Business antivirus software reviews?

Anyone know of a recent head to head match up type review of business antivirus software? Our Symantec subscription recently ran out, and I'm urging my boss to run away. I really like ESET's NOD32 product, and Sunbelt Vipre looks pretty good too but if I understand correctly I'd need a update server at the branch offices whereas with NOD32's admin tool I can handle all the updates & stuff with one server. The thing is, he's only heard of Symantec and McAfee and I know to stay away from both of them.

I've got a request in to ESET for trial software, hopefully that will convince him. I do like that some of these companies are striving to make their products unnoticeable when running on the end user's PC. For us, RTVSCAN kicks in and you can forget about productivity for about 15 minutes or so.

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dynamik

AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Welcome to AV-Comparatives.org

I use ESET myself. Kaspersky is another good one.

astorrs

I still vote for Trend Micro in corporate environments.

msteinhilber

astorrs wrote: »

I still vote for Trend Micro in corporate environments.

Same here, although I haven't used anything else in as large of an environment that I'm at now (40 offices, 1500 seats). It's fairly easy to manage, and it seems to do a decent job with spyware in addition to viruses as well. We did check into pricing for ESET when we were nearing renewal, not because we weren't happy - but just because of the good things we've been hearing. We didn't go through with a trial though as the best deal we were able to negotiate with a couple resellers would have put it nearly twice as much as our Trend licensing.

Daniel333

Just throwing out sme throughts and a mix of best practices here just to get my post rate up

I'd like to know more about your envionment to make any recommendation, or even link you to good reviews. What is right for your Sharepoint server isn't going to always be right for your workstations.

You want to consider your protective suite's ability to deal with greyware/spyware/adware as these are more your problems than true viri now days. I've found Symantec to be a complete failure in this regard. Sophos, Avast and Webroot do a much better job in my experience. Windows Defender plays nicely along side all these too.

What's is the buzz word they are always throwing around? 'Defense in Depth'? Don't use the same anti virus solution on your file server, as you do your Exchange server as you do on your workstations.

That is to say, if TrendMicro's engine misses something on Exchange. It's going to miss it on the client. And it's going to miss it again when that client it infects your sharepoints. (some of you right now have felt my pain on this one and are cringing)

For the traditional virus, I really still find Symantec Endpoint to do a great job on Exchange and File servers though. Trend seems to be very friendly toward client workstations, as seems Sophos.

Anyhow, just my $.02.

RTmarc

arwes wrote: »

Anyone know of a recent head to head match up type review of business antivirus software? Our Symantec subscription recently ran out, and I'm urging my boss to run away. I really like ESET's NOD32 product, and Sunbelt Vipre looks pretty good too but if I understand correctly I'd need a update server at the branch offices whereas with NOD32's admin tool I can handle all the updates & stuff with one server. The thing is, he's only heard of Symantec and McAfee and I know to stay away from both of them.

I've got a request in to ESET for trial software, hopefully that will convince him. I do like that some of these companies are striving to make their products unnoticeable when running on the end user's PC. For us, RTVSCAN kicks in and you can forget about productivity for about 15 minutes or so.

We made the switch to NOD32 in the Corp. environment around a year ago I'd say and haven't looked back. It was well worth the switch and we've had very few issues; none major.

dynamik

astorrs wrote: »

I still vote for Trend Micro in corporate environments.

What do you like about them over others?

+1 for Daniels defense-in-depth approach.

arwes

Thanks for the replies guys! Here's a basic rundown of my environment:

1) Around 100 or so XP workstations, with a few Vista laptops
2) 2 terminal servers running Windows Server 2003
3) 2 Exchange 2003 servers (one primary, one backup using NeverFail)
4) 1 Windows Server 2003 file server
5) 1 Windows Server 2003 server strictly for MSSQL 2005
6) 1 Windows Server 2003 document imaging server (only used for data retrieval now)
7) 1 Windows Server 2008 terminal services gateway server

1 Windows XP Pro fax server
9) 10 or so Windows Mobile smart phones

That's pretty much it. Our spam filtering is handled by AppRiver and they've done an excellent job of not only stopping spam but also stopping viruses. I've been using them for two years now and the only thing I've seen get past them was the UPS tracking number spyware installer. Symantec 10.2 didn't catch it either once it got to the users (if I recall, most other AV programs didn't catch it soon either).

joey74055

arwes wrote: »

Thanks for the replies guys! Here's a basic rundown of my environment:

1) Around 100 or so XP workstations, with a few Vista laptops
2) 2 terminal servers running Windows Server 2003
3) 2 Exchange 2003 servers (one primary, one backup using NeverFail)
4) 1 Windows Server 2003 file server
5) 1 Windows Server 2003 server strictly for MSSQL 2005
6) 1 Windows Server 2003 document imaging server (only used for data retrieval now)
7) 1 Windows Server 2008 terminal services gateway server
1 Windows XP Pro fax server
9) 10 or so Windows Mobile smart phones

That's pretty much it. Our spam filtering is handled by AppRiver and they've done an excellent job of not only stopping spam but also stopping viruses. I've been using them for two years now and the only thing I've seen get past them was the UPS tracking number spyware installer. Symantec 10.2 didn't catch it either once it got to the users (if I recall, most other AV programs didn't catch it soon either).

We have a setup very similiar to yours and when we switchted to a terminal server environment we also changed from Syamntec Endpoint to CA. CA works extremely well on all of our servers, exchange and terminal servers included without any problems or blocking anything it shouldn't. I had never used CA before and was skeptical at first but now I am really glad that we went with it. You can remotely deploy the anti-virus on PC's and manage everything form a central console much like Symantec.