My review of eXtendia AVK Antivirus System.

Re: Updates

Do you know of the lag-time between the actual KAV and RAV sig releases? I would assume there would be some, though from appearances it looks like AVK doesn't have the same lag-time as F-Secure (for the KAV database).

 

Re: Updates

It's hard to know but the updates of both programs is at least once daily and sometimes twice. Regular and consistent is probably the best way to put it which makes it quite reliable. Many people get hit even with AV installed because updates are not frequent enough to keep up with the latest viruses.

In this regard I find AVK very good as well as NOD 32. I feel much safer having daily regular updates on top of a double engine. I wouldn't have bought this if updates were weekly.

I've used Norton, NOD 32, PC-Cillin, AVG as well as Avast and Panda but I highly recommend NOD32, AVAST and AVK. All Anti-viruses are not the same and I look the most at good heuristics as well as very regular updates because if updates are not on time you could get infected if the heuristics are not good. Some AV's have one or the other which is very good but I look for AV's which have both very good heuristics as well as updates. It doesn't matter so much about false positives as it does missing a virus.

Dave

 

how can you suggest AVAST when it has heuristics only for the mail scanner?

 

Have you read the replies in the following thread about this issue... http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=4979

I thought it was quite a good explanation.

 

The reliability and effectiveness of Avast does not seem to have been affected by this as it has other generic methods of detection too and it is very highly regarded by end users not just because it's free but because it has a very high rate of detection and the end user is the real test for any AV. If an AV can protect an end user and overall has a very high popularity amongst them then you can bet it's not just because of the interface.

A program as important as an AV does not win peoples trust blindly.

There are scientific, lab and professional test, all of which Avast performs well in but it is also highly regarded amongst many end users too. I don't think it's an AV that can be written off very easily.

Dave

 

I agree for a free av it does well.

 

dear rerun2, in another post i was sadly classified as an AVAST basher. i wouldn't like renew those matters.

 

AMRX

It's always good to scrutinise things like AV products because it helps a lot of people get the real truth behind the hype. I look at the hype then look at professional reviews, then look at user reviews, then come to forums like this to see what experienced users say and doing all this helps me so much to make a better informed choice when I want to buy an AV.

I more than welcome any suggestions and criticisms or faults someone else may see that I don't because it increases my knowledge and awareness so AMRX please say what your experience is so we can all learn from you and test what you say whether it is true or not.

I'm quite happy and soon maybe very happy with AVK. Updates are invisible and just seem to happen very regularly and I wanted to travel around the WWW today to some of my favourite haunts (you can guess what they may be) so I turned up the security to 'highest'. I still have to wait and see how this performs with baddies and if it will catch them or if I get infected so I'm going to risky sites where I used to get baddies but so far none.

With Avast, I did like it a lot and was sorry to have to uninstall it after buying AVK because it had so many things I liked about it as I did NOD 32. But times change and advances are made and for higher end machines I think twin engine AV's are the new technology to give extra layered protection. But this depends, as all AV's do on good heuristics as well as very regular updates to keep ahead of the baddies.

You can imagine trying to replace NOD32 - almost impossible because it's so good, nearly perfect. I don't think most ordinary AV's can beat NOD32 but the latest technology might be able to because of the double protection but I was still very hard pressed to find something better or equal.

Please keep contributing because that's how we all learn.

Dave

 

I wonder if this will effect RAV in the times ahead .https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=197505#post197505

 

Will it work with outlook express?

 

I purchased eXtendia security suite and installed the Antivirus and firewall components. I like them but with the on-access protection running my system resources soon went to 40% used and stayed there . This happened over the course of an hour. I tried adjusting the settings and the least system usage I got it down to was 20% using only the RAV engine . This was not while scanning the system but just with the on-access scanner running in the system tray. I uninstalled it and reinstalled the free Mcafee v8 and firewall plus that I got through MSN and my system usage dropped to 2 - 4% with the on-access protection on. It's a shame because I really liked AVK but can't handle the extra system usage .

Michael

AMD +2500 Barton
Abit NF7-S
1024mb pc2300 333mhz
Radeon 9600XT 128mb

 

I had the same problem with my old Celeron 433mhz. There were just so many things I wanted to do that I couldn't (games, high graphics etc) so I forced myself to save and save I did and got an Intel P4 2.6C.

It's just the wheels of progress turning so I hope you win the lottery so you can upgrade!!

dave

 

I already upgraded to what I have now. My system is no slouch and I can run most games with no problem. I can't, however, give away 20 - 40% of my system resources to an Antivirus software . It almost seems like a memory leak or something. It doesn't grab those resources from the start. It starts at 3 -6% and goes up as time goes on. If it used them and then released them back it would be different.

 

Nope, WinXP-SP1

 

One of my grown kids just tried it with a P4 2.4GHz machine and he claimed it has too much CPU usage and effected his gaming. He said it doesn't seem like a good AV for a gamer. I haven't tried it yet to check that out?

 

FYI it's generally a good idea to turn off the AV while gaming.

Rollinco, you can also decrease the thread prioriity which will drop CPU usage. I think there must be something up with your system though, I've got a HT system and P4M laptop, neither of which shows that much CPU usage unless I'm doing a manual scan, which is normal.

 

Well, that doesn't seem like a good solution. He has another AV that runs while gaming without a problem.

 

Theres no need to run an AV while gaming. You don't want to waste cycles on unnecessary processes, you want the CPU to focus on pushing frames and net code..

There's no threat in the game code if it's a single player game. It was scanned when you installed it and came from a publisher. Online gaming, you just want to block unsolicited packets which is what a firewall does.

I would like to point out though, some people seem to be forgetting that this is a dual engine AV.

 

I understand what y'all are saying but I just can't see why mcafee runs with 2 - 4% usage and doesn't affect my gaming at all and AVK runs so much more. I play a lot of online games and have never had to disable any processes to run games. I also don't really understand why usage gets higher as time goes by?? I have reinstalled it to test a few things before I give up on it. I will try lowering the thread priority and see what happens.

 

While all that sounds really good, he has other folks that use the machine that may forget to turn the AV back on.

A better solution is to use a good AV that is not so CPU intensive.

 

OK, I have possibly found the culprit. I tried turning off the settings in the on-access scanner and when I turned off "check when writing" the CPU usage went down to 3 - 5% which I can live with. Not a perfect solution but if this fixes the problem I will surely stay with AVK.

 

Ok, after about 5 minutes usage is back up to 16-18%. Kinda unsure now. I don't want to have to turn off AV when I play games and such. I will keep poking around and hope for a solution.

 

It would be nice if they had a trial download.