Gave CAVS A Try

[Guest]

[DanaJone1]

It seemed promising, but the next day on rebooting the pc, started getting BSODS.  Giving CAVS  the benefit of the doubt, I tried various alternative anti-spyware programs to see if I could stop the BSODS, to no avail. I finally decided to uninstall CAVS (and BoClean too), and guess what, no more BSODS. Went back to AVast for now, but will keep an eye on Comodo, it seems promising, and may in the future be a real player, but for now, its not ready for prime time.
Also after I uninstalled, Avast detected a trojan that had slipped past CAVS and infected my test-bed system. I run the network for a small business and am always looking for the best programs, and the best deal as the owner is a real tightwad, and my budget is limited.
I am keeping the firewall, as t seems to be a pretty powerful program in the alternative to such ones as ZoneAlarm, at least for my own system, for work, my coworkers would find it way to verbose and wouldn't tolerate it.  DanaJ
 

[Eric Cryptid]

Hi Dana,
    CAVS is currently in Beta. There has been more concentration on improving comodo's firewall recently so there hasn't been much action in the CAVS Beta department lately. This is due to change very soon! As you will know as a Comodo Firewall User. The latest On-Demand Virus scanner intended for CAVS 3 was integrated into one of this year's releases of Comodo Firewall.

There appartently will be some small step by step betas of CAVS3 in the very near future.

CAVS 2's detection rate was last tested last year and only scored 50%. Obviously it's detection rate has slowly increased since then but as it's still in beta it has not been tested by VirusBulletin etc etc and not yet ready as a full product.

We should see some signs of CAVS 3 in Beta coming out in the coming months but it'll be atleast the end of this year before a full stable release.

Eric

[DanaJone1]

I realize that CAVS is Beta, but it is being promoted on your web page as being ready to play in the real world, which it is not. It should be made clearer that this is REALLY a beta program and that only beta testers should try it out.

BTW: when I was testing it out, I thought that BOCLEAN was the problem, but it wasn't, so  I may reconsider useing it again.

Dana.

[panic]

I realize that CAVS is Beta, but it is being promoted on your web page as being ready to play in the real world, which it is not. It should be made clearer that this is REALLY a beta program and that only beta testers should try it out.

Nowhere does it say that this software is suitable for use in a production environment, regardless of big a tightwad is paying for your network. 

To quote the website

Comodo AntiVirus 2.0 beta, all subsequent beta versions and the final release version will each be available free to both home and business users.

The above quote is directly above the download link.

I'd be inlcined to have another look at BOClean as a real-time monitor, as it monitors system entry vectors in a relatively unique manner (after decryption at the instant of initialisation).

Keep an eye on CAVS3 when it is released for public beta. There are some very exciting technologies proposed to be included in it.

Cheers,
Ewen :-)

[DanaJone1]

Eliminates Viruses, Worms and Trojans from desktops and networks

Free Antivirus Software

    * Detects and eliminates viruses from desktops and networks
    * Constantly protects with real-time On Access scanning
    * Proactive Heuristic analysis intercepts unknown threats
    * Host Intrusion Detection blocks malware before it can run
    * Daily, automatic updates of virus definitions
    * Simple to use: install and forget

Yes, but this is what is says right above that, and some inexperienced users might not understand exactly what BETA software is, namely that is is TRIAL, or TEST software and should NOT be used in the place of non-beta or commercial ready software. Believe me, I asked asked several people I know (just regular pc users, not tecknoids) if they knew the difference between beta and non beta software, and guess what, they had no idea what beta really meant. I just feel that it should be made clearer on the web page what beta means.
I am not trying to be confrontational here, in fact I think that when CAVS is out of beta it has to potential to be a really great product, in fact I think the firewall is already getting rave reviews all over the net, but CAVS is getting lots of referrals too, and some people may not be ready to use it yet until its out of beta stage. I plan to keep an eye open for when CAVS is a stable, ready for prime time product and give it a retry, and I will give BOCLEAN a retry too.

Thanks, Dana j

[panic]

You're probably right Dana. It probably should have a more prominent disclaimer, clearly outlining what BETA means and the implications of its use in a production environment. I'll pass this on.

Thanks for raising this.

Cheers,
Ewen :-)

[DanaJone1]

Just one thing I forgot to mention, in reanalyzing the BSODS, I think that it may have been a conflict between CAVS and PC Tools Spyware Dr. that could have been the cause of the problems. I don't have time to look into it further, but I hope that this may help in your development efforts. Good luck.

[panic]

Yep. Known conflict. thanks for passing that on.

Ewen :-)

[DanaJone1]

Ewen:  This type of thing should also be posted on the download page at the very least, so people see it before they download and then try to install the program. If I had known this before the trial of CAVS, I would have approached things differently, like uninstalling PCT Spyware Dr first, then installing CAVS. Now knowing this, I may give CAVS another try.
DanaJ

[Ganda]

errr, maybe installing CAVS2 BETA isn't a good idea. we're expecting CAVS 3 to come out soon  why don't you use another AV for now & wait for CAVS3

[MJ1988]

CAVS 2 is a good antivirus. Its real weakness I think, is the bugged HIPS component. If that were fully functional right now I would be using it still right now.

I think anyone looking for a AV that suits them best, should give CAVS a try.

[DanaJone1]

I went back to using Avast (for the boot up scan) for now, but will be giving CAVS a chance when it is out of beta.

I thought the HIPS protection was really great.  I still can't believe that these are all free programs, they are pretty good even as beta.

Dana J.

P.S. Any comparisons out there between BoClean and ThreatFire? 

[Eric Cryptid]

Re: your P.S. - BOClean and Threatfire are completely different types of programs. BoClean is an anti-malware that monitors your memory and immediately kills of any detected malware without you even having to do anything.

Threatfire is a behaviour analizer so if something is "acting suspicious" it will throw up an alert.

**** There is a new improved version coming out next week! Version 5 which fixes a number of bugs and errors ****

[dw2108]

I feel very comfortable with CAVS 2, but I also use the following with CAVS, or ANY AV for that matter.
1.ScripTrap -- Enabled (AT LEAST USE THIS or ScriptSentry or ScriptDefender or all three!)
2.TINY Personal Firewall with OUTGOING/INCOMING Ping FORBIDDEN
3.SpywareBlaster
4.WinCleaner Antyspyware
5.BOClean
6.AntiVir -- ON DEMAND ONLY as a backup
And
7.Sentinel -- LOW(!) Resource Version with AntiVir Lite exe as default for Sentinel
But most of the time, CAVS and BOClean catch the the bad files and use less resources when certain uninfectable directories are excluded. (I used the all of these even with Avast or Antivir, because they don't use system resources unless you're HEAVILY infected.) BTW, I tested this CAVS setup  on several hacker sites -- NOT RECOMMENDED -- and I haven't had to reload WIN 2K or XP.

[Andreas]

Hi Dana,
    CAVS is currently in Beta. There has been more concentration on improving comodo's firewall recently so there hasn't been much action in the CAVS Beta department lately. This is due to change very soon! As you will know as a Comodo Firewall User. The latest On-Demand Virus scanner intended for CAVS 3 was integrated into one of this year's releases of Comodo Firewall.

There appartently will be some small step by step betas of CAVS3 in the very near future.

CAVS 2's detection rate was last tested last year and only scored 50%. Obviously it's detection rate has slowly increased since then but as it's still in beta it has not been tested by VirusBulletin etc etc and not yet ready as a full product.

We should see some signs of CAVS 3 in Beta coming out in the coming months but it'll be atleast the end of this year before a full stable release.

Eric

Hi EricEgan!

Do you plan to release CAV 3.0 it for free?

Andreas

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