Any other nice AVs out there?

It's been almost 30 days, and my trial of NOD32 is about to run out. I would really like to take a look at some other AVs, though, before I make the decision to buy NOD32. Does anyone know of any good AVs (with trial versions) that fulfill the following requirements?
1. Low RAM usage. My computer has only 64 megs. I'll probably upgrade that to 128 megs soon, but I still want something that doesn't hog up too much RAM. (Preferably under 10 megs...)
2. Good at detecting various types of viruses, and worms too. Don't worry about the trojans, I can get TDS-3 for that.
3. Good heuristics. (Yes, RejZor, this totally rules out Avast.)

I also have some questions about various AVs:
1. How much RAM does F-Secure take up?
2. How frequent are the updates for F-Prot for Windows? Since the updater is not to be found in the trial version, I have been unable to find out...
3. Dr. Web is ungodly slow on my computer, often coming close to freezing it up. I've heard this might be due to a conflict of some sort. How would I solve this? What program(s) might it be conflicting with?
4. A question for Kobra: how good is the single-engine version of AVK? Which engine does it use, the AVP or RAV engine?

 

F-prot is very low on resources and have frequent updates.almost every 2 days.and 2mb ram on resources

F-secure takes 128 mb ram

 

I know about F-Prot, I've tried it. What annoys me about it is that, if the on-access scanner detects something with heuristics, it will only block its activation - other AVs allow you to delete it, rename it, or quarantine it as well as blocking it. Then again, there has to be a way to make it present you with such options... anyone know how to do that?

Also, how good is F-Prot's detection? Can it detect trojans better than NOD32?

 

Hope that I could help something...

 

AV programs suitable for your low spec computer include F-prot for Windows, Command AV, NOD, Dr Web and AVK.

1. F-prot has certainly increased its frequency of updating of late and there are at least several updates/week and this is increased in times of new malware outbreaks. Has good heuristics.

2. Command ( CSAV)- low resource usage, lightning fast scanner and again has very good heuristics.

3. Extendia AVK- With AVK Pro you could run the RAV engine as the on-access monitor as this only takes up 4400kB VM, and 3-4% CPU usage. The KAV-only engine here takes up a lot more CPU usage and it would slow down your box. You could not run both engines as the running Guard as they would severely reduce the speed of your computer, but you could run them together for the on-demand scanner.

The single-engined Extendia AVK at their site appears to be RAV;

http://www.extendia.com/eXtendiaAVK.htm

but maybe someone who uses this product can confirm this or not.

But remember with Extendia AVK you are probably paying only for malware definitions for the length of your license and not engine/program updates.

4. You could also try out KAV 5, particularly as the first maintenance pack is nearly out. At the present time, this is running very smoothly on my ancient 400mHz box, 192mB Ram.

5. Dr Web is a very good choice but I have found it to be very sensitive and is best installed on a 'fresh' system with no other AV's installed.

We can only offer you suggestions, you have to trial some of these and then make YOUR choice. But take into account that there is no 'best AV', it's a bit like looking for the Holy Grail!!!!!

 

Haha,for #3 (damn where is laughing smiley). I'm here only for few days and they know me No,really heuristics are a very nice feature i agree,but its not so important as many of you think. Detection mostly relies on signatures.
And since currently around 90% of all malware is spreded over email this isn't a problem for avast! either since it has heuristics for this one

Anyway,back on-topic,F-Prot might be the one you are looking for. Very nice program,light on resources with very advanced heuristics and fast scanning engine.

 

You can check this out. Haven't done a lot of testing with it, but seems pretty solid.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=37083

I don't know what your system specs are, but with 64MB of RAM, I'm going to bet its an old computer. Running resource intensive AVs isn't an option and it'd probably choke on an AV and AT.

I'd use F-Prot and look into some hardware upgrades soon unless you're planning on using it as a calculator.

 

Over the last few weeks I've tryed
F-Secure
MKS_Vir
eXtendia
Kaspersky 5.0
in that order.

Using P3 Intel 866 512Ram Win2kPro SP4.

From what i'm seeing Kaspersky is giving me the least lag and be the one i probably keep.

To much lag for me with eXtendia, even turning the scanner down to using just one of the engines.(up to 12 sec lag for me opening IE with both on).

F-secure was ok but i prefer to use my Sygate firewall which you can't have
installed with F-secure.

MKS_Vir, Ok as well, a little laggy(not as bad as extendia but worse than Kaspersky) but seemed to pop up with things none of the others came up with.But as an example one was Trojan Demtu.I do a search and can't find out nothing on that so maybe a problem there with Polish interpretations of whats what maybe,Kind of put me off that one a little.
Updates don't work on the trial so hard to test how they are in that area too.
I think thats a prettty strong AV tho,definitley worth a look at.

 

Could be a false positive. Be sure to send it in to them. Best thing to do when you get one is check and see if it makes sense i.e. a valid file you downloaded probably doesn't have a virus versus something off P2P. Want to keep the heuristic settings at standard though. Don't go any higher.

Lag is probably caused by the unpacker/sandbox/whatever you want to call it. Here's a description of what I think it does...
http://www.norman.com/Virus/13927/en-us

Also different AV companies call viruses by different names in some cases. Definitely could be the whole polish thing though. Heard from a couple folks that have it, updates are more than once a day. Seems like they stay on top of things.

Back OT, KAV 5.0 runs around 8-9MB and kicks up to 18 for a scan @ max settings. There's a maintenance packing coming out next week. Might address a couple things. Have a look.

 

Okay, a few more questions:
1. Which is best at detecting trojans: Command, F-Prot, or NOD32? (Maybe I shouldn't even ask about NOD, I've seen the results with trojan detection... pretty lame in that department.)
2. Which seems to have the best heuristics?
3. Do F-Prot and Command check to see if they've been damaged, like NOD?
4. Which is the least expensive? (You knew that was coming, didn't you?)

 

www.av-comparatives.org click comparatives, then look at the and May results.

Look at the last 3 columns (system impact is the bottom rows)
http://www.rokop-security.de/main/article.php?sid=693

 

Ah, thanks. Hmm... It appears that NOD32 beats F-Prot in a few departments, though generally not by very much. What interests me is that the results for trojan detection are very different in the 2 comparatives. In the German one, NOD32 detected almost as many trojans as KAV! (Hmm... Maybe their trojan collection was a bit outdated. I've been hearing a lot about how NOD is no good at trojan detection.)

Wasn't able to find anything on Command AV. How does it compare to NOD32?

 

No idea, but if folks aren't testing it regularly, I think that should give you a good idea.

 

Well, since NOD32 seems a little better than F-Prot, and Command is rated under NOD on the Wilders AV page, I think I'll stick with NOD.

Thanks for the info, all.

 

I would recommend Sophos Anti-Virus. It is fast and efficient, uses minimal resources and has good virus detection capabilities (24 VB100% awards). It's updated automatically whenever a new virus is discovered, usually within the hour (Note: Automatic updates only work if you have Enterprise Manager installed on your server). Sophos is mainly intended to protect large networks, so it might not be perfect for home use, but it's worth a try, since it fits most of your requirements.

 

As mentioned by Blackcat, I use command antivirus and it does scan very fast/good hueristics/good trojan detection/quarintine/and you can set it to delete found malware. And did I mention that it is very inexpensive==$24.95

 

This AV has been discussed recently; https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=18754&highlight=Sophos Antivirus

and unless you can use it as part of a site license, it is hideously expensive for Home Use. There are better choices for the average Home User.

 

Hey bigc

You must be very impressed by Command, as you use to change your AV's as regularly as most people change their socks

Seriously, this is a very good AV in general and it deserves to be more popular with Home users. Glad you like it.

 

Mcafee http://www.mcafee.com or trend http://www.trendmicro.com. Both are very good. Never have seen them miss. Well mcafee did once cuase I didnt update it and I got a brand new virus, but when I updated it, mcafee fount it and cleaned it.

 

Hi,

Have a look at the stats on:

http://virusscan.jotti.dhs.org/

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 94.51% detection rate
F-Secure Anti-Virus 90.11% detection rate
McAfee VirusScan 64.99% detection rate

Obviously that's not the full picture but certainly interesting

Cheers,

Steve

 

Thanks for the link Alien8

 

Its very good alright!

Now with daily updates...mmmmm.

I've been using CAV for years now, and it’s definitely a top notch AV.


tECHNODROME

 

Avast! anti-virus is quite good too, especially with it's resident on-access scanner.

 

Here's something interesting:
http://www.filseclab.com/eng/products/twister.htm
I don't know anything about it, but it makes some bold claims to being an anti-virus & anti-trojan with heuristic scanning abilities.
It sounds like it would meet your requirements, but you'd have to find out about system resources yourself.

 

Just use eXtendia AVK, you can tweak it to run perfectly on any system because of its deep options. My machine is very slow, so this is what I did to make eXtendia AVK run smooth as silk:

I recomend a reformat when you change AVs.. Especially after KAV and Norton products.. They tend to make subsequent AV's run slow, and have issues.

Try right clicking the AVK tray icon, going into settings, and UNCHECK
the following: (turn them OFF)

"UNCheck Packed Files"
"UNCheck Email Archives"
"UNCheck system areas when changing media"

Then hit "Exceptions" and click "Directory", and then browse to your "Program Files" directory, and exclude the entire thing.

Turn automatic type recognition on - what this does is AVK scans the headers of each file, to ensure it matches the actual file.. So if a COM virus is renamed to a text file, AVK will still find it using this method. Turn engines on "Both engines - performance optimized"..

On my 500mhz machine theres no slowdowns or noticable performance hits at all, and I get the benefit of double engine protection. Try it!