Just wanted to post a 'thank you' to ESET for this product, which I chose, afer much research, as much for what it does as for what it doesn't do.
What it does - it gets high marks with the independent testing labs. Not the absolute highest this year, but high enough that I suspect the differences are small. It stealths ports, finds and kills viruses and malware, and generally does a good job of what an antivirus is supposed to do. I ran previous versions of NOD32 on a couple of my computers for nearly a decade without a single infection. In fact, I remember installing it on a computer the first time, and it found and cleaned a massive mess, with technical support from ESET.
But what it doesn't do is becoming a major differentiating factor. And what it doesn't do is intrude on your privacy.
First, I'm able to buy it at my local bricks an mortar store. So I don't have to provide my credit card and all my personal billing info to yet another online company to sit in their database waiting to be hacked. Second, the registration/activation process is not too intrusive - they don't make it so you have to provide complete details of yourself - again, respecting your privacy. And finally, it still uses a downloaded virus signature database, not cloud-based scanning. Yes, I know the explanation of why cloud-based scanning isn't actually intrusive - but I still prefer it this way. Seems ridiculous - you spend money to ensure your security and prvacy, then share your most itntimate billing info and tell them every url you visit, every file you hold. But not ESET.
So - thank you, ESET, for being effective and reasonable.
