ESET NOD32 Antivirus 6

**racer** · 11-05-2013

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 6 being a basic antivirus suite is still able to protect your system from any kind of recent threats. Simple interface and ready to use features makes the antivirus an ideal choice for home usage. It comes with a package that contains anti-spyware, anti-phishing, cloud scanning, removable media scanning; download scanner and HIPS (kind of firewall). ESET has strike back after a long time with different set of security packages. They are Smart Security 6, Nod32 Antivirus 6, Cyber Security Pro, Cyber Security and Family Security Pack. Only Smart Security 6 and Family Security pack has complete set of features, while NoD32 Antivirus 6 is missing features like Parental Control, Personal Firewall, anti-theft and anti-spam, which are kind of advance solution and can be neglected for personal usage. But if we talk about professional security then going for Smart Security pack is necessary. ESET has kept the interface of NOD32 Antivirus very clean. The impact of antivirus on system resources is low. For an antivirus it is important to get the right protection with low system usage. We had seen some of the most popular antivirus that is resource intensive and it affects the overall performance and slows down other application also. Compared to the older edition the new one is more trimmed. It is enhanced with additional settings. The installation process can be a bit time consuming.

Once installed the antivirus offers overall protection. It scans removable and optical drive so that auto malware manifestation can be avoided. When you connect a removable drive like a USB or external hard drive or your mobile phone, the antivirus scans it first. If there are any threats then you will get instant notification on the same. Also you can surf safely on the web. The anti-phishing feature ensures that you are visiting the right website. Compared to Eset Nod32 Antivirus some other antivirus affects the browsing speed also. The reason is that they scan the website before you open them. This makes the browser slow, while ESET NOD32 Antivirus avoids extra work. It just keeps a close watch on fake websites and warns you before you access them. This is quiet safe for banking transactions. It promises a new Anti-Phishing module which is smarter to catch fake websites and block your personal information from getting away on the web.

Features:

Protection from Virus, Worm, Trojan, Root kits and other Malware.
Scan removable /optical media to prevent auto malware infection.
Host-Based Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) to block unauthorized changes in pc.
Cloud scanning which increase the accuracy of malware detection.
AntiRootkit to locate and remove the nastiest malware.
Protection against online privacy and identity.
Blocks fake websites
Social Media Scanner to protect your FB Wall for malicious content.

You can also check complete Video Review of ESET Nod32 6 here.

Installation & Interface:
The setup is easy. The setup begins with a download of 4MB exe file from the official website. This is not the complete setup but the Live Installer for the antivirus. The complete size is around 48.9MB. The setup also asks you to participate in ThreatSense.Net which is ESET’s Live GRID Network. Once you accept the participation, whatever threat detected in your system, all information and file associated with it will be sent to Eset LAB. Security experts analyze the threat and later on the information is in the virus definition. This makes the antivirus more accurate. The choice is optional here. The setup also asks to apply settings for blocking unwanted application setup. I will recommend you to enable it. A number of times when you install any game or any application it installs more application with it, like a toolbar or some kind of add-on or plug-in. This can be the root cause of threats. So as you can see here at the initial setup itself the antivirus starts guarding your pc.

Above you can see the home screen of ESET NOD32 Antivirus 6. After installation I did not find any major changes in the cpu usage, but the ram usage increased a bit. That is acceptable as the antivirus works in the background. As you can see in the image above this antivirus looks very simple. Divided into two column layout on the left you will find all the categories while on the right you can see additional options. Let’s check out everything in detail.

Computer Scan:

SmartScan instantly checks out the most crucial part of the system. To get more detail on the file scanning just click on Open Scan in New Window and you will get a live update of file scanned or any kind of error or threat detected with location. This makes the information more transparent telling you about what actually the antivirus is doing. SmartScan works on the basis of preconfigured settings. But it is possible to customize the same. At the end you can see Computer Scan Setup. Just click on that and you will see a configuration window. In this window you can manage how smart scan can react when you click on it or what type of scan to run. There are two more options available in it. ESET NOD32 Antivirus offers hundreds of option here to completely customize the antivirus.

On the left you can see settings divided in terms of categories like Antivirus & Anti-Spyware, HIPS, Web and Email, Update, etc. The first one is the most crucial settings. Here you can manage the scanning behavior and make your antivirus performance more effective. For example, you can enable or disable, anti-stealth technology, block installation of unsafe applications, etc. Through Removable Scan you can enable or disable automatic scanning for the removable drives and also set your own rules to manage media content of these devices.

HIPS is another great feature of this antivirus. In the image above you can see the options available to customize it. The default settings are already applied but still you can make it more accurate by changing the Filtering mode. HIPS is just like a Firewall. This edition of ESET antivirus does not have a Personal Firewall. But to overcome that, ESET has added HIPS that offers firewall type of features for controlling threats through application setup.

The Web and Email protection category is more advance here. In the image above you can see the number of options available to protect your pc from threats arising from unwanted mails. Though it is not having an Anti-Spam protection but still I am sure it is not complicated to deal with different virus or infected files that arrive in emails. Separate settings are available to manage email clients. And depending on your requirement you can customize the antivirus behavior on mail work. So that makes it more flexible for those who are looking for advance solution. There are more number of advance protection available like http checking, url address management, protocol filtering (where you can exclude ip address and applications) and SSL management.

Other settings help you to manage update and UI related issues, which are basic things. You can enable and disable settings applied for Live Grid also. You can make the antivirus to perform a bit better by turning of ample of graphic settings. At the end there is an additional gamer mode available. The antivirus has different settings when you play games online or on a multiplayer server. This gamer mode is automatically applied when any application runs in full screen mode. So as you can see the antivirus has some really smart settings under Advance Setting. We will checkout more options on the home screen.

**racer** · 11-05-2013

Update: Shows you indication about the existing version of antivirus definition installed on your pc. It is just an update section to tell you whether your system is updated or not. Also offers option to manually run antivirus updates when needed.

Setup: Manage some quick settings from the setup section. You can instantly enable and disable some recent changes that you had done to your system. Though it has limited settings on the screen, you can still go inside the Advance Setup and configure it in more dept. I was expecting a few more number of options here. This is one of the most simple section to use.

Tools: This section has some additional stuff. You can see those options on the above image. Here you can schedule scan time or monitor your system activity, with a real-time scanner to keep a watch on the file system. So when your system is in idle mode through this you can find out that either any application in your pc is creating or generating files automatically. This section has some smart tools which are beneficial for normal and advance users as well. Let’s check out each of them one by one.

Log: It gives you a text record of what is going on your system. Like what is the result of last scan, any threat detected and many more things. The log files are sometime essential to locate threats or to troubleshoot the pc in terms of problem.

Scheduler: It is a kind of schedule task tool. At the above image you can see the kind of task you can manage through the antivirus. This is extremely easy to use. You can also configure a third party application to launch on startup.

Protection Statistics: Under this section you can get a glimpse of security stats which is represented in a simple visual form. This tells you the status of your last scanned. Instead of going into much detail you can just instantly find out how much safe your system is. So you can just visit this part frequently to notice the number of threat detected and controlled by the antivirus.

Quarantine: You can find all quarantined items here from where you can also unblock them. There is a manual option available to put a threat inside the Quarantine, so that the virus does not spread among other files.

Watch Activity: This is something new that I have found in this antivirus. The section just monitors the amount of data written on your hard drive. It monitors the file system. In the above graph you can see that how it checks for the file system. When you copy a data in the drive the graph goes to the highest. Now this is something smart in ESET Nod32 Antivirus 6. On idle mode a number of time suspicious applications try to overwrite system files or a number of times the threats just replicate themselves to spread in the system. You can find out through this whether your system is safer or not.

ESET SysInspector: Now this is another smart feature of this antivirus. This tool simply collects information about your system. Like the drivers, software, lan connectivity and system registry entries. This helps to locate virus or malicious applications. Depending on your system the tool takes time to gather complete information. At the end it generates a detailed log report. The report gives information on active process, lan connection, registry errors, services, drivers, critical files, etc. This is a single place from where you can get complete information on each and every thing going inside your system. There is no need to add any third party file manager software here.

**racer** · 11-05-2013

Running Process: Just another Task Manager feature but a bit more enhanced. The application offers you clean information about the current active process and threats associated with it. When you select an application at the lower side the antivirus displays important information related to the file version, location, description and size, so that if there is any suspicious application in your pc you can simply find the path from here itself.

Submit File for Analysis: Here you can send a suspicious file directly to ESET. The information collected later on will be updated to the virus definition that makes the antivirus more accurate. It is important that you submit any suspicious file which the antivirus is not able to detect as a threat.

Eset SysRescue: This is an advance option that allows you to restore your system in case of serious issue. SysRescue works with Windows Automated Installation Kit. You will need to download this for your pc first. The download size lies around 1GB. You have to then click on SysRescue and provide the location of AIK. The antivirus will create a bootable disc that will help you to scan and fix your system on boot mode. Ample of time threats are not removed or cleaned when the OS is running. But under this you can create a disc drive that can work on the root level offering you maximum protection.

Eset Social Media Scanner: This protects your facebook wall from malicious content. There is an application on Facebook which protects the FB wall. Also you can scan your system directly through the same page. The tool is extremely easy to use and effective also. Right now the option is only available for facebook. To some extent you can simply keep your wall clean through this. It does not automatically wipe out spams. But atleast it keeps your wall secure from third party threats.

Conclusion:

Eset NOD32 Antivirus 6 is fast and reliable solution for single pc. It offers a comprehensive pack of tools that can be used for advance troubleshooting also. It is a fast antivirus that detects hidden threats also and on the same hand gives real time system updates. With clean interface and simple to use options it is quiet easy to optimize and control the scanning behavior. Once installed the antivirus works lightly on the background without affecting much of the system resources. The cost of ESET NOD32 Antivirus 6 is $39.99 for one year.

Pros: