antivirus companies stick to antivirus?

Hi, I was wondering what you thought on this topic.

should nod32, kaspersky, antivir and all the other main av's stick to anti virus and
leave firewalls to e.g. outpost look n stop kerio etc? and same for anti spam?


lodore

 

In my most humble of opinions AVs should stick with AVs and FWs should stick with FWs. However as long as Nod continues to offer a stand alone AV I will continue to use it. Where as ZA continues to bloat its programs, regardless of the vers. Whether it ZA\ZA Pro\ZASS. The more I play with and hear about Comodo, the more I think about making the jump to it on my personal machine.and I still have 207 days left on this lic.

 

Thanks for your opinion on the topic.
I might get nod32 or antivir premium but i might decide to get just the av and use e.g. comodo firewall aka best of all worlds. better than being jack of all trades master of none
better to have a specialist area.

 

Perhaps I should`t be so quick to "judge" the possible FW by Nod. I have just never seen a be all\end all\do it all suite. Much as you said, I will stick with what I feel to be the best from all security categories to meet both mine and my machines needs.

 

although AV companies dont make the best firewalls and vice versa, i do like having choices.

if i were to ever ditch outpost, i could very well use KIS. they have similarities, which makes switching easy. likewise when eset releases their suite, i could use that instead of KAV + Outpost.

 

Choice = competition. That is good for us the EU. But only if we do our homework, read and learn about the options, products and are aware of the threats we face. As long as we do not just buy into the hype that a lot of companies use. IMO, many of the top selling security products are only that because of the advertising $$$$ they spend.

 

No i think its good that many companies are offering all-in-one suites. It makes security easier to manage and prevents any problems that often happen between conflicting programs.

 

Suites have their place (especially when money is an issue), but yes, I think what you are saying is best!

 

IMO I think it is most likely better for a vendor to specialize in one security product or another, such as just AV, firewall, etc. However in recent years with the Internet becoming more and more of a security risk. People are looking at needing multiple types of security applications as opposed to just an AV as was the case in the past. When you think about the average person who just wants to have some security for their computer and that they don't want to learn how to find which of each product to get and configure to work properly, then the suite idea does make sense. When you add to this that each indivdual product needs to sell for a fair price to cover development, updates and some profit for the comany making it, then needing to purchase multiple applications individually even for a modest price each, can get pretty expensive for most people.

So all in all I think individual products will almost always be better, but I don't know that the market will bear it.

 

Yes and No.

Kaspersky's first version of AntiHacker was a little rough.ArcaBit's home-grown firewall was rougher yet.
AV companies earn their reputation/name recognition from their AV programs.
If they can develop an excellent firewall.Great! That's another option to consider. Competition and choice are a good thing.

Personally,I'd rather stay with individual programs to cover my computer's security.Why accept a weak component of a suite?
That could change if someone comes out with a fantastic suite.

 

As i have learned on the anti-virus forums, although Kaspersky does not have an anti-spyware scanner, spyware, adware, trojans, viruses or ANY malware is in the signatures put in a normal Kaspersky virus scan.

 

Nothing wrong with specialization, IMHO. Aside from Dr. Web, I'm hard pressed to think of a popular anti-virus author that isn't planning on releasing a type of security suite if they haven't already.

 

i agree but most av's companies are still doing the av on its own.

 

But where is their main focus, the av or the suite ? I think when they start expanding their offerings they may tend to start loosing their main focus, time will tell if the performance of their av product starts to suffer, lets hope not.

 

I agree and thats why I started this thread. to be honest I dont think kaspersky has lost its focus thou.

lodore

 

I beta tested KIS 2006 for about a year. What did I choose when KAV and KIS 2006 became officially available? KAV. I don't need a firewall. I don't need a spam blocker. I don't need a web scanner. I don't need an email scanner. I can do without a real time AV also. What is absolutely necessary is a command line scanner. The rest is frills. I do like KAV's PAD though as it complements PG. But I did not install antispam or email scanner or web scanner. I have only file antivirus and PAD and that is plenty! So, not only do I not like Suites, I don't even like AVs that include things like email scanners and web scanners.

 

I would just wait for the final release of the Antivir Suite......runs just great and no hard or hazy configurations at all!

 

I agree, Kav av is still tops in detection, but people still seem to be having issues with other add ons in the product, especially the suite.

 

"antivirus companies stick to antivirus?"

--I guess so, I don't think they're going to make shampoo or cornflakes anytime soon...

 

IMO. I like web scanners, it means a virus or Trojan wont hit your hard drive.

i will probaly get eiether kav or kis. i could get kav and use comodo

lodore

 

In my opinion there are two answers on your question (of course in my first reply I was joking around).

1) If you talk about webscanners, sandboxes and behaviour control I'l rather call that the evaluation of anti-virus programs to protect you against the latest (and more advanced) malware.

2) When you talk about firewalls and anti-spam I think we should leave that up to separate company's. However some big company's just have a couple 'divisions' of programmers, if that is the case I wouldn't mind. At the end of the day the main question is if the company has enough man power to keep all products in good shape.

 

And thats mostly all that matters. When the company runs fine and has enough resources to develop and support all product lines, there is no problem anywhere.

 

These AV's has to make suite's, because the majority of users want "All-in one-programs", if they don't they will loose customers simple as that and in case we haven't seen it, most of the firewall's are moving in the same direction and are almost suites themselves this will increase because the consumer wants their suites to do everything including the laundry! (ok ok, slight exaggeration ). I think we have only seen the beginning infact.

The important thing in my mind is that they make it possible for users to select exactly what modules they want to use during the install process.

 

I agree Don and like the fact you can deselect what you dont want in kav and kis.