Free security software 'as good as commercial brands'

The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
outperformed rivals costing up to £50.

Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
could be wasting their money, according to Which?

A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
and were on the whole just as easy to use.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece

My experience is that the free and/or cheaper alternatives often perform
better as they do not require the intense amount of system resources used by
the likes of McAfee and Symantec software. Nor do they cause as many
performance issues or software conflicts.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Julian" <> wrote in message
news:F66F105D-3974-4F96-92ED-...
> The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
> outperformed rivals costing up to £50.
>
> Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
> could be wasting their money, according to Which?
>
> A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
> to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
> McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
> and were on the whole just as easy to use.
>
> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece

"Julian" <> wrote in message
news:F66F105D-3974-4F96-92ED-...
> The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
> outperformed rivals costing up to £50.
>
> Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
> could be wasting their money, according to Which?
>
> A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
> to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
> McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
> and were on the whole just as easy to use.
>
> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece

I wonder if they ran the Vista firewall in advanced mode to get that 64%
rating?
Probably not.. the Which reports I have read where I know something about
the subject have usually been rubbish.. I expect its true for them all.

"dennis@home" <> wrote in message
news:9535FD7C-1376-422B-918D-...
>
> "Julian" <> wrote in message
> news:F66F105D-3974-4F96-92ED-...
>> The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
>> outperformed rivals costing up to £50.
>>
>> Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
>> could be wasting their money, according to Which?
>>
>> A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
>> to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
>> McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
>> and were on the whole just as easy to use.
>>
>> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece
>
> I wonder if they ran the Vista firewall in advanced mode to get that 64%
> rating?
> Probably not.. the Which reports I have read where I know something about
> the subject have usually been rubbish.. I expect its true for them all.

That may be true of Which? but there is an ever growing mountain of
evidence that Norton and McAfee antivirus products are not compatible
with Vistas Windows Mail which has experienced a myriad of different
problems that disappear when Norton and McAfee AVs are binned.

* Julian:
> The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
> outperformed rivals costing up to £50.
>
> Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
> could be wasting their money, according to Which?
>
> A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
> to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
> McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
> and were on the whole just as easy to use.
>
> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece

This may be true of Norton and McAfee products, it is not true
for NOD32. The best AV there is. Period.


-Michael

"MICHAEL" <> wrote
>
> * Julian:
>> The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
>> outperformed rivals costing up to £50.
>>
>> Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
>> could be wasting their money, according to Which?
>>
>> A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
>> to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
>> McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
>> and were on the whole just as easy to use.
>>
>> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece
>
> This may be true of Norton and McAfee products, it is not true
> for NOD32. The best AV there is. Period.

Perhaps, but there very few cases where someone spending
£300 on a PC needs to spend another 10% on AV software.

I don't believe that the average home PC user,
a huge segment of the market, needs to spend
even one penny on security software

They are frightened into buying superfluous software
and conned by PC vendors who have been bribed to
preinstall expensive bloatware.

Knowledge is "the best" protection.

People go with different products based on how much time they want to spend
with it. Those who use freeware products typically go into it knowing they
will tune it to their specific use. Those who use bundled products typically
don't care... they simply "trust" the vendor's settings and let it run. If
you take the time to "tweak" any of these, you will only make it stronger
based on how you use your computer.

Those who don't know what a rootkit or trojan is have attained a 100% rating
with their product and probably without trying. Those who tweak and fiddle
to get that last ounce of speed from their machine but keep getting
bombarded with ads get a 0% rating. Doesn't matter what the product is or
how much it costs.


"Julian" <> wrote in message
news:F66F105D-3974-4F96-92ED-...
> The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
> outperformed rivals costing up to £50.
>
> Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
> could be wasting their money, according to Which?
>
> A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
> to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
> McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
> and were on the whole just as easy to use.
>
> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece

The majority of home users install Norton or McAfee and that is it. They do
not make use of the advanced features, and more often than not find that
their systems slow down. Firewalls pop up messages that they do not
understand, and are summarily disabled, the next question being 'how to stop
Security Center from displaying 'you have no firewall enabled'.

The free stuff is backed by commercial sales, some automatically update, and
if there is a problem, uninstall/re-install takes maybe 5 minutes, no
specialized uninstall program being required.

'Which' mag may not always be right, but in this case, it is..


"dennis@home" <> wrote in message
news:9535FD7C-1376-422B-918D-...
>
> "Julian" <> wrote in message
> news:F66F105D-3974-4F96-92ED-...
>> The consumer watchdog Which? found that many free programs
>> outperformed rivals costing up to £50.
>>
>> Computer owners who pay for top-of-the-range security software
>> could be wasting their money, according to Which?
>>
>> A report by the consumer watchdog found that free alternatives
>> to popular security products such as Norton Anti-Virus and
>> McAfee VirusScan work just as well as paid-for programs,
>> and were on the whole just as easy to use.
>>
>> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle2361464.ece
>
> I wonder if they ran the Vista firewall in advanced mode to get that 64%
> rating?
> Probably not.. the Which reports I have read where I know something about
> the subject have usually been rubbish.. I expect its true for them all.

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

"Mike Hall - MVP" <> wrote in message
news:OU%23$...
> The majority of home users install Norton or McAfee and that is it. They
> do not make use of the advanced features, and more often than not find
> that their systems slow down. Firewalls pop up messages that they do not
> understand, and are summarily disabled, the next question being 'how to
> stop Security Center from displaying 'you have no firewall enabled'.
>
> The free stuff is backed by commercial sales, some automatically update,
> and if there is a problem, uninstall/re-install takes maybe 5 minutes, no
> specialized uninstall program being required.
>
> 'Which' mag may not always be right, but in this case, it is..

Well in the case of the AV software I would agree.. how they got there is a
bit more debateable but I wont argue with the answer.

I was questioning how one firewall gets 94% when another that can do the
same gets 64%.
Like I said I find Which reports to be rubbish.. they seldom appear to know
what they are doing and its all dumbed down to the level of a Sun reader.
I would have given all the firewalls no more than 5% myself, but I do
understand how they work and what they can really do rather than what is
claimed for them.

Assuming that the numbers relate to how good the product is as used by the
average person, and not just by the amount of features present as I suspect
they are, then Zonealarm shouldn't score any higher than XP or Vista
Firewall..

Zonealarm may well be more capable, but if the user doesn't take advantage
of ALL of the features, most capability is lost. I always set my local
clients up with AVG or Avast, Windows Defender, and the resident Windows
firewall. At least these four hardly require user intervention of any kind,
and will chug along in the background protecting them far more than a bunch
of hard to use, hard to set up, hard to understand utilities, none of which
the average user will even look at during a year.


"dennis@home" <> wrote in message
news:833A42A4-2FA8-43F4-81DF-...
>
> "Mike Hall - MVP" <> wrote in message
> news:OU%23$...
>> The majority of home users install Norton or McAfee and that is it. They
>> do not make use of the advanced features, and more often than not find
>> that their systems slow down. Firewalls pop up messages that they do not
>> understand, and are summarily disabled, the next question being 'how to
>> stop Security Center from displaying 'you have no firewall enabled'.
>>
>> The free stuff is backed by commercial sales, some automatically update,
>> and if there is a problem, uninstall/re-install takes maybe 5 minutes, no
>> specialized uninstall program being required.
>>
>> 'Which' mag may not always be right, but in this case, it is..
>
> Well in the case of the AV software I would agree.. how they got there is
> a bit more debateable but I wont argue with the answer.
>
> I was questioning how one firewall gets 94% when another that can do the
> same gets 64%.
> Like I said I find Which reports to be rubbish.. they seldom appear to
> know what they are doing and its all dumbed down to the level of a Sun
> reader.
> I would have given all the firewalls no more than 5% myself, but I do
> understand how they work and what they can really do rather than what is
> claimed for them.
>
>
>

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/