can understand

 

Heuristics engine is just one feature present in ESET and other AVs. But effective protection is also based on other feature/components. So far other security packages have been effective on 0day based on different technology such as cloud or behavior or sandbox based. This thread will be easily going to A vs B and thus I cannot make concrete names but heuristics in other products recently have demostrated that can go pair or even perform better than ESET.

 

@owziee: This type of test may answer your question:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/retrospective-test

 

Hello owziee

AS fax writes , heuristics is just another layer to security. A solid firewall, good backup policy and so on, are all solutions to a good strong security. If Eset have the best heuristics, I honestly can't say. But I can tell you what I look at , when I have to choose a heuristic solid engine, and that is three factors, " Stability in detection and numbers of false-positives, and how light it is regarding I/O.

Regards, Janus

 

Many thanks to all of you! And an extra thanks to IBK for the link, it was a very interesting read. NOD32 still seems good in heuristics but KAV and a few other may be a bit stronger in detection... Depends on how one looks at it, NOD had nearly no false positives and that is a plus...

The test definitely made me a bit smarter, I might have to evaluate another av just to see how it feels, performance is very important to me, if an av is to heavy on the cpu I'm uninstalling it in no time...

Can anyone recommend an AV that is light on resources? How about kaspersky?? I haven't tried it in at least 10 years i think... Back then it was a terrible cpu hog!

 

@owziee: The best thing you can do is trying out some AVs by your own and see how they perform on your system. A basic guide about performance can be found e.g. here: http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/performance-tests