2012 Antivirus Software Reviews

ESET Smart Security 5

ESET Smart Security 5 (2012) is better than it was last year, but in overall PC and Internet security, ESET falls short.

ESET's web-filter is greatly improved, and was able to block the majority of real-time, zero-day threats.

While most major testing labs like ESET's performance, further testing revealed some unavoidable holes in ESET's security net.

The user interface has been simplified and looks very modern and professional, though some of that simplification now makes finding specific settings harder than it used to be.

The extra features aren't really anything "extra." In fact, their Parental Controls shouldn't even be considered a feature because they're so limited and often plain didn't work.

On the whole, we're glad to see some improvements in ESET Smart Security 5, but with spotty virus protection and a vulnerable firewall, ESET just isn't up to our standards this year.
ESET Smart Security 5 (2012) had average to poor results from most of the major testing labs:

• VB Bulletin
• AV Comparatives
• Anti-Malware Test Lab
• PC Security Labs
• AV-Test

For the most part we agree with these labs. While ESET has some strong points, we also saw too many negative this year.

This version stopped far more zero-day threats and blocked more dangerous sites than we saw previously. Unfortunately, some worrisome exploits slipped passed ESET and were able to install fully.

Scanning for embedded viruses was also a problem for ESET Smart Security 5. It caught most of the most dangerous stuff, but on running a full-system scan, Smart Security wasn't always able to fully clean up the infection and left behind both dangerous files and registry items.

Its firewall, a main reason to opt for Smart Security over NOD32, was also flawed. While it blocked port scans well, in a lot of instances it let threats through with no warning.

Included in Smart Security is HIPS (Host Intrusion Prevention System), an advanced feature that notifies you when threats try making unwanted changes to your system. Unfortunately, HIPS just popped up warnings and allowed these changes anyway. To make HIPS work you'll need to be a fairly advanced (and patient) user.

We appreciate the vast improvement in its real-time antivirus scanning and blocking this year, but its trouble removing viruses, poor firewall, and ineffective HIPS make ESET Smart Security 5 (2012) unreliable.
When the system is running idle, ESET Smart Security 5 was average to good on resource usage. CPU usage was normal at 1%, and memory usage was around 55%.

CPU usage when running a scan was still fairly light at 16%. Memory was average at 62% during a scan.

ESET was in the middle of the pack in full system scan times with average resource usage overall for ESET.
The user interface for ESET Smart Security 5 (2012) is appealing and simple to use. It's modern and professional with a simple, left-hand navigation so there's no confusion about where you are.

We didn't care for all the small links used to access further settings. Each section contains smaller text links that open more details, but nice big buttons would make things clearer and easier on the eyes.

The "Tools" section is handy and shows PC activity along with other helpful stats. And, there are plenty of advanced settings, though they can be difficult to find because they're often hidden in tiny or shortened links. (This is especially true for the firewall.)

Even though most people, won't need to make any firewall changes and thus won't go into that section, that part of the interface just isn't up to par.

Overall, not a bad user interface for ESET Smart Security, but once you dig into it, its usability falls short.
Technical support for ESET Smart Security 5 is minimal. ESET offers a knowledgebase, forums, email contact, and video tutorials.

While these seem like plenty compared to most competitors, the knowledgebase was limited, meaning you may need to contact them for support. The problem is, email is the only way to get direct support.

And, since there's no phone or chat support, the only other contact method is to discuss your problem publicly in the open forums.

On the plus side, all of the support seems to be free. We couldn't find any fees or premium services offered, though for some people even a fee-based option for premium support would be better than nothing.
While updates are set to download automatically, there's no option to set when or how often you want virus definitions to be updated within Smart Security 5.

There are some advanced options to have the software ask before rebooting your computer after updates, or to notify you before downloading, but there's no indication as to how often ESET will check for new updates.

While automatic updates are the norm these days, we really dislike it when software takes all these controls and information away from the user.
ESET Smart Security 5 (2012) has a minimal extra features. Their Parental Controls are worthless, but the email protection includes both antivirus and antispam and is and effective extra feature.

Email protection nicely integrates with Outlook, Thunderbird, or Windows Live Mail. It's an easy set up (just a checkmark), then you're done. In Outlook, Smart Security adds a convenient toolbar that lets you scan and identify dangerous emails.

There's also Antispam buttons that allow you to easily blacklist or whitelist any sender with a single click. Overall, well integrated and effective.
The Parental Controls for ESET are minimal and not very useful. There are only two sections: a section to block inappropriate sites, and a list of categories to block. There are no options for scheduling, social network monitoring, or reporting.

We did a simple test, and ESET failed miserably. We selected a few notorious categories to block like "Adult Materials" and "Alcohol and Tobacco" (strangely, there's no category for "drugs"). We then easily navigated to obvious adult and alcohol sites with very direct terms right in the URLs. The software blocked about 30% of the sites we tested, fully missing 7 in 10 very obvious adult sites.

As harsh as it may sound, ESET Smart Security 5's parental controls are a complete waste of time.
On the surface, we were very impressed with the clean design of Smart Security and its major testing lab performances. When we dug into it rhough, ESET had more holes than we thought.

The real-time antivirus protection was generally very good where ESET seems to've built accurate protection against zero-day threats.

We wish we could say the same for ESET's firewall and scanning. The firewall isn't the wall of steel that we'd like to see, and it's actually vulnerable to motivated hackers.

In our scanning tests, it didn't clean up all traces of viruses, spyware, and adware on our test PCs.

Technical support is limited with no options for phone or even chat for one-on-one support, so if you need help your only choices are their public forums or email.

The verdict: there are better, more complete Internet security suites.