ESET Smart Security 5 does a pretty good job when it comes to antivirus protection; however its antispyware detection elements fall short of the standards set by higher ranked products. The internet security software also lacks some of the other helpful tools, such as parental controls, password management and browser search protection that we’ve come to expect from the best internet security suites. Still, while ESET Smart Security doesn't quite meet the high standards of the best internet security suites, it's a competent online security suite that outperforms many of its competitors.
Antispyware:
ESET Smart Security is fairly good at detecting some spyware in the form of spam and trojan horses. The spam filter contained in this internet security software is effective and integrates fully with MS Outlook. It will also look at all email coming to your system using the POP3 protocol, the most common standard used to get email from your ISP or email provider. The spam filter doesn't look at IMAP connections for email, however. That represents a fairly major shortfall in that IMAP is the other typically used personal email protocol.
The trojan protection functionality is integrated with the virus scanner. It caught all of our attempts to install or download trojan horses on our test system, but missed 3 out of 5 trojans that we already had running. ESET Smart Security also missed all of the tracking cookies we had present on our system as well as two malicious tool bars we had installed in Internet Explorer. These tasks were successfully accomplished by all of the best internet security suites that we rated more favorably.
Antivirus:
The virus scanner included in ESET Smart Security is average in its ability to detect viruses, and uses the NOD 32 antivirus software engine. It caught the large majority of viruses we used to infect our test platform but missed one of our old viruses we use for testing. Given that the virus has not been used actively since the late 90s, we weren’t terribly concerned about the miss. Everything else we threw at it was caught or checked.
Scan times were very fast at just over 20 minutes for our test machine. That is extremely fast compared with several other suites whose scans took an excess of 2 hours.
Firewall:
The firewall portion of ESET Smart Security is solid and does its job well. The base configuration will learn what you use and configure the firewall to deal with it correctly in most situations. There is an option to ask you every time a program tries to access the internet, but most people will not have to use this. We needed it for Google Desktop and Pidgin to work correctly.
If you are in need of advanced firewall rules, it can be a chore to find the correct place in the software to enter them. Once you do find the area within the advanced setup tree, creating the rules is pretty straightforward, but if you have never done it before and are new to custom rules, you may want to read up on how-to before you take a stab at it.
Other Security/Features:
This internet security software doesn't really include much besides a firewall and antivirus scanner. The spyware features are light and are integrated with the virus scanner. The anti spam features are present but are not nearly as effective as those contained in the best internet security programs. Other helpful components, such as parental controls are absent.
Ease of Use:
ESET Smart Security is an easy to use internet security suite software. The menus make sense which is particularly important in that the default configuration is less effective that we’d like to see. As such, most users will find that they need the menus to attain the desired protection levels.
The installation of ESET Smart Security was quite easy. A few mouse clicks and a quick update procedure was all it took to get the suite working. Configuration was all done upon startup, though specific areas may require more than the default configuration to get working correctly.
Help & Support:
ESET offers three ways to get support. The help file included with the program is good for basic usage but doesn't have enough information when it comes to advanced configurations. ESET also offers a rather basic online knowledgebase and email support. Tutorials, online chat and telephone support would be welcome additions.
Summary:
ESET Smart Security is average internet security software. It offers the major components of a security suite, but leaves out a lot of the extras that are included with the best internet security products. Things like parental controls and computer settings protection are not included. The antispyware features are functional but fall far short of the performance we’ve observed with protection suites that we’ve ranked more favorably.
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