Land of NOD

16:58.52 - Saturday 17th April 2004   (Link to This Entry)

I've been evaluating the NOD32 Antivirus system from www.nod2.com over the past week as I'm slowly but surely getting more and more frustrated with Norton's bloat and loading times. NOD32 seems to be held in high regard despite being completely unheard of amongst consumers.

Being somewhat paranoid about 'em, I didn't completely shut off Norton and ran the two side by side instead. Interestingly it appears to be NOD32 that finds the virus-infected email attachments before Norton does, and I suspect it's because NODs hooks into the whole POP3/SMTP system earlier than Norton does.

NOD's front-end presentation has come on in leaps and bounds over the last year. When I first tested it, the windows were very tacky and amateurish. This bare minimum presentation might hide a powerhouse of virus protection, but it doesn't instill confidence in the product - presentation can mean a lot. Happily, everything has been overhauled and the product is much more polished and tightly integrated.

And it works: Not only does NOD scan through the files in double-quick time, but it catches the Email viruses as well, with a huge, impossible-to-miss window if it finds one. Yes, you can hide it, but I find it's nice to know the system is working, especially in the early days.

Updates come thick and fast as well. Again, I have the notification switched on so that I can see this happening, but even I was suprised to see updated 719, 720 and 721 all in the same day. This suggests that the updates are released just as soon as possible, rather than once a day which seems to be the deal with Norton, and as such, it's a Good Thing.

Overall I am very impressed with NOD32. I'm 90% sure that, once the subscription on my Norton Antivirus expires, I'll be investing in Eset instead. The trial version gives 30 days of unlimited use - go get it and run it alongside your current AV program.