Yes – that’s the headline of an article I read today on Secure Computing Magazine. Like any product, they all go through their highs and lows, but I think it’s an interesting question to ask in such an open forum about ANY Antivirus product. Typical responses from people will range from the “!#$% no – it’s a piece of %^&*” though to “I love it, it’s saved my marriage, helped cure cancer and world hunger”. I’ve seen all out brawls in some of the online communities as people talk about Trend vs Symnatec vs NOD vs McAfee – often degenerating into verbal abuse rather than the technical features of the product itself. This is sad to say the least, but it happens.
Regardless of the AV product you run, each of us have our own knowledge of the in’s and out’s of it and if we have enough experience can also tune it beyond what the typical vendors support team can do. What’s your favourite AV package and more importantly why?
Believe it or not, Microsoft Forefront.
Once you get beyond the “needs a SQL backend” – the reporting is phenomenal, granular, and can be automated.
I’ve fould few viruses that get past it – in that it doesn’t clean them. So far, none it didn’t detect.
Performance during a scan does take a hit (as with any scanner – it’s cranking on the disk to see all files)
McAfee TPS Advanced: requires no server-side software to be installed or managed, just install the agent on PCs (and the same agent on servers). I like this because it’s easier to configure, less impact on the servers, and less that can break.
Management console in the cloud, and a partner portal that shows the exact same configuration options for all of our clients on one console.
Plus their MX based spam filtering is decent, and integrated in the same console. I tried Trend’s MX based offering but it was *very* limited in configuration and reporting options. For what it’s worth, Symantec’s MX based anti-spam is still the best I’ve seen. But I haven’t tried ExchangeDefender yet, which I imagine to be the pick of the bunch in this area.