Vipre - NEW! PC Lifetime License

just tested, I scanned RAR archive about 70mb...in scan progress u can see it's scanning those files,but when scanning larger archive 1.3gig,scan finished in split second.windows 7 x64

 

A good test would be to download one of the many boot CDs available and try to scan it. Hiren's boot CD is perfect as it's distributed as a zip file with CD directory and file structure. It's one layer of compression in zip then files and directories. It's large and should take come time to scan as there are many files. I did just that with ALL of the major AVs and every bloody one of them scanned the contents with the exception of VIPRE via on-demand right click context menu scan profile.

Can you not reproduce this GFI/Sunbelt/Nick !?!

 

you're exactly right. there are quite a few products that either have user-configurable "max filesize" thresholds or have a max filesize set by the vendor.

 

Try 100 meg. I wonder what the threshold is for it to scan on archives based on file size. Again this is a boxed setting that we, the users, can't adjust because the frontend/UI is totally stripped down for luser retards. The kind of people that wouldn't notice what I spotted as a tester/user within 8 hours of install.

PS the thing is... hardcoded or registry value for this scan var that the luser UI simply can't modify? Prob hardcoded behavior of the scanning engine...

 

Not only do they have the ability to have user configurable max filesize but also archive nesting scan depth. A lot of malware packed in warez etc will be nested at least three layers of compression to avoid detection.

THIS IS VERY COMMON

PS right click context scanning seems to not scan archives period

 

That's why in post #32 of this thread I got the home site license for 3 years at 50% off! As the lifetime sounded good but in the end it's not! I run it on my 3 VM's with Prevx!

TH

 

GFI/Sunbelt can you explain to me what the difference is between the last build of CounterSpy and Vipre. It seems to use the same exes and services etc. How are the two different? I didn't bother to MD5 the files but the naming conventions are exactly the same. Is Vipre a rebranded/stencil of CounterSpy? I'm talking the non firewall version here...

 

Wish Id read this thread before I purchased (bought it in march).I paid £16.28 i believe from amazon.I thought it reasonable and would be able to use it at a later date maybe.Didn't read the small print
I found vipre to be very cpu intensive,with its default on access scanning enabled ,with process lasso constantly trying to lower its priority.I haven't had process lasso do this for any other program i have installed or have tried.
ellison

 

That's another thing I found out regarding real time protection when I tested it. It seems to have serious issues with IE and many users have to disable access scanning. I can't believe they are an M$ Gold Partner and yet their AV has major issues with IE. It seems to only have the intensive CPU usage with IE 8 usage. I didn't test with 9 and considering all Win XP users can't upgrade to 9 I guess they are all screwed and have to disable access scanning. BTW these issues regarding archive scanning and IE have been reported since last fall!!!

 

Uhh... If your going to open the conversation with calling me a troll then please tell me what statement I've made that is not factual?

 

i just tested it and it worked fine. i added a bunch of known good files into an archive (*.zip) and also inserted one known bad, detected binary. context menu scan, detected one threat, quarantined it out of the archive without incident.

 

What OS?

What file size?

What file type?

Was it nested?

Tested a later build and right click context does scan so they seemed to fix that BUT it only seems to scan small zip files and I have yet to determine the size threshold for it to simply not scan. Have yet to test nesting depth.

 

windows 7 x64, total archive filesize was appx 50MB, i stated the filetype, yes, it was nested in a directory within the archive.

 

Yes, there is a file size limit for archive scanning. I'd have to check with our development team to find out the exact limit. I'd assume it's likely something around 100 MB but as I said, I'll have to double check.

Skipping the scanning of archive files over a certain size or nested archive files (I believe we scan down 10 layers) is obviously to improve performance on these types of files. To scan the contents of archives, the contents need to first be extracted. The scan can be incredibly efficient but the extracting the files can kill performance. As long as you also have Active Protection enabled, it will still catch any threat files as they are extracted (they have to be extracted to be accessed or run) from the archive so you are still protected from archived threats.

As for the issues with Internet Explorer, we have a beta release of our next software update that should be available within the next couple hours with some rather significant Active Protection performance improvements. I believe this would likely resolve the issues you saw with Internet Explorer. It's also possible there was a conflict with a specific add-on that you had running with Internet Explorer but we'd need to look into it further to find the cause.

As for the difference between CounterSpy and VIPRE, there isn't much. CounterSpy uses the same engine but there are some differences. CounterSpy was designed to run alongside another anti-virus and this requires it to be less aggressive when it comes to detecting actual viruses. This is why it's considered an anti-spyware product. There are also less features such as Email Protection, Firewall, Web Filtering, etc. In any case, the product is no longer being developed or sold so I'm not sure why it's being brought up.

 

I used Firefox on my laptop with i3 processor not IE.Although i didn't feel that it slowed my pc down ,it bothered me that process lasso(on its default settings) was continually lowering the SBAMSvc.exe (i mean every couple of seconds)This wasn't during a planned scan ,but just browsing and opening stuff on the pc.As i say I haven't had any other program(including security programs) do that before, and it put me off. Disabling on access scanning helps ,however things don't get detected until you actually execute them.Whether that's important or not is for an expert to answer.I prefer things to be detected "on the way down" .So i uninstalled and thought that maybe in a few months or so ..try it again.However the license seems pretty useless now.Ahh well you live and learn

 

When I say nested I mean nested archives like a zip inside a zip inside a zip.

 

everyone,

I understand the frustration that comes with understanding why we offer a lifetime license in this manner. The name of the license type can be misleading because a user can interpret it as one's own lifetime as opposed to what we refer to as the lifetime of your PC. It may sound like I have a bias opinion since I work for GFI, but honestly, I believe people may be over-thinking this a little bit.

First, no one is forced to purchase a license in this matter. It is simply a matter of choice. One option out of many. One can purchase a one, two, or three year license, but if this person wants to save some money, they can purchase a lifetime license for any machine they intend to protect for longer than 3 years.

http://electronics.hsn.com/vipre-antivirus-software-with-pc-lifetime-service_m-10051525_xp.aspx

For a limited time, just $79.95 at HSN right now and you'll never have to worry about antivirus for the machine you purchase it for ever again. This does not suit everyone's particular situation and I can admit to that, but it does suit many different scenarios. Maybe one day GFI will offer some form of a Personal Lifetime license, but as far as I know, this is not in the plans for the moment.

The GFI purchase of Sunbelt Software went with much planning that would take several forum threads to fully explain, but it comes without saying that GFI intended to purchase an AntiVirus company. It would not be logical for GFI to do away with VIPRE, as VIPRE is Sunbelt Software. Needless to say, VIPRE is not going anywhere, so the lifetime license can and should be purchased with confidence.

 

Hi Kenny..
I still think the pc lifetime license you offer is very ambiguous in its wording.I actually purchased after looking at reviews from previous purchasers,the majority of whom (including myself) having overlooked the small print.The bits like
...........................................
"Plus, with the amazing lifetime of service, never pay those expensive yearly renewal fees again for as long as you own your PC"
............................................

enter the brain and register as :-
"For as long as i have a pc ,I can install vipre and have free upgrades and updates on it"

Now whether GFI intended that as a marketing strategy i don't know ,but when the small print does enter the brain matter and becomes clear ,the lifetime license does indeed seem to be more of a cheap but very effective marketing ploy (imo).
ellison

 

I definitely see where you're coming from. I'll make a note to bring this up to our marketing team and any other parties involved to make sure the opinions of everyone on this forum are heard. I can see where the confusion lies and why it is frustrating. It's the very last thing any of us here at GFI intend to bring upon our loyal customers.

 

The majority of people who purchase the lifetime licenses might be under the same assumption which is why it'll be good once its cleared up. If the wording is correct then users won't have any real reason to complain because there's nothing to speculate about.

I can't recommend Vipre to clients and users because of the negative feedback it has received on the GFI forums, different online reviews and from my own personal experiences of it which were quite bad at the time about half a year ago. I'll re-install it to see how its progressed since then since my license doesn't expire until Black Friday.

It would be nice to see Vipre in the testing by AV Comparative's because many users on Wilders probably value them as being the best AV testers around. If the VB100 & AV-Test results are improved then more people will be confident in using the product. We know performance wise Vipre is great but in terms of malware detection its still a bit of an unknown.

EDIT: I gave up trying to install Vipre Premium after an hour. There are too many registry keys left over from a previous installation an the support tool which used to be available to help delete them is missing now. I was having the same problem as the one mentioned below. Error 1722:

http://getsatisfaction.com/sunbeltsoftware/topics/vipre_update_install_issue

 

i'll humor you. total archive size is still ~50MB.

archive.zip > contains archive2.zip and infected1.exe ->

archive2.zip contains random files, archive3.zip and infected2.exe ->

archive3.zip contains more random files, and infected3.exe

all 3 malicious files successfully quarantined. all three are different threats.

i copied this same archive to 3 separate PCs i have running vipre, and the same exact behavior occurred on each - that being, the malicious files were all detected within the archives within archives, using context menu scans.