Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security 2014

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Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security 2014

Posted by Unknown Thursday 17 October 2013 0 comments

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2014

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Description:

Kaspersky Anti-Virus is the backbone of your PC's internet security system, delivering essential, real-time protection from the latest malware. It works behind-the-scenes with intelligent scanning and small, frequent updates, while pro actively protecting you from known and emerging Internet threats. Enjoy essential protection that won't slow down your PC with Kaspersky Anti-Virus.

What's new in this version:

New! Anti-blocker functionality.
Better Performance with improved Windows 8 performance optimization.
Improved! GUI speed.
Improved! Low resource consumption.
Improved! Refreshed GUI.
Improved! Easier installation and activation.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 Photo

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Installation:

Installing Kaspersky has been dramatically simplified over the past two years. Following on 2012's fuss-free install, the installer for 2013 will remove conflicting security programs and any detected malware automatically.

You're still on the hook for a reboot, but not when running only the trial. The install procedure was only three screens long, and it took under 2 minutes to complete. You can also register and purchase a license key from the program itself, no need to jump to your browser. Overall, this is one of the best installation processes for a security suite, if by best you mean, "short, fast, and painless."

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Interface:

Kaspersky's followed up last year's overhauled interface with only minor tweaks this year to accommodate new features. The number of windows you must go through to initiate a scan, or to solve a problem warning, has been reduced.

Based on a mobile app-drawer design, the interface presents your security status at the top and stashes the four major security features of scanning, updating, the new Safe Money, and parental controls, at the bottom. The app drawer layout puts key security status information up front, and keeps your tools organized yet easily accessible below. You can slide the features sideways to see more options, or click the arrow at the bottom to pull up, drawer-style, the full list of options. Settings and Reports live in the upper right corner, and both use terminology repeated throughout the interface. This creates a solid level of consistency, and ought to appeal to basic security consumers and power users alike.

A Cloud Protection button at the top of the interface opens a screen that explains Kaspersky's cloud technology that debuted in the 2012 version. Like its competitors that have already incorporated cloud-based detection, you can opt out of anonymously contributing your data without making yourself less safe.

Kaspersky's opt-out is a bit tricky to get to, though. Hit Settings, the annoyingly unlabeled Advanced Settings tab (hint: it's the cardboard box), Feedback, and then uncheck the box to opt out.

Unlike some competitors, which allow you to reorder the tool buttons so you can have the ones you use most often at the ready, Kaspersky's tool layout is locked down. This is one of the few drawbacks to the design. Another is that in the Settings window, the tabs on the left are unlabeled and their icons are not necessarily as obvious to understand as possible. In order, they are Protection Center, Scan, Update, and Advanced Settings. Labeling aside, the settings themselves were remarkably easy to navigate and comprehend -- even the advanced ones. Meanwhile, jumping from feature to feature was a zippy experience, and we encountered absolutely no lag when skipping between screens.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Features and support:

Kaspersky 2013's newest and best features come in the form of some very forward-thinking security improvements.

The most important of them is the exploit blocking engine called Automatic Exploit Prevention. It's a response to the increase in the number of phishing attacks and includes an antiphishing engine -- similar to the antivirus and anti-malware engines that updates daily.

The suite now blocks Duqu and other malware specifically designed to surreptitiously install on your computer before the antivirus program loads during boot.

Safe Money revamps the Safe Run feature from previous years and is only in Kaspersky Internet Security 2013, not Kaspersky Anti-Virus. It basically streamlines the process of accessing banking sites securely. Simply go to your banking site, and as long as you have Kaspersky's browser add-ons installed, it will ask you if you want to open the site in a sand boxed mode, isolated from other browser and PC processes. You can also manually add other sites to Safe Money in Kaspersky's interface, but it's no longer a requirement because of Safe Money's new auto-detection. You can tell it's running because of a thin green line around your browser window.

We were sceptical about Safe Money working as advertised, but it really does detect banking Web sites as you visit them and reopen them in sand boxed browsers. It detected both major banks like Chase, and our own local credit union's site without fail.

Other changes have been made, as well. The secure keyboard for protecting personal data when entered by a physical keyboard works with more sites than before; there is expanded browser compatibility so it now works with Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Opera; and better battery management has been implemented for laptops. (We did not test the battery life, however, due to time constraints.)

There are older features worth calling out, too. One is the File Advisor, which is a Windows Explorer context menu option for checking out a file's reputation without having to go through the main Kaspersky program itself. It creates a pipeline from the Kaspersky Security Network, the Kaspersky cloud protection, to the files on your desktop. We found it to pull down reputation data quickly, although its speed also depends on your Internet connection.

The Roll Back feature can easily undo damage caused by any malware that does slip through, and the Network Monitor feature shows you real-time traffic to and from your computer. Among the better ancillary tools are an Internet Explorer security analyzer, which is a good idea if you're stuck on Windows XP with IE8 or earlier -- but it's weird that it doesn't support any other browsers.

The virtual keyboard, different from the physical keyboard protection, has been improved so that it's more responsive than previously. It's mostly an older feature to use if you're worried about keyloggers that Kaspersky keeps around for bragging rights. It's highly unlikely that you'd have Kaspersky running and be infected by a key logger.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus REQUIRED FOR ALL INSTALLATIONS:

Approximately 480 MB free space on the hard drive (depending on size of antivirus database)
CD/DVD Drive for installation of the program from CD ROM
Computer mouse
Internet connection for product activation and updates
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 or higher
Microsoft Windows Installer 3.0 or higher
Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Kaspersky Anti-Virus HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:

XP Operating System:
Processor 800 MHz or higher
512 MB available RAM
Vista & Windows 7 operating systems:
Processor: 1 GHz or higher
1 GB available RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB available RAM (64-bit)
Windows 8 Operating System:
Processor: 1 GHz or higher
1 GB available RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB available RAM (64-bit)

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Hardware Requirements for Net books:

CPU: Intel Atom 1.6 GHz
RAM: 1 GB DDR2
Hard Disk: 160 GB
Video Card: Intel GMA950
Screen: 10.1 inch, 1024x600 widescreen
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Note: Some product features may only work on x32 operating systems.