A month of Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0
I just finished my free trial month of Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0. I tried it after I had recently wiped my hard drive and didn't feel like paying for Norton to infest my computer again.
Good:
1. Felt crisp and fast, didn't feel like it bogged down my system the way Norton does.
2. Seemed to have a lot of features.
3. It was very configurable.
4. It had a free 30 day trial
Bad:
1. The "Allow/Deny" prompt for programs accessing the network is unpredictable.
I use the setting where it asks you to approve or deny each program's attempt to access the internet. This worked great in Norton Internet Security and Windows Firewall. However, it seemed quite buggy in Kaspersky. I would have to click Allow dozens of times for example during a Java installation, even though the prompt was the same (same port, ip address, exe). Even if I picked "any activity" it would still ask again and again. I had to disable Kaspersky just to get anything installed. Other programs took 5 or 6 Allows before it finally allowed it, regardless of which confusing choice I made from the dropdown. Custom rules seemed to do nothing.
2. Sometimes on windows starting up, particularly if I'd just installed new hardware, new software, or even a Kaspersky update, the system would hang when it seemed time to load Kaspersky's icon. It would show my desktop, my icons, and the start bar, and one or two tray icons, but if I moused over the start bar or system tray it would show an hourglass. I couldn't click icons, or get to the task manager. All I could do was press my computer's power reset button and hope it worked the next reboot. In one case, after installing drivers for my TV tuner card, even a reboot wouldn't clear up the "start bar hourglass" problem, so I had to roll back using system restore. Now, this might have been some sort of Kaspersky scan (even though I disabled startup scanning), but anything that locks up my system for over ten minutes without explaining itself is a bug to me.
Money's not the issue here - I really don't mind the expense of a security subscription. But even if the next 12 months were free, I would not continue to use it. The bugs were just too much.
I've switched to using AVG Free Edition (anti-virus) and the built-in Windows Firewall. I'm also behind a firewalled router with NAT, so I feel pretty secure.
I just finished my free trial month of Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0. I tried it after I had recently wiped my hard drive and didn't feel like paying for Norton to infest my computer again.
Good:
1. Felt crisp and fast, didn't feel like it bogged down my system the way Norton does.
2. Seemed to have a lot of features.
3. It was very configurable.
4. It had a free 30 day trial
Bad:
1. The "Allow/Deny" prompt for programs accessing the network is unpredictable.
I use the setting where it asks you to approve or deny each program's attempt to access the internet. This worked great in Norton Internet Security and Windows Firewall. However, it seemed quite buggy in Kaspersky. I would have to click Allow dozens of times for example during a Java installation, even though the prompt was the same (same port, ip address, exe). Even if I picked "any activity" it would still ask again and again. I had to disable Kaspersky just to get anything installed. Other programs took 5 or 6 Allows before it finally allowed it, regardless of which confusing choice I made from the dropdown. Custom rules seemed to do nothing.
2. Sometimes on windows starting up, particularly if I'd just installed new hardware, new software, or even a Kaspersky update, the system would hang when it seemed time to load Kaspersky's icon. It would show my desktop, my icons, and the start bar, and one or two tray icons, but if I moused over the start bar or system tray it would show an hourglass. I couldn't click icons, or get to the task manager. All I could do was press my computer's power reset button and hope it worked the next reboot. In one case, after installing drivers for my TV tuner card, even a reboot wouldn't clear up the "start bar hourglass" problem, so I had to roll back using system restore. Now, this might have been some sort of Kaspersky scan (even though I disabled startup scanning), but anything that locks up my system for over ten minutes without explaining itself is a bug to me.
Money's not the issue here - I really don't mind the expense of a security subscription. But even if the next 12 months were free, I would not continue to use it. The bugs were just too much.
I've switched to using AVG Free Edition (anti-virus) and the built-in Windows Firewall. I'm also behind a firewalled router with NAT, so I feel pretty secure.
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