Are Stand Alones Heading For Extinction?

I think yes. It is only a matter of time. It will still be a little while yet.

Midway40 said: Personally the reason I went to suites was because of compatibilities.This certainly is a positive or plus of going the suite way imho. Particularlly for the masses.

Norton has developed a wide mix and match product line. This is a postive. I just wonder how long it will last before some bean counter comes along and says, "more profit less headache offer fewer choices...more stream lined".

 

Maybe not such a positive - psychologically too much choice can make you unhappy.

The tyranny of choice

 

I'm starting to get very annoyed on the layered approach (stand alone). I don't have time to fiddle around with settings and what not, so I'll be using suites from now on. I'm actually just waiting on ESET to release theirs

 

I have to admit, it's getting much more difficult to follow a layered approach using standalones, especially for those of us who are not techies. It seems that more and more malwares are being developed to attack very specific components or aspects of the usual security programs, and the average user is definitely not knowledgeable enough to gather a collection of individual security programs and combine them in a way that is effective against an ever-changing threat. It seems that eventually only suites will be offered. However, I sure hope the norm does not become one of including all kinds of extraneous utilities. But who knows, maybe the cycle will swing back toward standalones. Everything is cyclical.

 

Suites are indeed the coop de grace and encompass a vast array of coverage, of that there is no doubt but consider this. I like to for a moment just reiterate on an important "potential" weakness that our member herbalist presses issue on and rightly so. And that is software programs of any sort can and are subject to failures, corruption, etc. and the point made is that if a user depends solely on a suite for security and that program is either bogged down or crashed due to reasons that go hand in hand with what affects them, either malicious code or conflict with the system at some point, the entire defense levels that make up a suite can be rendered disabled leaving wide open a channel for mischief to attach inside the system and wreak complete havoc.

The odds are not so heavily weighed to such a fate, but it still remains a real risk & possibility, however remote, that if something that severe would to occur without some other standalone to fill in the gap, damage might be imminent or at the very least, a loss of time in powering up another drive and resources to restore an image to the affected partition/drive provided that safeguard was practice by the PC user.

Any after thoughts or opinions to this scenario?

 

Sometimes choices aren't the problem. It's the stuff they include for window dressing that causes bloat etc. Sometimes you have to disable half the crap to get the suite you wanted. ZA as an example.

 

I think it is not the user won't choose the stand alone, but it is the vendor told them that we can't protect you well if you don't choose the suite. They admit their product are not born equal when face the security. If you choose the suite, they will probably cost less on the compability or fix your problems, and you will save time to choose other product. When some thing not right, you can call them, hi, your product is not working, no other such product installed, no excuse, come here right now!

 

it really depends what you want,

some people just feel the need to buy 'one-thing' and have it all sorted, its hard to argue against this.

i dont need all the stuff in a suite, so its antivirus only for me and this is and will always be my preference, although i do own 2 suites too.

 

This scenario happens more often then is pressumed and ive seen it plenty of times. Besides my own experiences look at the recent issue with bitdefender when the suite isn't running it won't even let you know. Same goes for other products ive seen. I think as long as we'll stick here, support the standalones by donation or purchase, teach the less informed in our own circles then there will be no such thingh as extinction. Offcourse those products vendors wich gain less or not at all popularity on security forums such as these will have less of a chance to stay above water. Indeed there is so much to choose from and we can't use m all. Let's do our best to bring all to our attention here for the better of safe computing.

 

The seeming 'tyranny' of choice is surely a lesser evil than having little or no choice, with the latter state of affairs being often a result of actual tyranny.

 

That HAS to be the BEST combo to ever fit into a AV Suite, the virtualization is the icing on the cake and personally i look forward to this very useful and protective addition for the future releases of them.

 

No! Just uninstall the firewall module. Avira is fantastic like that. I never installed the email module for the Personal Premium version. I used the Guard for awhile and then uninstalled that module and just had Avira on demand. Recently, I reinstalled the guard module but I will never use the email module. With the Suite, you can uninstall, or not install in the first place, any of the modules. I also have the Anti RootKit module uninstalled. You go to add/remove programs/Avira do a repair and there you can uninstall the firewall module.

 

I will never use a suite so if standalones are going into extinction I guess that will mean I will run without protection. I've done it before, I can do it again. I will just install an on demand av only. Those, I think will always exist. Why in the world would I spend extra money on a suite when I would not use anything but the av and of its components only possibly the real time scanner and the on demand scanner and nothing else.

 

Agreed, it has already happened to suites. Where 1 piece has failed rendering the whole tool weakened.

It is a classic case of "the chain is as strong as it's weakest link".

When the user trusts one vendor free or paid, he is unknowingly assuming:

1. that the programmers in that organization are the best security programmers in the world.
   
2. That the management of that firm are the best and finding and keeping these skilled workers.
   
3. that this firm is trustworthy. open and doesn't carry out deceptive practices such as unseen, un- authorized phone homes, which of course never happens

The more fatty ad ons go into suites pushed by the marketing types who think that more features will get more business ( they may be right) the greater chance that Herbalist's corrupt code principle will come true. This is worsened by the pressure sales places on the programmers by telling them when these ad ons MUST be working!


So, I favour mix and match, even in the face of the dreaded conflict problem.
Which can usually me minimized by disabling the duplicate shields in one or the other packages.

If the user MUST have a suite pick the one with the least numbers of redundant ad ons, like backup, phishing, defrags.

 

Stand alones are great. If you had a suite then something attacked your PC the entire firewall, anti virus and everything else would go down in one swoop since they are all part of one program. If you had stand alones then you would be better protected.

 

I personally prefer standalones. I think they will always be available, just less so from the major vendors. As stated, they want to make a product that will be most desirable to the classic user.
I still believe there will be a wealth of standalone apps from new programmers and start up companies. The problem, I think, will be finding a favorite standalone that will be around, and under development for years to come.
While certainly not true in all cases, many start up companies either: sell their technology to a larger vendor, often to be incorporated into a suite; become a large vendor themselves, and eventually produce their own suite or general protection app; go out of business.
I guess it's not always a problem, as many of us who "roll our own", like to experiment with new programs and technologies. Still, it's sad to see a treasured standby fade away.

 

I really hope not. Choices are important to me. Being able to install a security suite on my family's computers so it's easy for them to use and understand while using a layered, varietied stand-alone approach for my own computers is paramount.

 

i think both stand alones and suites will always be available.

 

Personally, I believe that standalones will become obsolete at the same time as PCs.

 

if you can find a stand alone, that works with little impact with your suite, then you are crazy not to use it. And thre are many that will. A suite is great but still doesnt give you 100 percennt protection. My 3 favorites are sandboxe and boclean and avg-as. All free.

 

Thanks Mele I didn't realize that, but too late, I have removed it and installed the Avira Premium AV. In this case, it's for the best as I have one of those 6 month trial keys, and the Suite was only 3 months. So I gain on both counts, longer license, and no firewall problems..

 

That is cool you got the 6 month trial. If by chance, you ever have a problem with a module, now you know that you can uninstall it from add/remove programs Avira repair function and add it back later if it was a bug and you were waiting for a fix. There is going to be a lot added to the Suite fairly quickly (from what tech support has said in the forums) so you might decide you want the Suite again at some point even if you didn't use the firewall as the other added components might make the Suite worthwhile even without the firewall..so now you know that you can uninstall, or in the beginning, not install any module. I think that is super cool as every other AV I have used might let you disable something, but it is still there installed.

 

If you look at pricing now for Suite vs Standalone there is not a great difference. Pay attention to the pricing in stores as many still shop for the security software in brick and mortar stores not online.

Suites are the wave of the future because the masses seem to like all-in-ones which is fine. I do not see stand alone AV scanners disappearing anytime soon and would only do so IMO if a company really wants to cut costs and stick with Suite Development only.

 

if your on vista there are very few firewall & dispite the claims that the M$ built in firewall is OK , sorry I just don't buy that. I unfortunately have been in an endless loop of trying suites, F-Secure, AVG, KIS7, Norton & no clear winner...anyway I prefer separates but it looks like suites are they way to go and certainly the future tho I wish it different...

 

If you check the shelves in brick and mortar stores, you'll only find a few brands that all pc users know: Symantec, McAfee, ZoneAlarm, Nero, MS, Spysweeper, Adobe, and a few more. The average pc user who doesn't read or follow forums like this one, will never hear of Eset, Returnil, Sandboxie, FR-ISR, Comodo, BOClean, Firefox, Opera, etc., because you'll never see them on the shelf at the store. None of which represent a suite. All they know is a suite must be better because it's a single install, and an all in one so all the components must work well together being it's the same company. That's true to an extent, but not for the reasons already expressed.