ESET's Smart Security - Detection and Elimination

very good
key review info
application features
  • ESET NOD32 Antivirus + Antispyware
  • (2 more, see all...)

I am sure that you all have witnessed at one point or another the long, painstaking scan activity of different antivirus programs. Well, you can forget about losing time with ESET Smart Security. The application is lightning fast when it comes to checking your computer for malware and will bring the much desired leverage to your system.

Although there are only two types of scans available they are all you need for keeping your system sane and running. The efficiency of NOD32 engine and the benefits of ThreatSense suffice for eliminating the great majority of malware in the system and preventing the addition of new malicious items.

Unfortunately there are some mischiefs when performing this activity. Despite the fact that the engine moves quite fast (assembly language has great influence over this) there is no time estimation for completing the event. I know that most of the times this is not reliable, but it would be nice to have a minimum of time estimated for finishing the job, though.

The resources used by the application during the scan process have little impact on the system and will not bring the system to a stop (assembly language again does a great job). Everything is functional and speed in malware detection is preserved. Here's a little secret: move scan tasks in the background if you want other applications to have priority over it. This action will automatically lower the priority of ESET's scan engine and give other processes the opportunity of running unhindered.

If a standard scan supports absolutely no configuration from the part of the user as it runs with the default settings searching all local disks and automatically removing them, things are different in the case of Custom Scan, as they normally should. You get to define the parameters for Threatsense, such as objects to be scanned (operating memory, boot sectors, files, emails, archives, self extracting files and runtime packers).

More than this, you can select between Signatures, Heuristics, Advanced Heuristics, Adware/Spyware/Riskware, Potentially unsafe/unwanted applications as the methods to be used during scan process. Enabling all of them provides high malware detection on the system. For even faster scans users can sort out some file extensions so that they are not processed.

A downside of scanning process are the options available when prompted about a detected malware. If you give up warning window containing "Delete" option the application loses power as it will not eliminate malware unless specified by the user. So, if you want good cleaning of a folder you will have to enable warning window and press delete for all prompted elements. If you let ESS do the job without any alerts elimination ratio will drop significantly (during our testing it dropped by 19.5%).

However, putting aside all the speed and all the ease of use of an antivirus, in the end it is all reduced to the detection/elimination ratio. At this chapter ESET's NOD32 engine did a pretty good job. Facing it with our toughest virus database the application recorded a 52.8% score in detection and elimination. Out of 93 malware samples it successfully eliminated 56 of them.

Leaving the application to do all the cleaning the score recorded a serious drop in performance. Out of the 93 samples used only 35 were eliminated. But it did detect all 56 of them, just like in the previous scan. Detection and elimination ratio in this case is of 32.55% according to our testing and I have to say that it is a mighty good one.

Though the numbers may seem quite low, these are among the best results from all antivirus testing we've done so far. The sample database comprises both new and old threats and given the speed and accuracy, ESET Smart Security did a great job not only because of NOD32 engine but because of ThreatSense's heuristics, too.

However, there are the little details that don't quite meet the expectations of the software. I could not find a way to view the items that have not been cleaned by the program and quarantine section stores only eliminated files, in case you want to restore one of them to its original location.

The Good

Antivirus/Anti-spyware part of the application is extremely easy to use and configure. ThreatSense highly contributes to the overall protection of the system.

Scanning is comprehensive and searches every nook and cranny of the computer (save password protected files and files currently used by Windows).

Speed and low resource footprint as well as ability of performing multiple scans at a time are advantages not many protection suites can brag with (a full system drive scan finished under 15 minutes).

The Bad

Leaving all the cleaning to the application will cause a drop in its efficiency. I could not find a way to view non-eliminated files that have been detected by the application (quarantine stores deleted elements and log file shows cleaned items).

The Truth

ESET Smart Security imposes very good security measures to your system by offering accurate scanning and proactive protection.

ThreatSense does a great job at pinning malicious items at the door of your computer. We tried to download some malicious items from the Internet and in the majority of the cases the action could not be carried out due to ESET's ThreatSense technology.

Standard mode Advanced mode Firewall and anti-spam

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image

user interface 4
features 4
ease of use 5
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good