comp/net virus protection

[mbpark]

Tom,

On the data sets provided (see the links I sent), someone did a subjective test against a known data set, which proved that AVG and multiple other programs (including Avast!) were much more effective than Symantec's product. This test is repeated periodically with different data sets.

This is one site: http://www.checkvir.com/
This is another (Virus Bulletin): http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archiv...isplay=summary

The registration for Virus Bulletin is free. Their methodology is posted there. What I found interesting is that Avast! failed on Vista Business but passed on XP Pro. Same with McAfee.

Why is AVG better? I'll give you a simple reason: because Symantec's product managers, in an attempt to shoehorn as many features as possible into the product to get people to buy the product from year to year, have concentrated more on extraneous features than actual Anti-Virus. This leads to the epic fail we call Symantec Endpoint Security 11, which has IPS protection that would block all connections to Active Directory servers after about 20 minutes, thereby effectively shutting down networks.

And yes, I used to work with a former Symantec product manager who has confirmed their marketing strategy to me. I also ripped them a new one over what happened with SEP at a customer before I moved into my current job.

Surprisingly, their Linux Mail Server solution for Antivirus isn't half bad. It needed some work (aka a fix to the XML file that generates the Postfix configuration files on service restart that Symantec forgot to do) to work in a multi-homed environment, but it screams on the 2 8-core HP Proliant servers I have it running on (hey, that's the lowest-spec I can get for SMP servers these days!).

[tw]

Originally Posted by mbpark

http://www.checkvir.com
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archiv...isplay=summary

For the most part, brand name anti-virus software all tend to work consistently.

However I have also seen some bad behavior from Symantec. One recent Symantec release literally destroyed a Windows 2000 OS. For example, it destroyed any log on abilities except at the administrator level. And Symantec would not uninstall.

Symantec's reply: that newer Symantec version should not be installed on Windows 2000. So why did it let that user do it?

Other than that Symantec experience, apparently minor differences exists between the major anti-virus names as both www.checkvir.com/ and www.virusbtn.com demonstrate. Best anyone can do use what those recommendations suggest - and hope later versions do not do, for example, what Symantec did to that user.