Hello,

Kaspersky comes with a plugin for the Bat! (email program).  If I disable this plugin, is it a big deal?  Because I'm already using real-time scanning, what more protection is scanning the incoming and outgoing emails going to add?

i think the main purpose of the plugin is to move virus mails into the quarantine folder automatically.


Best regards,
Dirk

lol i hate the squealing pig noise

 

Great review, esp. if it scored you a free copy

off topic: I had some really crappy experiences with Panda Security software.

If you can't afford kaspersky, go for free apps versions :

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

http://www.comodo.com/products/free_products.html

I'm installing 2009 today! 

Just got back from vacation, getting ready (I hope) to do a more thorough treatment. But here's my first impression.

In this version KIS has crossed a line in usability 

In the past there were a couple of places where I didn't quite understand what it was doing. Now this applies to much of the application. In particular, they've added categories of applications: "High Trusted", "Low Trusted", etc. When the system pops up a warning that an app is doing something that might be naughty, you're (generally) given several choices. One of these is Allow (with sub-choices of Allow once only and Allow always. A separate choice is Make Trusted. What the heck is the difference between saying to "allow always" versus "make trusted"? I just don't get it. I'm as expert a computer user as you're likely to find. If I don't get what's going on, it's a good bet that your average user will be completely floundering.

If you make security too complicated, people will ignore it. Faced with these perplexing choices, users are going to guess, and that's no way to be secure. So they may have made the tool more powerful -- on paper. But in real life, it will do a worse job.

Another thing bothering me is the way it scans applications proactively (I think as part of their heuristic filtering, where they try to identify problems before they occur). A program that's never been run before is scanned, and this takes 15-20 seconds. Sometimes when one process is spawning another, the parent proc things that the child has failed because it's taking so long. The result of this is that I can't use the SUPER video converter while KIS is running (it seems to create child programs dynamically). So their tighter security is forcing me to turn off the security altogether -- another case of theoretical improvements forcing me to use the system in an unsafe manner.

Disclosure: I'm evaluating a free NFR copy given to me by a Kaspersky sales rep. No strings were attached.

Nice find, CleverCat. The "setting up" thread in particular, is a great resource for someone who wants an in depth look into the sw without actually installing it, loads of screenshots.

I used KAV6 and switched to NOD32 a little before my subscription was up. Kaspersky always gets top marks for its protection scheme - you really can't beat it!

I was a little put out by its behavior at times though. (BTW, I hated the sound with a passion! Though that wasn't what caused me to lose KAV6). KAV's version of Threat Detection or whatever they call their heuristics for malware was a little too over the top for me. Extremely aggressive and it ate up a fair number of good applications I like to use. I got an inordinate number of false positives from it. I spent a lot of time on their forum trying to resolve the problems, but in the end it was either "live with the issues or turn off that part of the program". Since the heuristics is part of what makes KAV good I didn't want to lose it, but I couldn't tolerate the unannounced quarantines and/or deletions that it did.

I just rechecked what it did: On a few occasions it grabbed emails that I was composing on another computer in my network that wasn't even using Kaspersky! In one case it was a forward of a phish email I had received that I was sending to the financial institution to alert them. As I was composing it, the email just suddenly disappeared. I was running Trend Micro on that computer and I thought that was doing it. I found the quarantined email on my desktop computer the next day. I wrote Kaspersky about it and they said "If it was a phish email then that's correct behavior". Bull! Then it started eating up my MediaMonkey scripts. Three of them I had written myself - VBS scripts. I had seen this early on and so placed them in the Exclusion section. After a couple months all of a sudden they would all disappear suddenly. If I was at the PC of course the screeching noise would alert me - and cause me to pee myself at the same time!    Since they were supposed to be excluded I was baffled. Kaspersky did not reply to submittals for analysis, but a forum member told me that when new signatures are updated oftentimes they ignore the exclusions. And then I was told that the script protection module did not use the exclusions. As to why they would be safe for months and then suddenly delete them (Yes, NOT quarantine, but delete!), my best guess is the "new definitions" explanation.

I stick with NOD32 now. It also has quirks, but a lot less IMO.

Jim

Great except it won't let me shut down using FARR Nircmd?