DocGreen
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 44
- Location
- South Bend, IN
I love ESET... If I were going to pay for an AV or recommend a paid AV, it would be ESET. Unless, of course, I was a reseller for a different product.
That being said, I'm using Avast on everything I use personally (including my phone). It's stupid easy to use, like someone else mentioned it is a perfect "set it and forget it" tool. I also find the "Avast virus definitions have been updated" sound & pop-up to be very comforting, LOL. It is a little annoying in the setup to deal with the repeated nags to buy the paid version, but as far as customers are concerned, they never see that. I've also never had Avast fail me, and I've gone to some pretty questionable websites and intentionally gone to some that both Chrome and OpenDNS told me not to visit... Avast blocked everything every time.
My only machine that doesn't have Avast is my server. That box is running MSE. Stonecat mentioned that MSE does not run on Windows Server, however that's not accurate. It does, in fact, run perfectly well on Windows Server 2k8 (I can't say for 2k3). I think the distinction is that it is not supported on Windows Server. But... supported or not, if you're looking at a server without an AV, and a client who doesn't want to pay for a server AV... MSE will install and function just fine, and as someone said, that's better than no AV at all.
Now, as for customer machines... I'm a little torn between Avast and MSE.
MSE is the ultimate "set it and forget it" AV as Stonecat has pointed out, not requiring a yearly renewal. It's also got the benefit of being "Microsoft" and for Joe Customer who doesn't know squat about computers, he might find comfort in the familiar brand.
But it's not as effective as Avast. If Avast didn't require the yearly renewal I probably wouldn't even consider MSE. What I love about Avast is the ability to customize the installation. That's come in handy for one particular customer who's situation I'll describe in a sec. For the average customer, I'm pretty comfortable recommending Avast, and if they don't have an AV (or have an ineffective AV) that is what I install for them. If the customer was a complete idiot though, I'd probably give 'em MSE just for the idiot-proof-ness.
There is one problem that I've run across with Avast, and this would apply to both free and paid versions. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this, so if so please chime in!
I have a business client, a Buy-Here Pay-Here car lot... they run a simple workgroup network of store-bought computers and a Linksys router. [I'd upgrade them, but they don't want to spend the money]. They run a couple different industry-specific applications to manage their business along with Quickbooks for the accounting. Their applications all use some form of database, and all of the databases (including QB company file) are located on computer A, with computers B & C configured to access the files stored on computer A. Everything ran just fine for them until I installed Avast on all their computers (they were previously unprotected.) After that, everything worked, but their apps were incredibly slow to load the databases. It took me a while to pinpoint the cause, but it turned out that Avast's "Behavior Shield" was the culprit. Once I disabled the behavior shield, everything worked perfectly. Ever since then, when I install Avast for business clients who use databases I always customize the install and choose to NOT install the behavior shield.
(I feel like I rambled on that... sorry guys, lol)
That being said, I'm using Avast on everything I use personally (including my phone). It's stupid easy to use, like someone else mentioned it is a perfect "set it and forget it" tool. I also find the "Avast virus definitions have been updated" sound & pop-up to be very comforting, LOL. It is a little annoying in the setup to deal with the repeated nags to buy the paid version, but as far as customers are concerned, they never see that. I've also never had Avast fail me, and I've gone to some pretty questionable websites and intentionally gone to some that both Chrome and OpenDNS told me not to visit... Avast blocked everything every time.
My only machine that doesn't have Avast is my server. That box is running MSE. Stonecat mentioned that MSE does not run on Windows Server, however that's not accurate. It does, in fact, run perfectly well on Windows Server 2k8 (I can't say for 2k3). I think the distinction is that it is not supported on Windows Server. But... supported or not, if you're looking at a server without an AV, and a client who doesn't want to pay for a server AV... MSE will install and function just fine, and as someone said, that's better than no AV at all.
Now, as for customer machines... I'm a little torn between Avast and MSE.
MSE is the ultimate "set it and forget it" AV as Stonecat has pointed out, not requiring a yearly renewal. It's also got the benefit of being "Microsoft" and for Joe Customer who doesn't know squat about computers, he might find comfort in the familiar brand.
But it's not as effective as Avast. If Avast didn't require the yearly renewal I probably wouldn't even consider MSE. What I love about Avast is the ability to customize the installation. That's come in handy for one particular customer who's situation I'll describe in a sec. For the average customer, I'm pretty comfortable recommending Avast, and if they don't have an AV (or have an ineffective AV) that is what I install for them. If the customer was a complete idiot though, I'd probably give 'em MSE just for the idiot-proof-ness.
There is one problem that I've run across with Avast, and this would apply to both free and paid versions. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this, so if so please chime in!
I have a business client, a Buy-Here Pay-Here car lot... they run a simple workgroup network of store-bought computers and a Linksys router. [I'd upgrade them, but they don't want to spend the money]. They run a couple different industry-specific applications to manage their business along with Quickbooks for the accounting. Their applications all use some form of database, and all of the databases (including QB company file) are located on computer A, with computers B & C configured to access the files stored on computer A. Everything ran just fine for them until I installed Avast on all their computers (they were previously unprotected.) After that, everything worked, but their apps were incredibly slow to load the databases. It took me a while to pinpoint the cause, but it turned out that Avast's "Behavior Shield" was the culprit. Once I disabled the behavior shield, everything worked perfectly. Ever since then, when I install Avast for business clients who use databases I always customize the install and choose to NOT install the behavior shield.
(I feel like I rambled on that... sorry guys, lol)
