All about antivirus products & beyond in 2009 – Part II

All About Anti-virus Products

The earlier post on Antivirus (All about Antivirus products & beyond in 2009) touched upon the available products from an overview. In this post, we will look at the offerings of major vendors in this space and compare them based on the features and pros and cons of each, which would help you get a better understanding of the products.

The antivirus space could be bifurcated into two broad segments, one with players like Symantec and McAfee while the other populated with the likes of Quick Heal, Kaspersky, BitDefender AVG, K7, and others alike.

Symantec

Symantec in the consumer space has a Norton bouquet of products comprising Norton Antivirus 2010, Norton Internet Security 2010, and Norton 360.

Norton Antivirus 2010

This is the basic offering from Symantec’s Norton stable and comprises features such as blocking viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, worms, bots, and rootkits. Apart from this feature, it provides pulse updates of 5-15 minutes, protection against web attacks, and keeps a tab on PC activities, preventing slowing down.

Symantec’s earlier offerings were “accused” of consuming resources and slowing down the PC, but they seem to have addressed that aspect in the latest release. Noteworthy is the fact the features present in Norton Antivirus are also present in Norton Internet Security and Norton 360.

So, Norton Antivirus 2010 offers basic protection, and users with minimum exposure levels to threats and attacks could think of this solution. A free trial is also available for those who wish to try the product and satisfy the protection offered.

Norton Internet Security 2010:

Apart from the above-mentioned features, Norton Internet Security has a two-way firewall, anti-spam, blocks phishing websites, secures login information, and identifies unsafe websites. As can be seen, the features are tailor-made for internet and web-related threats. Most of these features are available in Norton 360 along with those present in Norton Antivirus.

Norton 360:

Norton 360 has a few other features on file management and does not have a spam filtering aspect in it. Barring that, it is an extension of Norton Internet Security.

For those having a fairly high exposure level to the web, Norton Internet Security or Norton 360 could be an option to consider.

McAfee

McAfee, too has three offerings on similar lines to Symantec.

McAfee Virus Scan Plus 2009:

This is their basic offering. It has four features, namely, Anti-virus, Anti-Spyware, Firewall, and Web safety Rating. It offers a basic firewall that is not provided in Norton Antivirus. But the basic version may not have enough punch to secure users from the complex nature of threats arising from the web.

McAfee Internet Security 2009:

This offering looks to be loaded in terms of its features which have Anti-Phishing, two-way firewall, identity protection, parental controls, and Data backup apart from those offered by McAfee Virus Scan Plus. So, this is more tuned for threats and attacks from the web and hence provides greater security than Anti-virus.

McAfee Total Protection 2009:

Over and above the features offered in McAfee Internet Security and McAfee Virus Scan Plus, McAfee Total Protection provides advanced home network protection for users having more than one PC in the house along with management of the network.

Users looking to derive protection from web-related threats could opt from McAfee Internet Security 2009.

Advantages of Symantec and McAfee

The “pros” of using products from vendors like Symantec and McAfee are the resource base in terms of honey pots placed around the world for sample collection of latest viruses along with research and development in labs for updates to its users.

Disadvantages of Symantec and McAfee:

The “cons” of using Symantec and McAfee would be the price. The products are priced well above their counterpart, so it is a value for money offering. In countries like India, consumers might find counterfeit or pirated versions of the products available in markets like Nehru place in New Delhi or S.P Road in Bangalore.

So, one would have to be watchful while buying products from these vendors. The earlier version of Symantec was dubbed as consuming system resources that dented its image. However, the problem seems to have been solved with a new version, and the product is as good as before.

AntiVirus Consumer Security Space
AntiVirus Consumer Security Space


Quick Heal

Quick Heal is an Indian brand that offers two products for consumer security.

Quick Heal Antivirus Plus 2009:

This is product has features like Antivirus, Antispyware, Firewall, Anti-malware, Anti-rootkit. The company has looked to expand its operations healthily in recent times. It has been one of the major players to surface and dent the share of Symantec and McAfee with their large presence in smaller towns and cities in India. This product is a basic offering and comes in single-user and multiuser license packs comprising 2 users and 3 users.

Quick Heal Total Security 2009:

This product offers total security from remote as well as web-enabled threats. Apart from the features present in the Antivirus product, this also provides Antiphishing, Data Theft Protection, and PC2Mobile scan. So altogether, the features added to provide 10-in-1 protection. The product comes in 1 user, 2 users, and 3 user licenses.

These two products are placed on the higher end of the spectrum in terms of price. Quick Heal also offers decent levels of protection and has a fair service in terms of updates.


Guardian Antivirus 2009

The company also owns a low-cost product Guardian Antivirus which it uses to meet the low-cost end of the price spectrum, thereby reaching out to a wider audience. There are 5 features built into the product: Antivirus, Antispyware, AntiRootkit, Antimalware, and Privacy Protection.

For those of you looking to go for a low-cost product, Guardian would come in handy. However, it might be found wanting in terms of the depth of protection, unlike its counterparts.


Kaspersky

Kaspersky became a household name when it slashed its prices in India for 3 user licenses, and this move helped the company capture a fair bit of market share. But the company found itself embroiled in counterfeit and piracy issues with regard to its keys for some time. However, in recent times it has been able to ward off these threats.

There are two offerings from Kaspersky labs which is a Russian brand.

Kaspersky Antivirus 2010:

The product offers protection from viruses, spyware, updates for the same, deletion of internet cookies and history, color coding for unsafe websites, and a rescue disk tool apart from a few other features. The product does not have a firewall in the antivirus offering, unlike Quick Heal and McAfee.

Of the two products from Kaspersky, its Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 sells more.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010:

Kaspersky Internet Security, along with the features of Antivirus, provides protection from spam, phishing, identity theft. It also offers a two-way firewall, secures wireless connections, parental control, and a safe folder for storing sensitive data.

Internet Security was available in 3 user licenses in 2008, but in 2009 1 user license has also been introduced by the company owing to the popularity of the product. However, the 3 user license pack continues to be the “value for money” proposition despite a marginal increase in the prices in India’s last couple of months.


BitDefender

One of the relatively lesser-known products of the lot, BitDefender, is looking to gain ground steadily in India. As a part of its offerings, it has three products:

BitDefender Antivirus 2009:

This offers the most basic forms of protection through Antivirus, Antispyware, Antiphishing, and IM encryption. When compared to features with its counterparts, this product appears to be slightly lighter in nature.

BitDefender Internet Security 2009:

Internet security has Antispam and Firewall along with Parental control and File vault among its features apart from all the features being provided in the BitDefender Antivirus. Being a product for the internet, exposure to threats from spam becomes an integral feature in the product.

BitDefender Total Security 2009:

There are two additional features in Total Security from Internet Security 2009, which include file shredder and file vault. The user gets the crux of features in the Internet Security 2009 offering and would be able to counter most of the vulnerabilities from it.

K7 Computing

K7 computing has only one product which is its Total Security product. The product has features like antivirus, anti-spam, anti-spyware, privacy protection, parental control, a two-way firewall, and a system monitor. It also falls in the low-cost antivirus space, although in popularity levels, it is still to catch up with Kaspersky and Quick Heal.

So I hope you find this article informative?

Then spread it and would appreciate your own personal opinion/experience on the above Anti Virus Software.

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