Next best alternative to ThreatFire (Symantec to Acquire PC Tools)

OK, I haven't used their software in quite a while, so I will concede to you that it is possible it has changed. I base my opinion of Symantec from when I used their Norton AV. It didn't perform well on my system (I think I had 1 gig of ram at the time) and it was an absolute b*tch to uninstall. Even after using the special Norton removal tool I still had a Norton service on my system (Symantec Core LC), along with a bunch of other crap. I thought it was worse to get rid of than some malware.

So maybe it is a great product now, maybe not...I will probably never know personally. I just thought I would let you know I wasn't "hating" on them without having a reason.

 

Compared to ThreatFire,there are a lot more alert popups.



Read the first sentence which will explain.

Guess it depends what your threshold of irritation is regarding alerts.

Having said that,its not as bad as some.

But it basically is a different type of app,which needs more active work than TF,as regards settings and alerts.

Also its footprint is large-31000k of mem.usage as against 6000k for TF.

If none of this is of concern and you dont mind paying for a yearly license-go for it-seems to offer good security.

 

Everyone's computer is different, I suppose. Mamutu uses 22788K "Working Set" (Ram) on my computer (see screenie below).

I'm not running TF any more, but when I did it used ~7800K on average. In days of yore, RAM was small. Nowadays most of us have 1 Gig or more. For a 1Gig RAM computer, Mamutu's 22788K is about 2% of available memory.

The more significant "footprint" is CPU cycles. One of several lengthy threads about TF issues included mentions of its frequent high CPU spikes. TF's CPU spikes can sometimes reach 85-95%, as reported in THIS support request (one of several) on Threatfire's forum.

Mamutu's CPU usage is much lower. However, TF is great and so is Mamutu. I suggest trying them both. Either choice is a good one.

 

I have a CPU Processor Status indicator permanently in the task bar showing CPU activity in real time.
NEVER had any TF spikes-this would have to be a conflict situation.
I'm sure if this happened I could fix it.

Isolated incidents,one from a professed inexperienced user,dont warrant this comment about spiking and the CPU footprint.

For example with Mamatu I was also experiencing spikes(was running it with another security app).

I had to adjust to the situation.

Its just a matter of going through running processes and hardware interrupt and finding out where the conflict is.

Maybe a few favorable comments about TF to counter balance the negative ones would give a more accurate and fair picture.





There are TWO Mamatu processes permanently running-NOT ONE,so your mem.usage would have been appreciably higher taking into account the other process

Did double check the TF processes-exe and services ,this time they do equal about 7400k.

 

In my experience with Mamutu, I found it to be lighter than ThreatFire, but only after running it for a few weeks where it seemed to settle down.

It's true though, depends on which other programs you are running, all software vs resource usage varies.

I didn't have any problem with popups. I found it pretty easy to go through the list of processes/programs, and select which ones I wanted it to monitor, or not monitor. Then it's a 'set and forget' program. The community protection is worthwhile in times where say you're performing a large installation of safe program (and you leave your system running), it will provide an alert and then accept the community notification after a short period of time, whereas TF will hold up the installation.

Anyway I've always liked TF, but in my experience, it did seem to cause a slowdown at times with bootup and browsing (which Mamutu hasn't seemed to affect at all).

Overall, both good programs.

 

The TF spikes are well known by several others. For example -- Kees is among them. He is by no means a "professional inexperienced user." Nor am I (I hope).

I showed actual reports of TF spikes, & can show more. The Mamutu support forum contains no similar examples. Nor have any of my computer students experienced spikes. AFAIK, Mamutu does not spike.

Coo, I am far from negative concerning TF. It is a superb application, & I have been a fan, one of the first beta testers, & a regular user from the get-go, when it first began as Cyberhawk. I am a major major fan of TF, and especially admire its unique & ingenious advanced rules capability. I have an extensive rule set (mostly based on work by Kees/Tony) that enables TF to function in many respects in lieu of an outgoing firewall, file protector, & registry protector -- as well as it main job as a HIPS-BB.

Actually, I developed a work-around for cutting TF's cpu usage, as is briefly discussed in post #25 (by me) & post #27 (an explanation by Kees) in THIS thread.

In giving my data concerning Mamutu's ram usage, I did not include the a2service's ram usage because I shut it down from the get-go, using Autoruns.

a2services.exe is not required to run at all UNLESS one is running in LUA status -- see THIS Emsisoft support forum thread.

However, if one is running in LUA status, then the need for a behavior blocker pretty much becomes optional.

Coo, if I came across as being argumentative, forgive me. That was not my intent.

As is true for some others, I am personally VERY disappointed to see PCTools/TF enfolded by the Borg. Over time I had developed certain tweaks & advanced rules for TF (aided by spade-work done by Kees & Tony & others) such that TF was more than just a utility to me -- it was like a comfortable pair of shoes.

However, I am also a fan of A-squared & Mamutu -- partly because they are good security apps and partly because they come from an organization that began as the brain-child of Andreas Haak, who is one of the true pioneers of security software, going back to the days of his amazing (for its day) anti-trojan, ANTS.

Just as I can praise Mamutu without disparaging TF, so also I can praise TF without disparaging Mamutu. BOTH of them are superb. But -- to repeat -- the topic is alternatives to TF, so I have posted accordingly.

NEW ITEM (a request) - will somebody PLEASE trial PRSC? Symantec presently licenses it as the behavior blocker component of Norton AV. Now that Symantec owns TF, it seems fairly safe to predict that TF might very well replace PRSC as Norton AV's behavior blocker app. In which case, PRSC might become a much more interesting alternative to TF than is presently the case.

I tried PRSC several months ago but I cannot do so again right now, for personal reasons. Therefore, it would be a real service if someone gave PRSC a new trial, & share findings with the rest of us.

 

dw426 - Thanks for the heads up. Based on your comment, I guess most of us are basing our opinion on the Norton we remember back around 2005. Assuming you're right, it's good to know they cleaned up their act. I'm still staying with NOD32 though.

 

Regarding the difference between Mamutu (which I have experience with) and a-squared anti-malware (have not used), apart from real-time scanning and the virus engine running in the new beta....

...does anti-malware have the same alerts, behaviour blocking and features as mamutu?

I know it has the same 'intrusion detection' as mamutu, but any benefit to having one over the other?

 

Well PRSC hasn't changed since 2007. Still the latest version is 2.1 .
So what you saw then, is what you will see now. In my usage(long ago), it was akin to Norton Anti-Bot .

I am assuming Sana Security, didn't update PRSC because they might have had a agreement with Symantec to not compete with NAB. Now if NAB makes way for ThreatFire. Sana may make amends to PRSC and add much needed features like VISTA support.

 

IMHO they've left behind that 2005 nightmare far, far behind. When I ran 360 and NIS to test them, even with a gig of ram they ran smooth, worked well, were easy to understand, and, most importantly to a lot of people I guess, uninstalled with very little leftovers (lots of programs leave behind leftovers and/or components, so I'm used to cleaning that up and don't consider it such a terrible thing).

I still say Defensewall would be an even easier option to those coming from TF.

 

Hello vijayind,

FYI, to date, the latest product version of PRSC is 3.2.0.915 and configuration version is 211 and it supports both 32 & 64-bit versions of Vista. Please take a look at the following links below for more information regarding PRSC.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1066625&postcount=1
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1140257&postcount=19
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1143660&postcount=22
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1258278&postcount=52
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1260854&postcount=55


Peace & Gratitude,

CogitoErgoSum

 

Wow, what a success...

You know, "even" with a gig of RAM I can run a full-fledged Linux server with tons of functions for hundreds of users - as opposed to one bloated yellow application.

 

Hello bellgamin,

First of all, if you have not yet done so, post(#111) has links that may be of interest to you. Secondly, you may have already reviewed the following PRSC related links below. In any case, I will repost them for the sake of convenience.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1174803&postcount=26
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1176147&postcount=32
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1195237&postcount=34
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1267673&postcount=67
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1269739&postcount=68
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1269774&postcount=70
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1278675&postcount=71

Lastly, I would like to add that it has been my personal experience that both Norton AntiBot(NAB) and Primary Response SafeConnect(PRSC) are relatively easy on CPU usage and, depending on the computer specifications and configuration, the total combined memory resource usage(working set) of the four running processes typically range anywhere from 25-35 Mb.

Hope this helps.


Peace & Gratitude,

CogitoErgoSum

 

Linux isn't even relevant to this discussion, number 1, and number 2, a gig of ram IS low now, so that fact that Norton DOES run smoothly on it (taking into account other processes/programs running at the same time), IS a good thing.

 

I guess you've completely missed my point...That was an example how ineffective and resource-hogging Symantec products are. Sure if you can run a multipurpose server for hundreds of users on the same hardware, then "smooth" running of essentially a single-user one-purpose product is hardly an admirable achievement or something to be proud of.

Back to the topic here - no Symantec product is "next best alternative" to TF, so further debate about Symantec bloat is rather OT. I'd personally recommend Mamutu as well.

 

Actually no, I got your point, and relative to this discussion, you didn't have one. You are the same type of person I referred to earlier, people who have no other good reason to hate Symantec other than "It's Symantec and bloated". Those same people almost always have lower ram/hardware, so their argument is ridiculous. You either meet the required specs of a program or you do not, simple as that. You also point to its ineffectiveness, though it's almost always a top contender, so I'm not sure where you're getting that point either.

Now that you've made your point and I've made mine, we'll steer this back to the topic at hand, and I've already stated my personal opinion for an alternative.

 

Sorry, didn't realize that quad core Xeon w/ 4GB RAM is considered low-end by Symantec these days. That might explain the thinking behind and the performance of their products.

Game over.

Personally, I'm very sad to see ThreatFire vanish as a victim of such company.

 

Lol, game not over yet, if it runs too slow for you on that system, you got a s**tload of other stuff running on there or there's a problem someplace, and there's no way in hell I'll believe differently. However, to keep this going further into a back and forth thing, I'll leave you be with your multitude of running programs and/or really screwed up system. If it's truly THAT bad running on there and you DON'T have a ton else running, I call conflict, not bloat.

 

Yes they both have the same alerts in the behvioral blocking and same featuers as mamutu.

The real-time scanning and virus engine is probably all that seperates one from the other. The benefit is up to the user whether they want the extra protection and well the extra resources a-square uses compared to mamutu.

dja2k

 

Why?

A:Because Symantec Antivirus defense against zero day threats will be improved by 83% according to PCtools claim by using TF


A problem to freeware users?

No, it takes at least a year to integrate software packages as complex as securityu products, at that time Avast 5 will be ready with proactive defense module http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=37002.msg310554#msg310554

A problem for paid lisence holders?
No, because there are enough viable alternatives (Mamutu, PRSC)

Regards Kees

 

A-Squared AntiMalware (ASAM) has an IDS/BB component (Intrusion Detection System/Behavior Blocker), PLUS a huge database of blacklist-type signatures & scanning engines therefor, PLUS the on-demand engine & sigs of Ikarus Antivirus (in ASAM's new version, now in advanced public beta), PLUS Hi-Jack free.

Mamutu is simply the IDS/BB component of ASAM, set up as a stand-alone app for those who do not want or need to use ASAM's other components (blacklists etc).

Use of Mamutu instead of ASAM might be the choice of such folks as: (1) those who disdain blacklist-based security apps but like BB apps, & (2) those who already have (& prefer) a specific blacklist-type app, so they just want a BB to go with it (such as folks who favor MBAM or Avira or Avast or Kaspersky or NOD, etc).

 

Thanks Cogito, I just went to the Sana Security website and saw version to be 2.1, hence the wrong conclusion.

Will take it for a spin later, if ThreatFire starts to go south. No need to speculate now, when ThreatFire is still good and strong.

---EDIT---
If you see the Sana Security site for PRSC system requirement shows Vista isn't supported. Guess they should update their site, if they expect patronage.

 

Thanks dja2k and bellgamin for clearing that up. Will be interesting to see how ASAM performs with Ikarus providing further protection. I read on their forums that resource usage with ASAM will continually be improved and be lower than what it is now in beta stage.

It's also good to see Emsisoft's CEO providing feedback and helping users out on his forums.

 

Hello vijayind,

You are very welcome. As for PRSC's minimum system requirements, please take a look at the following link below.

http://www.sanasecurity.com/products/home/sc/sys_req.php

Lastly, in the future, please use the following Sana Security PRSC links posted below.

http://www.sanasecurity.com/
http://www.sanasecurity.com/corporate.php
http://www.sanasecurity.com/products/index.php
http://www.sanasecurity.com/support/index.php

Hope this helps.


Peace & Gratitude,

CogitoErgoSum

 

Thanks again, Cogito.
I feel for the wrong link !! Don't understand why Sana Security isn't doing any garbage cleaning Maintaining old and new page, why?