ESET Review VERY POOR RESULT & disappointing overall learning experience

Hi, I thought ESET was one of, if not the best suite to use.

I have been already disappointed by the advance settings I found counter-intuitive (i.e. thread sens to set in 4 different places - one setting in one place would suffice + confusing settings among the different modules + confusion between "antivirus anti spyware" - "real time files protection" - "web access protection": why not make ONE PROTECTION for the all system at one place. The purpose is to prevent malwares. point.)

Out of the box, the product is made to be commercially attractive and easy, but as soon as you dig, it lacks a good manuals whit a clear explanation of each modules and their connection (the PDF/HTM manual is merely a flat description of the GUI functions).

the ESET forum has been of a great help on the other hand. Advanced users are very helpful and dedicated to help new comers; as are some ESET staff also present on the forum. I could learn how to set ESET to detect key-logger (enable the "potentially unsafe application" in 4 different places in thread sense- no less! - why not call it "detect KEY-LOGGERS" in plain English?? - really again I am not satisfied with the ESET definitions. They are much too vague).

The GUI is nice, it is quick. Low false positive return are some of the good points. I don't like the safe mode scanning because it won't give you any choice to keep infected samples on your system. you need to restor them after a reboot.

However today, I found this article:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2215477,00.asp

This is related to version 3. It is somewhat outdated but still?!? Can somebody comment about it.

I don't want to sound all too negative, but I did the zemana test. ESET failed on all accounts
http://www.zemana.com/list/list.aspx?ktgr_id=413

In my view ESET credibility goes down as a the ""best suite""

I never heard of Panda suite?!? before. it is that good?

I guess NOD32 (AV) + OA is a better choice but it costs 1 licence + 1 license. I was interested in ONE suite/ONE license.

Please comment. I can be wrong. I want this thread to be informative.

 

No it would not, they represent completely different functions in all 4 places, meshing it all together would look nasty.

Being an ESET customer you should know it's designed to be lightweight and modular. There is no "one protection" rubbish because that would mean dumping everything in one place, very un-professional. Also, virus and spyware are completely different things. People need to be re-assured that ESET protects you from both.

v3 is designed to be used out of the box with it's current config. They have an online Knowledge Base which is very vast.

http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=home

First - thank you. Second, this feature isn't really related to keyloggers at all. For example some businesses buy keyloggers to purposely place on their machines. This is what we call a commercial keyloggers so detection cannot be added. That's why it's added as "potentially unsafe or unwanted". Some people also only want it activated in certain modules, ie only the web scanner not the real-time scanner, hence the 4 options.

In v4 cleaning has been improved so safe mode should not be requied in most cases.

Ok there are really only 2 bad points it keeps coming back to. 1 is the fact v3 is sucky at removing threats already on the PC in normal mode, that's pretty much a fact, it's been far improved in v4.

The other is the fact they seem really obsessed over commercial keyloggers, this poses near 0 threat. ESET don't spend their time searching online for commercial keyloggers, they do it for real keyloggers. I'm sorry but in my mind that test is pretty poo.

Thank god! ESET isn't an "anti-keylogger", that product is a completely different thing. What zemana does it protection incase you do become infected, like encrypting keystrokes and such. What ESET does is detect and remove the threat. Completely different product. Feel free to use both, there are also free "anti-keyloggers" for encrypting keystrokes. It's just meant to be an extra layer of safety in the rare case a keylogger gets past your AV. Your AV is not designed to encrypt keystrokes and such. That would be out of scope of the product.

 

Excellent answer, as in the past (other threads), and most of the points taken

What would it be in the following situation: I share a standalone (or in a workgroup) workstation running on XP pro or Vista + ESET, with a partner. Both have the same privileges & rights (admi accounts). He/she installs a commercial keylogger (e.g. spector Pro or spyagent) in sealth mode.

1. Will ESET gives a warning or will the activity of the monitoring software be undetected.

2. Same question as above (+) he/she add the monitoring software in the list of ESET exceptions (so it should be undetected no matter my scan mode/thread sense settings) and he/she set a password in the ESET box. Is there a way for me to see/modify the monitoring process when I am logged into my account or not?

NB: this sample case does not illustrate a monitoring policy, but a disloyal way (if not criminal) of doing. In such specific case, will a product as ESET alone provide me with any protection or not?

Does it make a difference using the safe mode in v3?
v4 is still in beta. Any info about the public release?

 

I can't tell you how far ESET go with commercial keyloggers as I'm not sure how much they can do legally. If the options were selected, it would warn you about the installer on your drive (assuming the installer was in the list of detections). Wether it would warn you that it was running, it should (again, if it's a listed detection) it will probably detect the exe file. Will it clean it? I can't tell you that I'm afraid. Like stated earlier I'm not sure if that's legal etc.

Unfortunately exceptions is made for the very reason of completely skipping a file/directory. If every single file in memory was in an excluded directory it would be skipped. If there were random DLL's in non-excluded directories, ESET may or may not detect them depending on if they are in the signatures. Exceptions are usually only used in the case of False Positives though.

Yes v3 can clean better in safe mode, still not as good as v4.

No info yet.

 

alright, thanks for the information. I will try to install some commercial keyloggers on my home computer to be fixed.

Now, I am aware I could be the last person informed around here, and I bring no new information (on Wilders Security forums) but do you have a last comment about this:

http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge/results.php#firewalls-ratings

According to the results ESET firewall is a useless piece of software. I see Online Armor, Comodo atop (I know they score good results for browsing other thread on wilders). Even KIS score well. ESET does not. What about this test. Is it reliable.

Just to make it clear, I don't intend to play the paranoid techie here, but I want to assess my level of protection with the ESET suite. I use Malwarebyte' antimalware (licensed) since I found ESET failed many malwares infections. I am wondering once again if an AV (as NOD) + an external FW (OA, Comodo, etc.) is not a better alternative to a suite. I am pondering both sides: easy of use a suite (AIO) vs. performance of separate products.

Thanks for your insight.

 

That would depend on your geography I suspect - but we are gearing up for it - so expect it soon - very soon.

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1393384&postcount=2

You are perfectly protected, the firewall is more than capable of standing it's ground whilst still being lightweight, also, MBAM as recommended by others is an excellent addition to any AV product.

 

Thank you for the link and the follow up. With the information in this thread, I might keep using a suite (v3 > v4 when it is available) vs. an AV + a FW for the sake of simplicity.

Best Regards