What is your opinion about NOD32

[panais]

What is your opinion about NOD32.
Which is the best antivirus program for you and why?

 

[johngalt]

I had no choice - my company required me to use Symantec Endpoint Protection.

NOD32 was almost always rated as one of the *top* AV programs for a long time, but I hear that recently it may not be as good as before - I personally liked it, except I hate having to pay for yearly subscriptions. Since I am an IT professional, I can set up my own updating scheme for my AV, and now with Windows 7, since SEP doesn't work, I am reverting to Avast myself - if NOD made a free version I'd be using it in a heartbeat, though.

 

[Dzomlija]

What is your opinion about NOD32.
Which is the best antivirus program for you and why?

For many years I used Norton Antivirus as part of the Norton Systemworks package, but I abandoned it when the srapped it in favour of Norton 360.

Now I use Avast!, both because it is free and because it gets the job done without getting in the way too much.

 

[johngalt]

I have just installed Avast on W7 - time to get re-acquainted with it....

 

[mansrm81]

I use Avast cause its easy to use.

 

[Zoloft]

NOD32 virus protection is still top notch. It's their security suite, most notably, the firewall, that still needs a little work.

 

[limneos]

I think NOD32 is one of the tops too, but after having to test many antivirus programs so I could best cover my clients (IT tech) , I have changed by the years like this:

I used to work with Norton Antivirus till 4-5 years ago, then it started being too heavy..was replaced at once at a corporate client where all PCs were infected by a virus which only MCAFEE had discovered then and Norton knew nothing about it! After that, I kept using Mcafee as my favorite until a couple of years ago where one day I was in need for urgent solutions and I had to find a free antivirus fast!

I came across many free apps, but the only one I didn't like and thought to be crap appeared to be the best: Avira Antivir Personal Edition

This completely free antivirus has done its best so far, I've installed it to all of the clients I support and ever since they've never called me for viruses (maybe I should re-think that )
This antivirus is mean....really mean.

To me, after servicing about 50 corporate clients , I have found the best combo for a clean system to be: Avira Antivir Personal Edition + Spybot SD.

That goes both for XP and Vista.

 

[Joan Archer]

I use NOD32 and like it, it has a light footprint and doesn't try to take over my machine, but because of finances it may be that I'll have to go with the free ones and that will be Avast.
I have that installed on my husbands XP and it works very well and one of my MVP friends uses it on Vista so that's a good enough reason for me to go with it when my subscription runs out for NOD32.

 

[Larry D]

I think Nod32 is the #1 AV. Never had any problems with it. Small footprint as Joan said and updates frequently. BTW, new update is available 3.0.684.0 as of 12-18-2008.

 

[mike-cow]

NOD32 has always been behind on detecting known malware. The most recent test on av-test found it detected 4.3% less known malware than norton internet security. ESET it actually among the 50% worst results on that particular test...

NOD32 has been preferred mainly for its low false positive score and low performance impact. NIS and other suites manages those feats too these days, so there's no reason to sacrifice detection rate for performance anymore.

 

[rive0108]

NOD32 has always been behind on detecting known malware. The most recent test on av-test found it detected 4.3% less known malware than norton internet security. ESET it actually among the 50% worst results on that particular test...

NOD32 has been preferred mainly for its low false positive score and low performance impact. NIS and other suites manages those feats too these days, so there's no reason to sacrifice detection rate for performance anymore.

I use NOD32 3.0. It was the only antivirus product to recieve 3 star advanced + ratings in recent AV-Comparative testing for detection rates with fewest false positives, and consistantly recieves VB100 awards from Virus Bulletin. Excellent product, and rather inexpensive. Coupled with Windows Defender Antispyware, you cant go wrong. Excellent protection level.

According to the lastest AV-Comparative, NOD32 outperformed Symantec's Norton in all areas except detection of script malware:

On demand detection capabilites of malware (Higher % is better)
(Heuristic) Proactive detection of new samples (1st week)
Norton 44%
NOD32 54%

(Heuristic) Proactive detection of new samples (all 4 weeks)
Norton 44%
NOD32 51%


False positives are the detecting of malware that is fact not malware which when removed can cause program/Windows instability and crashes. (Lower % is better)
Norton 12%
NOD32 7%

Component Detection Results (Heuristic/Virus Signature). (Higher % is better)
Windows Viruses
Norton 57%
NOD32 57%

Script malware detection
Norton 27%
NOD32 11%

Worms detection
Norton 53%
NOD32 60%

Backdoor Trojans detection
Norton 50%
NOD32 58%

Trojan Horse detection
Norton 42%
NOD32 48%

Other Malware detection
Norton 47%
NOD32 51%

Total Vendor Detection Results Overall using Virus signature database and Heurustics (higher % is better with the fewest false positives)
NOD32 51% (few false positives)
Antivir 67% (many false positives)
Kaspersky 60% (many false positives)
Antivirus Kit 59% (many false positives)
Bitdefender 46% (many false positives)
Norton 44% (many false positives)
Microsoft Onecare 44% (very few false positives)
AVG 40% (many false positives)
Avast! Pro 39% (many false positives)
McAfee 29% (very few false positives)
Norman 25% (many false positives)
F-Secure 9% (few false positives)
eScan 8% (few false positives)





A-V comparatives November 2008
Virus Bulletin VB100 April 2008 Vista SP1
http://www.vistax64.com/system-security/172321-vista-sp1-antivirus-performance.html

 

[mike-cow]

rive0108; My impression is that the proactive detection refers to malware that are NOT in the virus database. I rather have a better result on finding the old junk rather than the recent outbursts. In all the years I've used computers, I've NEVER got a virus which is newer than 6 months or so, which is way longer than the responsetime for any AV-suite. So catching 4% more of the old stuff is way more important to me than catching the latest of the crop that's not detected by my software yet.

Ofcourse, depending on how you use your computer, proactive defense might be more apropriate for you. The newest viruses tend to be deliberately launched on computers, rather than be random infection and then spread from there.

 

[rive0108]

rive0108; My impression is that the proactive detection refers to malware that are NOT in the virus database. I rather have a better result on finding the old junk rather than the recent outbursts. In all the years I've used computers, I've NEVER got a virus which is newer than 6 months or so, which is way longer than the responsetime for any AV-suite. So catching 5% more of the old stuff is way more important to me than catching the latest of the crop that's not detected by my software yet.

Ofcourse, depending on how you use your computer, proactive defense might be more apropriate for you. The newest viruses tend to be deliberately launched on computers, rather than be random infection and then spread from there.

The only thing Norton catches more of is script malware, its a dead heat on Windows Viruses, and NOD32 detects more worms, trojans, and other malware than Norton. Not sure where you are getting this "5% more" from.

NOD32 surpasses Norton in overall detection rates of known and unknown malware with a 51% overall detection rate compared to Norton's 44% (AV-Comparatives November, 2008)

The above test results for the listed products are not just for the proactive scanning for new threats. I included the comparison for Norton. The overall detection rate is based on database signatures (retroactive) and heuristics (proactive).

Heuristics is the most important part of any malware detection. An antivirus program is useless if it wont provide detection/protection against emerging threats of new "in the wild" malware. It results in your computer being infected, and then after a signature is created, removed (if possible) or quarantined. This could be detrimental for example if one was infected with a rootkit/trojan horse/keystroke logger as the system can be remoted and used to attack websites, credit cards/bank accounts/passwords compromised, malware can corrupt Windows rendering it nonfunctional and/or result in data loss. Any antivirus product that relies soley on virus database signatures does not provide adequate protection. High Fase positive detection rates are very bad as it usually results in Windows corruption as necessary files for programs/Windows are mistakenly deleted and that causes system/program instability. Of all the antivirus suites on the market none provide 100% detection/removal. A program that has a high "detection" rate, coupled with a high "false positve" rate is diasasterous and will eventually result in Windows reinstallation due to severe file/registry corruption. Some malware programs are better than others though, and NOD32 is at the top.

 

[mike-cow]

NOD32 surpasses Norton in overall detection rates of known and unknown malware with a 51% overall detection rate compared to Norton's 44% (AV-Comparatives November, 2008)

On an installation without the latest signature updates, yes. I'm happy to know my suite performs 4.3% better than NOD32 when kept up to date.

From the november report you refer to:

To know how these anti-virus products perform with updated signatures, please look at our on-demand tests for February and August.

This is the august test results WITH updated definitions:
Windows Viruses
Norton 98.9%
NOD32 98.3%

Script malware detection
Norton 87.2%
NOD32 65.5%

Worms detection
Norton 98.4%
NOD32 94.9%

Backdoor Trojans detection
Norton 98.6%
NOD32 94.8%

Trojan Horse detection
Norton 97.7%
NOD32 92.2%

Other Malware detection
Norton 94%
NOD32 78.8%

 

[rive0108]

NOD32 surpasses Norton in overall detection rates of known and unknown malware with a 51% overall detection rate compared to Norton's 44% (AV-Comparatives November, 2008)

On an installation without the latest signature updates, yes. I'm happy to know my suite performs 4.3% better than NOD32 when kept up to date.

From the november report you refer to:

To know how these anti-virus products perform with updated signatures, please look at our on-demand tests for February and August.

This is the august test results WITH updated definitions:
Windows Viruses
Norton 98.9%
NOD32 98.3%

Script malware detection
Norton 87.2%
NOD32 65.5%

Worms detection
Norton 98.4%
NOD32 94.9%

Backdoor Trojans detection
Norton 98.6%
NOD32 94.8%

Trojan Horse detection
Norton 97.7%
NOD32 92.2%

Other Malware detection
Norton 94%
NOD32 78.8%

Ps- if you look carefully at the Certification you will see it is for Retrospective detection- which is solely based on acturate Virus detection using signatures-with minimal false positives. Norton didnt make Advanced+ because it falsely detected too many legitimate programs as "malware".

 

[mike-cow]

Ps- if you look carefully at the Certification you will see it is for Retrospective detection- which is solely based on acturate Virus detection using signatures-with minimal false positives. Norton didnt make Advanced+ because it falsely detected too many legitimate programs as "malware".

Using NOT UPDATED definitions... It's not exactly a real world test...

If an AV found only ~50% of all viruses, I wouldn't bother to use it...

 

[rive0108]

Ps- if you look carefully at the Certification you will see it is for Retrospective detection- which is solely based on acturate Virus detection using signatures-with minimal false positives. Norton didnt make Advanced+ because it falsely detected too many legitimate programs as "malware".

Using NOT UPDATED definitions... It's not exactly a real world test...

If an AV found only ~50% of all viruses, I wouldn't bother to use it...

No, you have it wrong.
proactive testing was the heuristic testing, retrospective was up-to-date-current definitions. Norton detected too many legitimate programs as malware in the retrospective test for it to recieve 3 star certification. BTW, heuristics (proactive) are about as real as it gets- thousands of new viruses and malware are created daily. There is alot of money in it now. Its like the deadbolt on your house- lock it now for proactive protection, or lock it only after you have been broken into and robbed in retrospect to prevent them from coming back and robbing you again. Which sounds better to you?

 

[dinesh]

So this means Norton is better than Nod32?

 

[rive0108]

So this means Norton is better than Nod32?

It is a good antivirus. NOD32 and Norton each have their own strengths and weaknesses. You can't go wrong with either one. I prefer NOD32 because overall it has a higher Retroactive/heuristic detection rate, a small resource footprint, and low false positive detection rate.

Some issues with Norton:
1.Its a system resource hog (huge footprint)
2. It is lacking in heuristic detection abilities
3. High False detection of legitimate programs as malware (12%)
4. Needs special software to completely remove

 

[Asky]

So this means Norton is better than Nod32?

It is a good antivirus. NOD32 and Norton each have their own strengths and weaknesses. You can't go wrong with either one. I prefer NOD32 because overall it has a higher Retroactive/heuristic detection rate, a small resource footprint, and low false positive detection rate.

Some issues with Norton:
1.Its a system resource hog (huge footprint)
2. It is lacking in heuristic detection abilities
3. High False detection of legitimate programs as malware (12%)
4. Needs special software to completely remove

The 09 Version isnt a resource hog.