Emsisoft vs. NOD32

Hey .

I'm currently testing the AV/AM-scanner from Emsisoft, must say, that it imo is really good. People said, it has too many false positives, but AV-comparatives also showed in one of their diagrams, that Emsisoft only takes half as much resources as i. e. NOD32. I've also had no real problems with the program, yes, there are false positives, but when Emisoft asks if the Firefox update-manager shall be allowed or not, right after one cliked to upgrade Firefox, users should imo be able to count 2 + 2.

Many of you favour NOD32, my question is why? Emsisoft performs much better, costs less, has an awesome community where users really get helped very much...I want to decide on which AV-scanner to use, after I (again) cleanly install Win10, that's why I'm asking for your opinions / experiences.

Tia .

 

When Emsisoft asks if FF update manager should be allowed that's not a false positive, it's just a user prompt. False positive would be, if it claimed that FF updater is Win32.Monster.Unknown.Trojan or something like that. On that note Emsisoft is not known for many false positives at all.

That said Emsisoft does not perform "much better" than NOD32 as you claim. Using AV-Comparatives real-world protection test as a benchmark - if you average 7 tests done so far in 2015 it looks like this Emsisoft vs NOD : 98,66% vs 98,63%.

On the other hand NOD32 wins in anti-phishing test 90% vs 71% by Emsisoft and in Heurustics test NOD32 scores 85.6% while Emsisoft scores 53.1% (although another 45.6% are user dependent - which I don't consider passed as I can't know if something is a virus or not - it's a job of AV software not mine).

If you are happy with Emsisoft, there's no reason to change it though. It does not seem to be bad if you crunch up the numbers.

 

EAM is light, not by much though when compared to NOD32. NOD32's HTTP /SSL scanning is still better and their community is much friendlier.

EAM in my experience is a very buggy product, read on their forums you'll find many users complaining about this problem where the Windows Security Center reports there is no AV even though EAM is live and active. They've had this issue for years now but their poor programming team cannot fix it permanently.

Furthermore, Emsisoft Anti-Malware wants to act like the police. I reported a false positive to them which are a few DLL files that I have backed up, these DLL files are activation files for Adobe CS 6 Suite's programs, each program has one DLL file. I contacted them telling them these are not harmful it's just that I don't want to call Adobe everytime I want to activate since I format a lot so I backed up the DLL activation files but nope, they accused me of stealing Adobe's software and when I escalated the concern to their management, their director responded to me that I am not welcome to purchase their software anymore and they don't want my business. I was shocked to see this.

An Anti-Virus is supposed to protect my system, not act like the software police, they have no business in how I use my system.

But hey, this is my experience, use whatever solution makes you happy and protects your system.

PS: The horrible FPs may not only come from EAM's virus scanning engine itself but mostly come from their behavioral detection engine which is very very aggressive IMO. Which is what you faced when trying to run the Firefox update.

to me, if an AV comes in my way a lot, it becomes more of a nuisance to use than a convenience.

 

@downloads

I was just trying to install Shark007 Codecs and NOD32 removed the PUPs bundled I didn't even get the option to install them or not It only installed the codecs! Pure class protection

 

I unfortunately cannot link the image in the most recent test, but only give the url:

http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/avc_per_201505_en.pdf

Look at the one picture that says "system impact score" . Emsisoft, fastest AV, ESET 3.5 times slower.

You can also look at the comparisons for file-archiving, copying etc.. In that chart, I find "installing / uninstalling apps" the most important part, beause that's where an AV should work good and fast. ESET rating 2, Emsisoft rating twice as good with a 4.

And I don't want to stick with Emsisoft, just because I currently have it, I still run the 30d trial, will re-install my system in a week or so, and I can test ESET, but I only want to test that, if ESET has at least a chance at competing. Anti Fishing is interesting, but I actually cannot remember, when I became a victim of fishing.

The Emsisoft story about Emsisoft working against privacy concerns as a software-police and the answer from the manager, are a tough hit though. I'm not quite sure, but I read, that Emsisoft overhauled their complete program end of last year or beginning of this year. That program imo has to be judged completely new, because it's said to be "really well" , "perform very fast" and having a good detection rate while having better Anti-Malware abilities than any other scanner.

 

Bro, I've used both, there is literally 0 difference, maybe it's because my system is fast so I don't notice it but on any modern system these days, unless you were installing a resource hog like McAfee kind of AV, they're all light.

Picture this, what good is an AV if it's a few points faster in those performance tests if it slows down your workflow by reporting FPs that you will have to spend time whitelisting??

Want more?

When EAM detected those 16 FPs, after the scan was done, there was no option to whitelist them all or add them all to the ignore list, nope, you have to do it one by one!! So I suggested to them to make the GUI like MBAM Pro where if you deselect all the detections and hit next, it would prompt you to whitelist all the found detections in one go but nope! I got banned instead from purchasing their software! LOL seems like they are too right they don't need my business since they consider me an Adobe Software thief.

I don't know about you, but these kind of ethics and nuisances in adding items to the whitelist will slow me down more than whatever performance hit another AV may or may not have.

just my 2 cents worth, take it or leave it.

PS: If you install the NOD32 trial and later decide you don't like it, if you do uninstall it, it leaves literally no traces on your system, their uninstaller is great unlike other AVs where you have to run a cleanup tool after you uninstall them.

 

That is the advice, I hoped / searched for. I don't mind, if I have to whitelist 10 files in single, but the stories about how they treat their customers are just [out of words] . You always acted friendly and I'm sure you know enough and that the story is true, like that, I cannot pay them for software, I couldn't let them treat someone bad, and then still talk or do anything with them.

I'll try out NOD32 once I've re-installed Win 10, for a cleaner install, like my last clean install from 1 month ago was .

Really thx mate .

 

I was trying to install a program called InnoExtractor today and NOD32 caught a malicious attempt