not my blog

So I just got copies of Computer Associates full line of residential software and got right to putting them to work, by installing them on my desktop and laptop. The desktop got just the AV package as it never sees anything outside of my home network and I never let strange machines play here, so any type of software firewall is a waste of memory and CPU time. The laptop got the full ISS package since it sees all sorts of strange networks, so who knows what types of nastiness it could run into.

So my initial impressions of the AV suite? Well the installation was amazingly swift, less than a minute total, including downloading the latest updates for the program (if you don’t count the time I took to type in the product key). Hands down the fastest and simplest AV install I think I have ever encountered, decidedly better than anything Symantec or Mcafee have ever shown. I performed a scan on my 300GB Raid 0 arrary, which holds about 200GB of data and she blew through the 124805 files on my computer in only 26 minutes! Talk about fast, that would have taken Symantec or Mcafee over an hour at least. Not to mention the amazingly small footprint that the program takes up… only 18MB of memory during a full system scan (see screenshot). It only takes up about 10MB while idle. The interface is very straightforward and easy to understand and use, I would say even your grandmother could figure out how to use this program. Initial impressions are great, but time will tell as to the quality of this product, since nothing replaces experience.

The ISS suite was also another quick install taking about 3 minutes to complete on my laptop. Possibly my favorite thing so far, the fact that you can not install any feature of the suite that you want. Don’t want the anti-spam, then don’t install it. Don’t want Pest Patrol, fine don’t install it! Cuts down on the bloat considerably versus’ its competition. The down side, no integrated interface for all programs, it’s really more a package of stand-alone apps than a full on suite, but if each portion does its job I can live with that. The firewall looks like it’s licensed from ZoneAlarm, which would make sense since Zonelabs uses CA’s Antivirus for their protection suite. Although it does seem odd since CA bought Tiny not that long ago. Then again maybe Tiny was sharing stuff with ZA, I wouldn’t know since I never used Tiny. Again, initial impressions are decent, so we’ll just have to see how things go.

All in all I will have to commend Computer Associates for their amazingly lightweight and quick Antivirus software. Not to mention their blazingly fast installs for their products. Hopefully the rest of the program will hold up as well, but I would imagine it should go well since their AV is ICSA certified as well as quite a few VB 100% awards. Look for more information regarding the product as soon as I get the chance to test her out in the field, but if she does as well as the initial setup look for some rave reviews to come soon.