ESET newest versions: just say no

Couperin47

Member
SoSH Member
I have suggested ESET AV, in particular the basic NOD32 version for years here. They are now offering the newest version of their engine, 9 as a free upgrade. Don't do it:

1. The direct upgrade is failing in novel ways for so many, they have a warning on their main Support page. In most cases it looks like the upgrade goes properly, and then you get your first immediate warning that "The av/virus functions are currently non-operable", with absolutely no clue how to repair this. On the site support page it's suggested you uninstall, download the product from their site and install manually. So you use the launch menu option to uninstall, which looks like it worked, reboot and try to install from the trial version you downloaded, except you're told "Eset Nod32 is already installed on this machine". Digging into support you can find a special Eset Uninstall Utility. To run this you must boot into Safe Mode, then this utility runs in a Command Box. That finally removes the bad install of Version 9.

2. After you manually install a working version of 9, if your old version was activated using User Name and Password, you are prompted to 'convert' this to an activation key, and this new activation I believe tracks users, so the prior ability to use a license on more than one instance is probably gone.

3. Once inside a "working" version of 9, trying to use the Help, which is all online, results in all cases in a browser 404 'this page does not exist".

4. Run a custom scan and you get a log screen of results...and no way to actually DO anything to any flagged files, especially if you don't allow the program to automatically clean/delete anything it finds (you should never allow automatic actions as all AV is less than intelligent in identifying malicious/infected software perfectly).

5. In short, Nod32 version 9 (and latest versions of the enhanced products) is a mess. The good news is there is no need to upgrade, many are still running Versions 6 thru 8, all updates to the virus databases work perfectly with the earlier engines. Just do NOT try to update to Version 9 unless you want serious grief.

At this point I've reverted to version 8 which is still fine.
 
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Couperin47

Member
SoSH Member
My Norton sub is about to expire and from reading your posts I had considered switching to ESET. A word of thanks Coup for all the valuable info. you bring to SoSH. Best.

Pops
The other half of my layered solution is the Webroot SecureAnywhere product (which comes in a similarly bewildering set of offerings, the basic is fine for computers, the enhanced products cover phones and include full firewalls). It's even lighter on resources and it is still insensitive to multiple installs. When Newegg is having a sale it can be had for under $20/year. It also plays nicely with most other AV.
 

Couperin47

Member
SoSH Member
The base product provides complete protection to PCs and a minimal utility for Android phones. It's all I ever use. The upgraded products add a firewall and tons of other unnecessary stuff (the firewall in Win 7 on up is perfectly acceptable if not as fine grained as many aftermarket offerings) like a password manager (I use Lastpass which is free). I see they have renamed the products more sensibly, last year all 3 were some version of Webroot Secure Anywhere, what I use is now called the Antivirus product. Newegg used to run sales where that product was available for $15/year, have not seen a promotion recently.