nod32 Antivirus Review
Tired of overly invasive, memory hungry antiviruses? We think we’ve found the answer!
Those of you still running the bloated Norton or McAfee suites who’s licences are coming due should hold off before renewing those cumbersome programs.
I was skeptical at first, being quite happy with my pro version of Alwil’s AVAST antivirus program, but on the older systems it was being a bit of a drag on resources so I was willing to give nod32 a 30 day trial.
What a difference! It’s like it’s not even there! Lightweight, using a mere 14mb of memory out of an available 768, a non-intrusive email scanner, and no overzealous popup messages telling you what a good job it’s doing.
The user interface was at first a bit geek-ish, which would be somewhat daunting for the novice user, this is the only part of the package that caused us any concern. The deep scans were thorough and took much less time than AVAST or McAfee (McAfee was used as a comparison on a seperate system). One false positive was noted, but in 25 days that was the only one.
As our systems are kept meticulously clean, we cannot judge the heuristics other than tests from third parties. A recent review from CNet stated:
In terms of protecting your PC, we refer readers to two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, NOD32 earned an Advanced + (highest) rating, catching 98 percent of all malware tested. And NOD32 was one of only four products to earn CheckVir.com’s Advanced rating.
Our favourite thing about nod32? It doesn’t try to be everything. It’s designed to do one job, and do it well. That alone is worth the price.
Cost: $39 US
Ease of use: 7/10
Resource use: 9/10
Value for money: 8:10
Effectiveness: 9/10 (Based on third party tests)
Overall score: 8.5/10 (Excellent)
Where to get it: http://www.eset.com/download/index.php
Hint: It’s $10 less from the nod32 homepage than at CNet.