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:
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:
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:
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:
Ease of Use:
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:
Summary: