Pros

• Excellent interface
• Easy to use
• Good detection rate

Cons

• Ambiguous on how to configure automatic firewall
• Password setup is annoying with interactive firewall
• Not as many extra features as competitors

Review

After sticking with Avira Security Suite for almost a year a decided it was time for a change. ESET has released a free public beta version of their Smart Security suite and I thought I would give it a whirl. Once downloaded, installation was a breeze. The one thing I didn't get was that it made me set a password for going into setup. It makes sense since it stops random people messing around with your settings but after a while it got REALLY annoying (more on that later).

ESET has incuded quite a few features in the security suite but none of the extras which other companies have put in. For instance, Avira included a backup utility with their security suite, others include online backup. ESET includes none of these bells and whistles.

Starting up the program, the interface looked incredibly appealing and a huge leap forward from the appearance of Avira. Everything was organised and easy to understand so anyone can instantly see what's going on with their computer's security. But along with this simple interface, good for non-tech savvy people, was a hidden jungle of advanced options. Once you click advanced options you notice that there are millions of ways you can customise this program to suit your needs.

This makes the program accessible to everyone while not leaving out those who need a bit more customisation. Scheduling and setting up tasks is also another thing which is incredibly intuitive and simple to do. Since the software is also connected to the cloud, this means it will be able to be up to date and able to protect your computer against the latest threats. As well as this, the software turns out very few false positives while still maintaining a high detection rate.

One irritating thing was the firewall. Although it was set to "Automatic with User-exceptions", I couldn't find a way to add a single program to the trusted section, only certain IP ranges. One of my programs was blocked from working and the only way I could get it to work was by turning off the firewall. Eventually, I changed the firewall to "Interactive mode", which isn't as fun as you think it would be. This means I have to manually click allow or deny which is okay since that's what I did with Avira as well. The only problem with this was, once the mode was changed, I had to allow every single service that wanted to get to the internet. On top of this, by setting up a setup password, every time I clicked allow, I need to type the password in to verify it. I had to do this well over 20 times and it was getting really frustrating. Eventually, i just turned the password off. Nothing was worth that much frustration.

Conclusion

Despite a few minor flaws with the firewall configuration (I could have just missed something obvious), ESET Smart Security is an awesome piece of software with an really good amount of customisability, an excellent interface and amazing protection. They have made the software accessible to everyone and I think that should be commended. The suite is still in beta but it is fairly stable, it hasn't crashed on me yet. You can download it for free from their website and the license will last until the 23 of August. It is worth downloading, especially if you are feeling stingy and need a free security suite.

Introduction

Kaspersky has recently released its 2010 internet security suite. Yes, it is a bit early but none the less it is an excellent product it has a new interface and few new features and one of the best things is that anyone who already has a subscription to the internet suite gets the upgrade for FREE! Bad news is if you don't already have it, it will cost you about $50 per year

Pros

• Slick new interface
• Small footprint
• Lots of customisability options
• Virtual keyboard

Cons

• Causes a few network issues
• Sometimes stops working
• Deep scan option takes a lot of CPU power and slows the computer down significantly

Overview

Kaspersky's products have typically been some of the best anti virus products on the market. This new suite is no exception. It is easy to use, and will detect almost every virus on your computer if you have one. It will detect viruses with other suites won't pick up and has heaps of features.
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The product has many security options including a firewall, anti virus, anti spam, anti phishing, anti banner and parental control. It is a fully packed suite. The anti virus is very good and picked up 2 viruses on  my computer which were previously not picked up with the older version of Kaspersky. It is also constantly scanning your computer in the background checking all websites you access, instant messaging and monitors all programs you use for any form of virus, trojan, malware or spyware. There is a new virtual keyboard which allows you to enter sensitive information such as passwords with it so key loggers can't pick it up. The menu is very easy to navigate for customising every component of the suite to suit your needs. You can turn off components if you don't need them and you can change the type of scan and where the program scans for viruses. This can be overwhelming for users who are not familiar with these options but it is powerful.

Although the suite is fully featured, there are a few problems. For example the Deep scan option when scanning through my mail, it found a virus but instead of deleting the virus in the email, it deleted every single email (over 5000) in order to get rid of the virus. This is a major flaw and can only be avoided if you stop it from scanning your email and let anti-spam do its job. Another annoyance is the fact that when the scan is running, the computer will become quite slow. This can be avoided if the scan setting is put down to normal but if you want a deep scan, you can't do too much intense work. There was also a problem of the program just randomly ceasing to work. It was easy to restart but it is irritating. These problems rarely occur though. So it shouldn't phase you in your decision to buy the product too much. If the program ever does delete anything which was needed, it handily creates a backup of the file and even tries to restore a virus free version of the file.

Conclusion

Overall, this internet security suite is fully featured and very powerful. It also comparitively has a small footprint and shouldn't affect performance too much. Apart from a few minor gripes, this is a top notch product.