Relative Advantage, KAV over McAffee

I have McAfee, and Ewido paid, and AdAware Plus and Microsoft AntiSpy.

But spyware keeps occasionally getting thru.

I admit, I do some "high risk" surfing. Can't help it. I'm 21 and have lots of hormones.

Will KAV actually prevent more stuff than McAffee will?

I see lots of stuff on detection, but what of prevention?


Very Respectfully,

Frank the Perv

 

If you check some of the reviews of mcafee and Kav they are very close on detection. But kav may have a small advantage, but if you already have a mcafee license it might not be worth buying another for kav since mcafee actually does a great job. but in the end it is still your decision. You could do a trial run with kav and see what you think. I have used them both and don't see that much difference.

 

IMHO, Mcafee/ewido paid/adaware plus/ms antispyware is almost as good as kav.

pros---
ewido has better ability to clean trojan horse.
adaware plus+ms antispyware can monitor the registry

cons----
right now, mcafee personal version don't have daily update. only enterprise version has. but it will come very soon.

suggestions
1. use non-ie based browser, such as firefox and opera
2. use spybot S&D and spyware blaster to immunize your browser
3. use a good host file, such as hp, mvps, mike, bluetack,
4. try to update mcafee virus definition everyday by download the dat manually.

 

Speaking of Kav and Mcafee, would you KAV users say that it has problems with false positives? I have seen Mcafee WRONGFULLY tag certain programs as malware. I'm hoping KAV is smarter.

 

Kav will pop some FP's also. any program that scans that deep will eventually have a false positive there is just no way to get around it. And Kav and mcafee do scan deep

 

This place never ceases to give me a chuckle...

 

As you correctly identify, you are at high risk. Personaaly I don't think it matters what you use, you'll still likely pick up malwares. I would recommend an alternative approach and use something like a Linux LiveCD such as knoppix for your high risk surfing. This boots a fully operational copy of linux directly from a CD so doesn't involve having to install it and doesn't affect your windows installation in any way. When you're finished, just remove the linux CD and reboot.

The best thing is linux is totally immune to this stuff so you can pick up all the viruses, trojans and malwares you like and they won't touch it. Perfect for high risk surfing without the risk.

Safe surfing

Ned

 

Although I do not use them myself perhaps Regdefend and Processguard may help.

 

As far as I've seen in some tests, KAV has a bit better overall detection rates than McAfee but the gap is really close so I think that gap is meaningless in practical.

But that's just in the lab test, not in the real world scenario, the time frame dimension of malware detection has always been forgotten in almost every tests and so-called heuristics is not reliable with all malware.

Since KAV has continuously released its malware database hourly and McAfee Home version doesn't have even daily updates by default so I would say KAV is likely, actually prevents more stuff than McAfee and other antivirus in the real world scenario. KAV is highly recommened

 

Weekly updates to McAfee is what convinced me to go with KAV. I didn't realize how comprehensive was KAV's scan/detection engine and database until I began using it. I have no idea how they are able to do it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Rich

 

Don't worry Frank, the hormones actually get worse as you get older

 

For high-risk surfing I suggest Firefox (properly configured) and Proxomitron (with Sidski's or Grypen's filter set).

Unless you download and blindly click on ".exe" files, then you don't really need much else.

All excess av/at/malware software will be pretty much redundant, although not useless, for http/www protection.

Then again, if you blindly download and click on 0-day exe files there is NOTHING that can really protect you from everything.

A really tight combo could be:

- Opera/Firefox + Proxo + Grypen + KYE-U filters for surfing
- KAV with extended databases (paid) for on-demand scanning
- NOD32 with heuristics for real-time Internet (http) scanning
- Ewido (paid) for trojan/malware protection as a backup for KAV
- Counterspy (paid) with realtime malware/spyware protection
- Spywareblaster + Spybot S&D (free) immunize against basic nasties
- ProcessGuard (paid) for process protection
- RegDefend (paid) for registry protection
- Samurai (free) for additional basic protection
- Service pruning on Windows XP to shut down obvious worm holes (see. Windows Worms Doors cleanear as one possibility)
- Proper HOSTS file based blocking (see hpguru's for one possibility, but be ready to manually prune it yourself)

After a set up like that, unless you click on ".exe" files wildly, you'd be pretty much set to surf almost anywhere and have relatively good security.

Then again, 0-day exploits will always catch even the best software with pants down (sic), if you happen to hit the wrong spot of webspace before the fix is out and distributed.