Authentium Command AntiVirus vs Frisk F-PROT

Is anyone using the Authentium Command AntiVirus and Frisk F-PROT? Are they capable of catching all virus as they used the same engine? Recent independently results showed inconsistent results. Whereas other testing results showed that Command AntiVirus and F-PROT are lagging behind in detection rates, Virus Bulletin gave them 100% detection award.

I have used Command AntiVirus some time in the past and then turned to Dr Solomon's and then Kaspersky.

I am currently using Kaspersky and am thinking of having Kaspersky running in the background and having Command AntiVirus' on-demand scanner as a backup. The setup of Command AntiVirus allows users to install only the on-demand scanner module. This prevents having to have two anti-virus running in the background.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Michael

 

Both CSAV and F-Prot are very good AV programs and their overall malware detection rates are top notch but generally behind the heavyweights of KAV, AVK, F-Secure and McAfee.

Performance of an AV will vary with the testing site used;

Most good commercial AV scanners should be able to detect all ITW viruses and therefore achieve a high score over at Virus Bulletin.

However, av-comparatives mainly tests on-demand zoo detection of a range of malware and so results here will generally be lower than VB.

CSAV's on-demand scanner speed is faster than KAV's BUT it is expensive now to use as a backup scanner and it may well conflict with KAV as the latest version of Kaspersky IME is quite sensitive to other installed AV's. Trial and see.

IMO, there are better alternatives to using CSAV as an on-demand scanner. Why not try one of the on-line scanners or Dr Web'sCureIT, which will not potentially conflict with KAV and are free?

 

Yes, using an online scanner is a good suggestion. Thanks for sharing~~

 

BTW, is it true that the F-PROT engine is capable of detecting malware? Hm... I cannot find such references in the Frisk site and I think they don't, but I may be wrong. Although I did not use F-PROT, I have a subscription of their regular mailing and I am not aware of any emphasis on the ability of detection of malware by the F-PROT engine. When I look at the Authentium site, their security suite is licensing the Sunbelt technologies in searching for malware and spyware. The technology is a plug-in to their security suite and I therefore have the feeling that, if the F-PROT engine can already detect malware and spyware, Authentium would not have to license the anti-spyware technology from Sunbelt. Maybe I am wrong. Does anyone have more details?

 

Thanks ronjor for the link. That means, F-PROT is focusing on virus only.

Michael

 

Well at the present time, F-Prot for Windows has signatures for over 193,000 malware threats and if you look over on the Virus Bulletin site or at av-comparatives you will see that F-Prot's engine does rather well.

Most AV's would not survive commercially nowadays if they only concentrated on virus detection. For example, F-Prot's trojan detection has greatly improved in the last 12-18 months.

If by malware you mean spyware/adware, most AV's, with some exceptions, are weak in this area compared to other threats covered. But I am sure that they will soon turn their attention to improved detection of spyware/adware/riskware.

Check over on av-comparatives for other malware it can detect but it's total number of signatures are not just for viruses.

The ISSX suite seems to have additional signatures from Sunbelt and CA's Pest Patrol. So presumably this plugin simply supports any malware detected by the modified F-Prot engine in CSAV. In this way, Authentium saves time in building up and maintaining a specific spyware/adware scanner.

 

Honestly,
I would go with F-Prot it is cheaper and then use the extra $10 to put towards other security software of your choice.

Command has gotten a little pricey if I were going to spend $39 I would go with NOD32. Just my thoughts for what they are worth to you.

 

If I could remember, CSAV is selling for only US$19.95 for sometime, and then jumped to US$39.95 by now. I am sure that it is US$19.95 some time before. I don't know why it is now US$39.95. It is double the price.

 

One thing to watch out for with F-Prot is that it seems to be the only AV scanner on the planet that does not allow you to exclude files from background scanning - in my case this made it unusable with Outpost firewall (which constantly writes to its log files, resulting in 100% CPU utilisation with F-Prot active). As such, running a trial version on your system to identify any such issues before purchase is highly recommended.

 

Thanks Paranoid2000 for the information. It seems that Frisk needs to do some work on F-PROT to make it more customizable.

Michael

 

I read somewhere perhaps incorrect information that the two shared virus definitions but did not use the same engine. Could one of the security experts either confirm or set me straight on this?

 

Authentium apparently add their own definitions and their engine is a modified F-Prot one.

But despite these apparent differences between the two AV's, their detection rates seem very similar.