Future changes to ESET NOD32 Antivirus, ESET Internet Security, ESET Smart Security Premium and ESET Ultimate Security

[yeoldfart 152]

i had to enable TPM to use W11n my AMD mobo is already 5 years old (X470 gaming pro)

[itman 1,746]

1 minute ago, yeoldfart said:

i had to enable TPM

Again N/A if you don't have a TPM module installed on the motherboard.

I ordered a TPM 2.0 module a while back for my Gigabyte motherboard. Shipment arrival from China has been delayed twice already. Good luck on finding a 20 pin TPM module that is compatible with older motherboards.

[New_Style_xd 69]

Description : Eset - Manage and schedule tasks.
Detail: What's the real reason to still have this option: Automatically update after dial-up connection has been established?

Since No one in the middle of 2021 has a dial-up telephone connection. 

[yeoldfart 152]

I am perfectly aware of this, nevertheless my 5 years old AMD mobo had it from the beginning, Eset might seize this opportunity (W11 requirements) to inform its customers and, why not, supply them with a short explanatory notice, the side benefit would be a even better protection with Eset line of products (just IMO)

[peteyt 396]

On 8/31/2021 at 5:47 PM, SlashRose said:

Rather from a third party provider, they are usually better.

I'm also split with this. Sometimes using a third party thing with an AV can have benefits e.g. less development time and probably better cost wise as someone else has developed.

However it means your also relying on another company. If for example Eset used another companies VPN, even if a customised version, and something wrong happened e.g. big security breach, it could damage both companies.

At least with the AV company developing it they will have full control.

[New_Style_xd 69]

1 hour ago, peteyt said:

I'm also split with this. Sometimes using a third party thing with an AV can have benefits e.g. less development time and probably better cost wise as someone else has developed.

However it means your also relying on another company. If for example Eset used another companies VPN, even if a customised version, and something wrong happened e.g. big security breach, it could damage both companies.

At least with the AV company developing it they will have full control.

I agree there are several smaller companies and with AV not as recognized as ESET already has its own VPN, ESET urgently needs to evolve in the market. especially with the world working remotely we need VPN... URGENT

[peteyt 396]

4 hours ago, New_Style_xd said:

I agree there are several smaller companies and with AV not as recognized as ESET already has its own VPN, ESET urgently needs to evolve in the market. especially with the world working remotely we need VPN... URGENT

Again as I've said while this could be an okay move there are plenty of VPNs out there compatible with Eset. A lot of people prefer their AV to only work as an AV

[SlashRose 25]

17 hours ago, New_Style_xd said:

Ich stimme zu, dass es mehrere kleinere Unternehmen gibt und da AV nicht so anerkannt ist, wie ESET bereits ein eigenes VPN hat, muss sich ESET dringend auf dem Markt weiterentwickeln. Vor allem mit der Welt, die aus der Ferne arbeitet, brauchen wir VPN ... DRINGEND

Then take a look at nvpn.net, in my personal opinion and experience this is the best VPN provider because there is and, above all, really has a policy above, is the fastest provider and above all has port forwording!

[Timur Born 12]

Description : Multi-threading/core for on-demand scans.

Detail: ESET only uses a single CPU thread/core for on-demand scans, not utilizing my M.2 SSD even close to the limit. As a consequence on-demand scans take a *lot* longer than competing products that make use of multi-threading (up to 24 logical cores on my system).

[Timur Born 12]

Description : Keep scan cache persistent over reboots.

Detail: After a reboot ESET re-reads most files again despite them not having changed and the drive not having been accessed in-between, even when the last scan/rehash was just minutes ago before the reboot. Some exceptions seem to apply to exe files only (as long as they are not in a category of potential risky/unwanted files regardless of settings).

This causes ESET to daily re-read thousands of files on my system, which is unnecessary on an immobile desktop system with internal drive and one of the main reasons why I am looking for alternatives to Defender. Competitors manage to keep their cache persistent over reboots, some even after a nights' rest, as a consequence ESET causes more daily repeating CPU and disk load on unchanged files.

[Timur Born 12]

Description : Make all windows resizable.

Detail: ESET is one of the few antivirus solutions that offer resizable windows for their UI and even meaningful columns/information in some list views (like firewall rules list). Unfortunately some windows only allow to be either fixed or maximized, but don't allow being resized via borders. Even worse, some windows' fixed size is just a little bit too small, so that scrolling is necessary for just 1-2 lines of content and then the tabs at the top are scrolled away (e.g. specific firewall rules window). Default sizes should fit the content (respecting Windows scaling) and all windows should be resizable if content doesn't fit.

[Marcos 5,259]

40 minutes ago, Timur Born said:

Description : Multi-threading/core for on-demand scans.

Detail: ESET only uses a single CPU thread/core for on-demand scans, not utilizing my M.2 SSD even close to the limit. As a consequence on-demand scans take a *lot* longer than competing products that make use of multi-threading (up to 24 logical cores on my system).

On-demand scanner can scan only 1 file at a time. Especially with standard hard disks scanning more files at a time would cause the heads move back and forth, causing performance issues and longer overall scan time.

[Marcos 5,259]

35 minutes ago, Timur Born said:

Description : Keep scan cache persistent over reboots.

Detail: After a reboot ESET re-reads most files again despite them not having changed and the drive not having been accessed in-between, even when the last scan/rehash was just minutes ago before the reboot. Some exceptions seem to apply to exe files only (as long as they are not in a category of potential risky/unwanted files regardless of settings).

This causes ESET to daily re-read thousands of files on my system, which is unnecessary on an immobile desktop system with internal drive and one of the main reasons why I am looking for alternatives to Defender. Competitors manage to keep their cache persistent over reboots, some even after a nights' rest, as a consequence ESET causes more daily repeating CPU and disk load on unchanged files.

Whitelisted files are not re-scanned and persistent cache is used. Other files are re-scanned after each module update for security reasons, otherwise malware would slip undetected and would be allowed to run.

[Marcos 5,259]

33 minutes ago, Timur Born said:

Description : Make all windows resizable.

Detail: ESET is one of the few antivirus solutions that offer resizable windows for their UI and even meaningful columns/information in some list views (like firewall rules list). Unfortunately some windows only allow to be either fixed or maximized, but don't allow being resized via borders. Even worse, some windows' fixed size is just a little bit too small, so that scrolling is necessary for just 1-2 lines of content and then the tabs at the top are scrolled away (e.g. specific firewall rules window). Default sizes should fit the content (respecting Windows scaling) and all windows should be resizable if content doesn't fit.

You can provide a list of unresizeable windows and we'll see if they can be made resizeable.

[Timur Born 12]

41 minutes ago, Marcos said:

On-demand scanner can scan only 1 file at a time. Especially with standard hard disks scanning more files at a time would cause the heads move back and forth, causing performance issues and longer overall scan time.

I understand the spinning platter situation, but modern systems don't use HDDs for system drives anymore. And even then, scanning network shares on my HDD based NAS is faster when done by multi-threaded AV products.

All of my own and my customers' computers use SSDs for years already. Defender peaks at over 2500 mb/s during on-demand scans running 24 threads/files in parallel, meanwhile ESET is chugging along one file at a time. This should be brought up to more modern standards rather sooner than later.

Furthermore large compressed archive files should be handled by multiple threads, too, especially for the uncompression part of the operation.

Edited October 9, 2021 by Timur Born

[Timur Born 12]

41 minutes ago, Marcos said:

Whitelisted files are not re-scanned and persistent cache is used. Other files are re-scanned after each module update for security reasons, otherwise malware would slip undetected and would be allowed to run.

What is meant by "whitelisted" files in this context? I noticed that out of the 456 .exe files contained in the WSSC GUI (Nirsoft, Sysinternals) only those 5 are re-read after reboot that qualify as "potentially unsafe applications" (regardless of the respective settings and exceptions). All none exe files on my system seem to be re-read by ESET after each reboot, regardless of module updates.

This includes all TTF (font) files, but also things like loading thousands of Lua addons files, hundreds of Toc files, dozends og TGA and font files when World of Warcraft is started for the first time after a reboot, plus NVidia and Battle.net client cache files.

I assume that most of these files are only re-hashed instead of rescanned (analyzed)? But it's still re-reading of files that were already scanned when the PC was last turned on (or just before reboot a few minutes ago).

[Timur Born 12]

1 hour ago, Marcos said:

You can provide a list of unresizeable windows and we'll see if they can be made resizeable.

I just went through all windows again and curiously all windows that feature a "maximize" button are resizable today, even when it is quite difficult to hit their narrow 1 px border. When I tried this yesterday some (but not all) windows would not let me mouseover/hit their border in order to resize them, try as I might from all directions. So I change my suggestion to either increase the border size or offer a resize handle in the lower-right corner (and keep an eye on this one).

There are some windows that are not resizable, though, and don't fit their content (115% scaling here). This is most problematic in windows featuring tabs at their top, like the Firewall rule window.

Other windows not fitting their content:

Network Attack Protection -> IDS Rules -> Add/Edit (only half a row missing)

Web and Email -> Excluded Applications -> Add/Edit (only fits 5 rows of a scrollable list)

[Timur Born 12]

Description : Improve ESET update server capacities.
Detail: Last week some connections to (some?) ESET update servers were abysmally slow, as in downloading at 0.01-0.1 mb/s while my internet line offers close to 13 mb/s. As a consequence download single update files took a *very* long time.

According to e-mail support some major ESET module update caused high spikes, so the server/connectivity infrastructure should be improved to handle these spikes much better.

[Timur Born 12]

Description : Default "Preserver last access timestamp" to enabled/on.

Detail: There is little to no use in having last access timestamps of files be set to the last antivirus scan time, it provides us with no useful information while increasing disk utilization during scans. Furthermore having ESET overwrite last access times even removes useful information on when a file (like a document) was last accessed for real work.

I appreciate that ESET offers an option to not overwrite last access times of scanned files, but this option should default to On, while currently it defaults to Off.

What I don't know is: does enabling this option decrease disk utilization by System not having to write the timestamps to begin with, or does it even increase utilization by having to write the timestamps twice (first ESET scan and then restore to original)?

[Timur Born 12]

I will check back in 2 years to see how ESET developed, while using another solution in the meantime.

[New_Style_xd 69]

1 hour ago, Timur Born said:

Vou verificar de volta em 2 anos para ver como a ESET se desenvolveu, enquanto usava outra solução nesse meio tempo.

My friend, not much has changed, the interface is the same, there is no dark mode, several user comments requesting changes in the appearance of the antivirus, but so far nothing was attended to. when you check back here and comment what you think. I haven't found anything so far. it's like ten from version 9

[Marcos 5,259]

34 minutes ago, New_Style_xd said:

My friend, not much has changed, the interface is the same, there is no dark mode, several user comments requesting changes in the appearance of the antivirus, but so far nothing was attended to. when you check back here and comment what you think. I haven't found anything so far. it's like ten from version 9

ESET is a vendor of antivirus software and as such should have a consistent interface with only minor changes over the time to avoid confusion by users after upgrading to newer versions. Moreover, users should not keep the AV's gui open often, watching it for a long time so adding visual effects does not matter unlike in the case of operating system for instance which must attract home users.

Last but not least, I'd like to remind that this topic is intended for posting suggestions. It's not for lengthy discussions which would spoil it. If you have a comment or want to discuss something, please create a new topic.

[peteyt 396]

11 hours ago, New_Style_xd said:

My friend, not much has changed, the interface is the same, there is no dark mode, several user comments requesting changes in the appearance of the antivirus, but so far nothing was attended to. when you check back here and comment what you think. I haven't found anything so far. it's like ten from version 9

I will add to what marcos has put above  by adding over the years, new features have been introduced e.g. ransomware protection, network device monitoring and just with the new version 15, ransomware shield.

I have seen other AVs in the past change their UI each year and sometimes it felt like a way to hide there wasn't much new. While I always like to try new versions and see changes, changing the UI just because makes no sense. If it is for making things easier then fine but just to change the look could cause more issues. I'd much rather see Eset add more features over changing the interface 

[New_Style_xd 69]

6 hours ago, peteyt said:

I will add to what marcos has put above  by adding over the years, new features have been introduced e.g. ransomware protection, network device monitoring and just with the new version 15, ransomware shield.

I have seen other AVs in the past change their UI each year and sometimes it felt like a way to hide there wasn't much new. While I always like to try new versions and see changes, changing the UI just because makes no sense. If it is for making things easier then fine but just to change the look could cause more issues. I'd much rather see Eset add more features over changing the interface 

I could use a dark theme and rounded corners. To start with, since most products already have their dark color.

[peteyt 396]

3 hours ago, New_Style_xd said:

I could use a dark theme and rounded corners. To start with, since most products already have their dark color.

This is planned for the android version but would be a lot of work for the desktop version. As also noted a good AV is often rarely opened by general users.