Etrust Antivirus - how good is it?

Be it etrust EZ, etrust without EZ, or Computer Associates Antivirus. ( Too many names too little differentiation ). All i know is that they have 2 AV engine, Vet and Inoculate.

After many research i cant find any good reviews on the 2 engine. And no result for both engine working together as in etrust Enterprise 7.1

So far my search suggest that the engine working on itself are only moderate. But may be the two engine working togther is a different matter?

 

eTrust is not the perfect antivirus, actually there is not one. But Trust is a very good one, you can search for ever for the perfect antivirus protection but it won't be found. So useing an av like eTrust with a layered protection is going to give you good protection as long as a little common sense is used also. There seems to quite a bit of paranoia concerning antivirus products and that really is a shame because there are quite a few av's out there that actually do a great job but like anything else it always takes a little intervention from the grey matter between the ears. There is a lot of disservice to the members here sometimes by well meaning people that give their personal reviews of antivirus products without the experience or knowledge to do so. I know I also give my opinion about av's also but Usually only if asked or in a thread that has had that question asked. I will never tell anyone which av to use simply because i don't know how someone uses their computer or how they surf the web. I have stated which products I use and why, but I leave it up to the individual to make their own choice. The real shame is that a lot of the younger users are so intent on securing their system to withstand anything that might possibly infect their system no matter how remote the chance are missing out on the actual pleasure of just enjoying the computers. And the layered defence works, I have never had an infection on my computer due to a lack in my protection. So come on lets get a decent layered defence setup protecting our comp. and drop the paranoia that every hacker and trojan is after you personally, they are after the ones with a very poor defence so they can sneak on in. A good layered defence along with common sence will keep you about as secure as you are going to get unless you unplug your pc.

 

Well said, bigc

 

@bigc / Master Yoda

i argee and understand all the things you have said. ( i don't know if that statement was directed at me or not )

I am not trying to find a perfect av as i already know there isn't one. I was actually trying find out if etrust is any good. ( in terms of detection rate, unpacking.. etc ) all i have got was moderate results. After one of the magazine break the story of the "new" etrust 1 year free trial promo with M$( gosh i wish they do some better research.......... ) and saying how good is this Av... bra........bra..........
Myy friends was asking me ( or arguging with me ) he should use etrust EZ solution . Since i know he is not a computer secuirty minded person i told him to go for avast instead of EZ ( it has to be free ). In my opinion it offer better layer defense with Network ,web and Standard Shield.

May the force be with you.

 

Both the Inoculate and Vet engines seem to be a lot better with ITW rather than zoo malware; see for example

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?etrust.xml
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?vet.xml
http://oem.zer0-tec.net/testing/DISCLAIMER.html
http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asp?id=69&mnu=69

And the Inoculate engine only received a Standard grade in an on-demand zoo test in March of this year over at av-comparatives.

Overall, I think that both engines are weak in unpacking ability and an AT running alongside Inoculate/Vet would be a good idea.

As regards the double-engine in the enterprise edition, bigc is running this one at present.

The Etrust Promo with the double-engine is still a good choice, particularly if backed up by say the free Dr Web's CureIT

 

This is what I can tell you about EZ Etrust. I have used it for almost a year now. I am a paid customer (I got it for $17 Canadian from an offer on their website). It is very light on the PC. It's interface if very easy to navigate. It updates anywhere from 5 to 7 times a week. It is very, very stable and plays well with any other program I have ever tried. The real-time scanner pops up as often as any other AV I have used and cleans infections I have had quite well. I am not a very safe surfer as I have to do research, and the field I research tends to have idiots who for one reason or another use viruses on their web pages. I recieve many emails from a public email address that tends to keep EZ busy with infected mail. I use 2 different online scanners once a week to double check and they both come back clean (except twice when one online scanner found some spyware). Overall I have been very pleased with EZ Anti-Virus.

The Cons of the product are that there is no dedicated forum. There is an extensive knowledge base though. The Troubleshooter in the product is about the best I have seen. It asks different questions and by the answer you provide it narrows down the possible problems, although I have never had a problem with the program.

As for so called Anti-Virus testing from pros, I would not know as I put more faith into my own personal real life tests.

Overall I really like EZ, however if I would have had to pay the full price of $29 USD I would have probably made another choice. This would have been to gain more features that others offer and nothing to do with the actual detection rates of the products.

 

Some of the most infected machines i've ever had to clean had eTRUST installed on them.

Overall, I think it is a pretty poor product and there are much better options.

 

I think BigC is right as I was definitely going the same direction with my security and ended up forgetting my computer was there to be enjoyed.
I do have my security layers and thankfully have never had to clean a virus/malware from any of my computers.

I came to the forum tonight to see if I could find an alternative AV as my subscription to AVG Pro will expire in a few months (doing my homework already!) Start to read the reviews and I am more puzzled than when I started out I have NOD32 on my notebook and AVG pro on my main PC - read a review on the comparison site and they do not like AVG at all.

It certainly looks like the next month will be spent trying to decide if I renew my sub or find an alternative for my main PC

that does make sense to me

 

Are you a certified tech??

Do you have documentation to back up these claims??

Are you 100% sure that it was Etrust and not corrupted files or spyware.

 

I've cleaned over 4000 machines personally over the years - including for fortune 500 companies, and yes, i'm certified. In addition, I do virus analysis freelance, and maintain a collection of 72,000 pieces of malware. I also consult on a few security projects.

My experiance in general, is that eTrust is a mediocre product at best. Roughly 80-85% range detections, and poor on malware. Given there are 90-98% products out there, and they are good on malware, there are far better choices to investigate.

 

I actually did stumble upon an ETrust forum that seems to be user operated and is currently active. Just go to this link.

http://forums.ca.com/eshare/server?...RT=565536&BSORT=4&AEXPAND=&BEXPAND=&BOARD=325

 

@ SDS909 .... a sincere thank-you for letting readers know your background. This is very important when users are trying to make an informed decision on how to protect their systems.

@ Mongol .... thanks for the link. I use to use this board, but for some reason have not been able to get to it in the last few months. I thought that it had been taken down. Its now bookmarked

 

You're welcome...Its a handy forum for finding out what ETrust is up to for program updates. I had to do some determined surfing to find it...

 

All is relative. If you have good internet habits etrust is perfect for you coz its really stable and lighty. You wont notice that is in your computer and scans are very very fast. But if you have hard surfing habits well you are totally unsecure with etrust...you´ll get trojans from everywhere. If this is the case theres only one product that might guarantee you some security and the name is kaspersky...but you will lose in other fields coz kapersky is much more agressive to your system. Anyway i would go for Antivir, its heuristic is a jewell.

 

SDS909 - What are your top 3 AV programs in terms of detection rates? Of the big three free AV's (AVG, Avast, & Antivir) which one do you like the best? Is there much of a difference between them & is Etrust better than the free Av's? Judging from your experience it seems like you've seen it all regarding Av's so your opinion is very valuable.

 

AVG I wouldn't touch. Avast is strong, but I personally felt somewhat bloated and lacking real heursitics - although it does good with generic trojan detection and strong unpacking. I like the heuristics and spartan interface in Antivir, but if I remember right last time I tested it there was no auto updater? (it has been awhile)

I'd probably go with Avast, but Antivir falls in a close second imo.

 

Read the same thing about Norton on this forum and I loved Norton. I used ZoneAlarm with Antivirus which uses CA antivirus. It worked great also. Big C got it right.

 

On any given day, you can read something like that on any AV. EZTrust is installed on the kids comp and it gets a workout. But nothing s gotten by it so far, as confirmed by b/u scans by Kaspersky on line, DrWeb Cureit, Ewido and others. I use to do backup scans weekly, now just occasionally.
I was not too sure about it at first but have gained confidence in it's ability to keep the comp reasonably clean.

 

I think Antivir FREE is better than etrust...

 

Agree. Of the full-function-freebies (Avast, AVG, EZ, AVPE), AntiVirPE has the most effective heuristics IMHO. However, Avast might be better on malware than is AVPE.

(I include EZ as a freebie because it offers a free, UNcrippled version HERE).

 

That was my conclusion from my research as well. Generally like everyone here have said. And i would argee that there are far better choices.
Thanks for the confirmation everyone.

 

Agreed.

 

I never had any virus or infections during my time with e trust promo. I do think that any antivirus will prove useless if the user is not using good judgement in their use of a pc. Many businesses run an av and never update them or the users just turn them off temporarily if theres a problem when the person seated next to them isnt watching. I would choose e trust promo over any of the above mentioned . Its fast at scanning and downloads are quick unlike some. Its also very pleasant and easy to use . Its perhaps one of the lightest av s on any system. And the two scanners have racked up over 36 vb awards . ( not that this is any thing to necesarily rave over) however all the above mentioned do pride themselves in their vb achievements. I would back it up with some thing like cure it and or bitdefender / kaspersky online scans now and again.

 

The only detailed test i have seen is at virus test centre,scanner test july 2004.
Looked very good to me

 

Hi all,
This link is an official Etrust forum, and there are some users there to help you. However I made my way to the main link with all the forum listings and the EZ forum is the only one with the message "Not monitored by Support Staff". HMMMM