Slashdot Mirror
Alternative Enterprise Anti-Virus Solutions?
Darth_brooks asks: "I admin for a great non-profit organization that has spent the last year rebuilding after a massive fire. We've got a pretty tight system running now, especially compared to the unmanaged chaos that existed before the fire. Firefox for surfing and T-bird for for e-mail, WSUS for updates, and we're slowly replacing Office with OpenOffice. But out anti-virus solution (command AV, a holdover from our old system) is not cutting the mustard. Specifically the management console isn't exactly reliable, and we just don't feel like we're getting our money's worth. What alternatives can the Slashdot crowd suggest?"
"The two obvious names that come to mind are Norton and Mcafee. Since all of our machines are donated, we really don't have the resources for Norton (who does?) and Mcafee's just been dealt a black eye. In addition, we're on a limited budget. Our machines are mostly P2 & P3's, and we're an XP / Active Directory shop with some scattered Fedora & BSD boxes scattered about for non-desktop tasks.
The biggest features we're looking for are the ability to centrally manage updates (which rules of AVG's free edition), and a reasonable price tag for licenses for 50-60 machines. Our current solution is only in place because we signed a long term licensing agreement, and I don't want to see us get into another deal for a product that doesn't turn out to be as god as advertised. I'd also like to hear some of the Horror / Success stories from users."
The biggest features we're looking for are the ability to centrally manage updates (which rules of AVG's free edition), and a reasonable price tag for licenses for 50-60 machines. Our current solution is only in place because we signed a long term licensing agreement, and I don't want to see us get into another deal for a product that doesn't turn out to be as god as advertised. I'd also like to hear some of the Horror / Success stories from users."
ClamAV might work. THe only downside is that it doesn't yet have a real-time process scanner. If you can keep people from executing what they download before scanning it for viruses, ClamWin might do the job. You could manage the virus updates via your logon script, or just use the normal internet update. Plus ClamAV works on your Linux boxen too!
I am MuchTall
Try Avast Antivirus. It's got a far more powerful and configurable network manager than Symantec's, costs about half as much (for 3 years!), and updates MUCH more frequently, using smaller updates. It also automatically uses a local mirroring system so that your clients don't hog the bandwidth trying to get updates from the internet. The client has a smaller memory footprint than Symantec's client.
The best part is you can download it and run it completely unrestricted for 60 days to see if it works for you.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Uhm yeah it took me all of two minutes to disable it on my box at work, even though it was locked down. The fact that TrendMicro put a backdoor (a default password for when you forget the real one) in it helped quite a bit.
Global warming is a cube.