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Computer Which, part of the UK’s – and the world’s - largest consumer organisation, has turned its attention to security software, and found that the free products available for home users match or even exceed the big-brand paid-for packages. Users have many complaints about the products on offer from the commercial vendors, including annual licenses which tie you to a notice period of up to 60 days. The products can be difficult to get rid of, and failing to uninstall any part of one vendor’s package can lead to a “deadly embrace” with the successor, which can be every bit as disabling as the “malware” they are supposed to be protecting us from. More generally, the packages can impose considerable performance overheads, and conflict with some perfectly legitimate system software, such as cluster services. They may need to be turned off when installing Windows Service Packs. No wonder some users simply turn them off out of frustration. Which?’s top scoring antivirus packages – all with ratings over 90 percent - were from Czech companies Avast! and AVG, and German vendor Avira, all of which make their products available in personal or home editions for non-commercial use, alongside fuller-featured commercial editions. Checkpoint’s ZoneAlarm, available in a freeware version for both XP and Vista, was the top firewall, with Windows Vista’s integral firewall trailing woefully. The downside is that users of the free editions may have to do more work, tracking down and installing updates themselves, where commercial version updates are installed automatically. But the report finds that users shouldn’t be too daunted by this. Quoted on the British Computer Society website, Abigail Smith, head of research at Computing Which?, commented: 'If you're reasonably confident with your computer and are happy to look for support in places like forums, then free security software is a good way to go and certainly saves a lot of money.' She said forums and the FAQs on the download sites provide enough support to meet most users’ needs. The report gives fresh impetus to the blogosphere debate about antivirus software, which ranges from conspiracy theory – the commercial vendors have a vested interest in keeping the virus threat alive – to a variant of the ongoing commercial versus open source argument. The likes of Symantec point out that they have tens of thousands of sensors and teams of staff working round the clock to anticipate and counter viruses before they become a serious problem. The open source champions (like ClamAV and the Open Antivirus project) retort that they represent worldwide communities, also working round the clock, and with no axes to grind or sales to make. Meanwhile an Auckland University researcher has asserted that in Russia, it’s possible to earn up to $US200,000 a year writing commercial malware. Quoted in Fairfax Business Media, Peter Gutmann said “the quality of the malware product has gone from poorly tested, often quite buggy programs, to highly sophisticated, professionally written applications that rival any mainstream commercial software.” Such malware can perform operations such as transferring funds out of bank accounts in a way that’s indistinguishable from a genuine user-initiated operation. Gutmann was also quoted as saying that a recent AusCERT survey found that popular anti-virus programs had an 80% miss rate. Which perhaps adds weight to the Which? finding – if they’re not going to do the job, you might as well download them for nothing. Nick Langley Sep 5, 2007 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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