Desktop Security Suites
The constantly evolving threats a personal computer is subject to requires a proven set of utilities that will prevent these threats including simple viruses, spyware, trojan horses, worms, and malware yet to be developed. There is a variety of competent security suites available all reasonably priced. While the differences between the many offerings seem to have diminished in recent years there are varying characteristics that warrant serious consideration.
The market for security suites has been dominated for some time by Symantec, and McAfee. Now there are valid challengers from Grisoft, Check Point, Kaspersky, Softwin, Panda Security and Trend Micro whose sales have surpassed McAfee in the past year. While all perform the basic functions of virus and firewall protection very well, system overhead, ease of use, accuracy of spam filters, utilities and annoying marketing tactics may be enough for you to consider a change.
A look at our past experience may help illustrate the importance of reviewing alternatives from time to time. In 2003 we managed nearly 200 customer systems. Most of our new customers were running Norton anti-virus and many of these had viruses. Most were do to the fact that virus definitions were not being updated and new bugs were getting through. We switched these systems to McAfee which had a superior unattended update process and had few complaints for years to come. In the last year, however, difficulties with a confusing spam guard, a new "Site Adviser" feature that caused conflicts, and annoying ads that confused add-ons with critical updates caused a good deal of confusion. Good time for that periodic reassessment!
Norton Internet Security Suite 2008 from Symantec earned PC Magazine's Editors Choice Award. The PC Magazine Review [Sept. 7, 2007] gives high marks to the suite's anti-virus and firewall, the most important modules of any security product. Much is made of the fact that the decision of weather a application should have access to the internet is done by the program rather than the user. Our experience supports this as we've found the frustration of knowing what file is associated with individual applications often causes even the most informed user to make the wrong decision. On the negative side the spam protection blocks many valid emails. This feature can be problematic in most suites. If you would rather do with out it the current suite offers is as an ad-on so it is not automatically installed but can be added free. Twelve month service for up to three local pc's - $69.99.
McAfee Internet Security Suite also has excellent anti-virus and firewall features. It's identity protection works on Firefox as well as Internet Explorer, unlike Norton witch only functions with the latter. McAfee has added a backup / restore feature to this version of the suite along with file shredding. Another addition is the parental controls feature can now can images for objectionable content though it is as yet not 100% effective. On the down side the McAfee suite causes a significantly grater system drag than the Norton suite making it less appropriate for slower systems. And although the product functions with little attendance trying to get support is difficult and the periodic ads are annoying. Twelve month service for 1 pc - $49.99.
AVG Internet Security from Grisoft has long been a techie favorite because of its small footprint and minimal drag on system resources. However, it ranks low among competitors in being proactive when it comes to unknown threats. It did rank among the highest in thoroughly removing known spyware. It also leaves too many decisions about possible intrusions up to the user unlike the approach Norton has taken as mentioned above. Twelve month service for 1 pc - $52.95.
ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 from Check Point uses the award winning Kaspersky anti-virus engine and MailFrontier spam control. The suite received the Cnet Editors Choice Award in January 2007. They note however that it lacks an anti-phishing toolbar and other features found in Norton or McAfee. While not feature rich it does have an ease of use that includes an instruction video and what it does do it does well. Twelve month service for up to 3 pc's - $49.95 [limited time offer].
Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 has the top of the line virus protection and firewall but requires a great deal of user configuration. Critics note the spam filter and parental controls are unimpressive. For some reason the firewall is off by default. Twelve month service for up to 3 pc's $79.95.
BitDefender Internet Security 2008 from Softwin has highly regarded anti-virus and firewall components and includes some handy tools that identify duplicate files, a registry cleaner and a backup utility. Coupling of anti-virus and anti-spyware scans has quickened these processes. The user interface and usability have been improved in this latest version. Twelve month service for up to 3 pc's - $59.95.
Panda Internet Security 2008 has superior virus and spyware protection, noted as "the best ever" in a PC Magazine Review. The review touts the excellent firewall and a backup utility but has no such accolades for the spam and parental controls. Of note though is that while there are compatibility concerns with security programs running on Windows Vista, Panda's product actually has the "Works with Windows Vista" certification from Microsoft. Twelve month service for up to 3 pc's - $69.
Internet Security Pro from Trend Micro, formerly marketed as PC-Cillin is now second in market share to Norton, surpassing McAfee. The anti-virus and firewall modules have been enhanced with intrusion detection that anticipates offenders by tracking suspicious behaviors. The firewall blocks unwanted applications only asking the user for a decision when it cannot identify a program. It has spam control and anti phishing but lacks utilities of some other suites such as backup. Twelve month service for 1 pc - $69.99.
After reviewing the suites currently available we will be dropping McAfee for reasons noted above unless something changes before our subscription expires in late fall. Deciding which alternative to select depends on how you use the internet, email or if you have an acceptable backup solution in place. Most of our spam control is done at the mail server so the spam feature is not as important to us. We currently use Iomega Pro for local backups and consider the high overhead a burden. A quality alternative would influence our decision.
Virus protection and a competent firewall are paramount. We like Norton for the improvements in this regard as well as the ease of use. As for the celebrated Kaspersky anti-virus, it appears the best way to take advantage of this is in the ZoneAlarm product which includes its celebrated firewall, ease of use and instructional video, not to mention the price. BitDefender has highly regarded anti-virus, low maintenance firewall and a wealth of features at a reasonable price. The backup may sway us here. It would be the main reason we would consider the Panda product as well.
If you are considering any of the products mentioned here be sure to note the specific version as most vendors offer a scaled down version or an enterprise version at a much higher price. Also, the prices shown are subject to change. For our money, we will probably go with the BitDefender product. Leave us a post if you know something we don't. We'll report on the products performance in a future post.
