"ESET seems to have upped the ante considerably here. While NOD32 has always been a cutting-edge product in technical terms, usability has seemed very much an afterthought in previous versions, at least as far as general users were concerned. In a sudden leap, this new product has shaken off the complexity and actually taken something of a lead in terms of ease of use. The default settings put in place in a few easy steps during the installation seem ideal for general purpose use, information and alerting is clear and helpful without ever seeming intrusive or scare-mongering, and detailed configuration is about as straightforward and painless as such things can be. With the user experience reduced to an installation process, and possibly the occasional alert as another attack is spotted and blocked effortlessly, the unobtrusiveness is further enhanced by the product’s legendary lightning speed, miraculously unimpeded by the additional protection, keeping overheads to a level barely noticeable on modern high-powered systems. Lacking full behavioural monitoring may help minimize the slowdown, but with the level of in-depth analysis and emulation going on during scanning the performance is most impressive. As vendors release their latest 2008 product ranges, the addition of new supplementary modules seems to be all the rage, most suites now sprawling with diverse functionality, often at the expense of user-friendliness and occasionally posing dangers of their own. ESET has resisted the temptation to sprinkle in too many extras, focusing instead on the core requirements of a security system. Covering all the essential bases with a smoothly integrated set of protective barriers, the combination of top-of-the-range detection, response time, heuristics and throughput with excellent presentation and design will make Smart Security pretty hard to beat." |