ESet NOD32 AntiVirus Review
Home > Antivirus Reviews	January 17, 2007 9:48 PM

Product: NOD32 Price: $39.00 Vendor: Eset Editor Rating: 3 stars Download ESet NOD32

Pros

+ Excellent antivirus protection

Cons

- Requires expert-level computer skills to use properly
- Confusing and difficult user interface
- Missing common features found in other products

ESet NOD32 Antivirus Review

Eset's NOD32 A/V product is well-known for being one of the most industrial strength A/V products on the market, so we were eager to try it out. While independent testing has proved the product's effectiveness, we were surprised by just how difficult this program is to use.

Installation

Installation of Nod32 was fast and easy, taking just a few minutes to complete. We had no problems setting it up.

Effectiveness

Nod32 has recently been certified by three independent testing labs (ICSA, VB100%, and Checkpoint). These tests certify that a particular A/V product successfully detects and disinfects all known viruses without generating false positives. Nod32 has one of the longest unbroken history of successful certification tests, indicating a long track record of staying up-to-date. Users of this product should feel very confident that they are receiving excellent protection against viruses and trojans.

(Editor's Note: AntiVirus tests should be performed by specialized testing labs to ensure that dangerous viruses are not released onto the internet.)

Ease of Use

The downfall of this product is the complex user interface. While other products strive to run in the background with as little user-intervention as possible, Nod32 seems to be intentionally designed to be as difficult to use as possible. The functions and setup options are scattered about on dozens of different screens. For instance, the scheduler is buried deep within the control center and is difficult to find and configure. The interface is also littered with technical terminology that most people won't understand.

In short, Nod32 is designed with more advanced users in mind - the average home user will spend a lot of time learning the intricacies of this program.

Here is an overview of the different scans available:

AMON - monitors file system activity in the background
DMON - scans Microsoft Office documents for harmful viruses and macros
IMON - monitors internet activity, including HTTP, FTP, and email traffic
EMON - a special scanner designed specifically for Microsoft Outlook
NOD32 - the "on demand" scanner

The confusion in NOD32 starts with its cryptic "control center".

Each of these modules are configured using setup screens which require a fair amount of technical "know-how" to use properly.

To use NOD32 effectively, you need to get comfortable with setup screens like this one shown here.

Updates
Nod32 checks for updates frequently, at least once a day, leaving a very small window for a virus to infect your machine. You can also manually update your program at any time if you wish.

Other Features

The product has a number of other features which are accessible through the control center, including separate modules for scanning Microsoft office documents, Email, internet web pages and port traffic. As with the main scan functionality, these features are difficult to find and not all of them are enabled by default.

Nod32 is missing features which are common in other products, such as the ability to create rescue disks.

Customer Support

Eset provides an average amount of customer support, including email support and a user forum. Telephone support is only available for volume customers.

Summary

Although NOD32 provides an outstanding level of protection against viruses, it's very difficult to use and doesn't offer features which are standard in most products. We gave it 3 stars based solely on effectiveness, but we can't recommend it due to the difficulty the average home user would have using it.

Download Eset NOD32