KASPERSKY lab Anti-Virus 2013 - 3 PCs

Pros: If you think you are getting a deal because of a rebate offer... You patience may (or may not be rewarded). I purchased Kaspersky's Internt Security 2013 here in early February because it was "free" after a $45 rebate. Now over 2 months later, and a month after the rebate submission deadline, my rebate status languishes in perpetual "We have received your rebate and it is being processed".

This is quite aggravating, and many postings decry any rebate recovery from Kaspersky.

My advice: Buy at the best price you can find before rebate.

BTW, if you download the "trial ware" directly from Kaspersky, and decline the "buy now" option, you will be presented with an even better "buy now" option that is pretty good.

Cons: Make a rebate "loan" to Kaspersky, and you may never see repayment.

Other Thoughts: The AV component of KIS has been quite good. I would expect the same performance with this leaner/cleaner install. Actually, this is the purchase I intended to make, but at the time KIS was "free". I should have waited.

Pros: This antivirus Pick up any virus that it detects no matter what it you put flash drive or used the web site it warn you before you enter that site, i ve install this on 3 machine never ever have i had a problem with , once i clean install windows put this antivirus in activated and perfect it tell you how many month you have left
so people complaining that it not activating must be doing something wrong

Cons: con none

Other Thoughts: simple the best antivirus out there used this program for more then 10 years mcfee is a waste some virus it don't detect this bad boy pick them up right away I rather have clean machine then a machine that has a virus on it that is not been picked up

Pros: As with most AV products, this does what it should. It blocked few viruses in real time.

Cons: My hard drive crashed a few months into my subscription. In spite of several attempts to get help to transfer my license to the new hard drive, no one from customer support was available... Just auto responses. I got frustrated and bought McAfee to replace it.

Other Thoughts: If your hard drive is old, or if you anticipate exchanging drives, don't buy this. You will NOT get help from their tech support. Dealing with their non-existent customer support wasn't worth it, so I sacrificed half of my subscription and bought a competitors product.

Pros: Excellent detection and disinfection.

Cons: Settings need to be simpler for novices.

Other Thoughts: I've been using Kaspersky since 1996 when it was known as AVP. I've tried/tested a lot of AV since that time and overall nothing is as good as Kaspersky. Highly recommended.

Pros: Works until something changes.

Cons: Cannot move it to another system.
Customer support is nonexistent.
Kaspersky continues to support gadgets which are a known security vulnerability.

Other Thoughts: I installed this on three systems. Everything seemed to work fine at first.
One thing that Kaspersky got wrong and refuses to change involves its use of a gadget. In 2012 Microsoft announced that gadgets were a security vulnerability and offered a FixIt to disable them completely (search on Microsoft's web site for "Microsoft Security Advisory 2719662"). Other anti-virus vendors, e.g. Norton and F-Secure, eliminated them from their products as a result. But Kaspersky retains their gadget. I sent them an email asking about this and received an irrelevant automated reply. I responded to this email as the bottom of their email suggested, but no one ever responded. I uninstalled their gadget via Control Panel and installed the FixIt, with Kaspersky seeming to continue to work, but the absence of the subject on their web site says a lot about their professionalism or lack thereof.
I needed to move one copy of Kaspersky to another PC. So I uninstalled it and rebooted, expecting it to communicate with the mother ship as other anti-virus products do. But when I tried to install it on the new PC, I was informed that all licenses were used. Unlike with Norton's Account Management, there is no way to modify the list of licenses online with Kaspersky. I sent an email to them and received another irrelevant automated response. And of course they never responded to a follow-up email.
Avoid Kaspersky and use products from vendors which actually respond to emails, like Bitdefender, Norton, and F-Secure.

Pros: free after rebate (I hope).

Cons: It tached the PATA C drive on my Win XP IBM T41.
Took forever to install.
The other C drive (a n SSD in the caddy) was OK .
It only found 2 low level items after I had been using the free Microsoft Security Essentials since I bought the IBM T41 new some years back.
Maybe the Security Essentials isn't as bad as many say or KIS isn't as good.
The KIS was dog slow.

Other Thoughts: My T41 system has the original PATA C drive and an SSD in the Cady. It allows me to use my T41 while I wait for XP to be discotinued. XP is a good OS and I will miss it when gone.

Pros: I have used this antivirus for at least ten years and have never, NEVER! had ANY type of infection or malware make it on to my system(s). I currently run this on 4 computers with Win7 and have no issues. Also, the product key works on updated versions. For example, I bought a 2012 3 user product about 6 months ago (free w/rebate) and did not install on anything until last week. I downloaded the 2013 version, typed in the key and viola', I had the 2013 version. In fact, if Kaspersky updates their version before yours expires, they offer and encourage you to update to the newest version for free. There is at least one reviewer concerned about being "watched" and /or "siphoned" by Kasperski/mother Russia. Well, 1. If you have information of value to Russia, you should be behind some major firewalls or use a closed network and not need a commercial antivirus. 2. If you surf the net, your "free" browser is tracking you, "they" sell that info to pay for the "free" browser. That reviewer needs to know that all computer OS's sold/installed in the US have mandatory "back doors" installed for the purpose of Government access under the guise of "National Security." Also, the CIA can use your phone as a listening/video device even when it's off. Speaking of phones, wireless and VOIP transmissions are "public domain" and do not require court order to "tap." Check it out, but remember, they'll be watching you...

Cons: Too many warnings at end of license, a weeks worth would be fine for most. Despite these, I still wait wait until the last day. The rebates take a little time, but about typical for rebates. But hey, in the end it's FREEEEEE! Ok bean counters, actually, it's not totally free. There is the cost for the paper, stamp, time and the infintesimal lost interest on your money.

Other Thoughts: Seriously, this is a very capable and robust antivirus, I recommend it at every opportunity.

Pros: It is hands down the best anti-virus out there. It's detection rates are the highest in test after test. I have not had an infected computer with it and I can not say that about any other AV I have run.

Cons: When you want to tinker with it and not just let it do it's own thing; it is not the easiest AV to run. I have found the default settings are very good though.

Like with any modern Anti-virus if your system is weak on resources you will see slow downs. It isn't just a Kaspersky thing. If you for example have an 8-10 year old Windows XP computer with 1GB of RAM - time to update. At least your RAM - how do you do anything at all? I am still a fan of XP; but really - move on.

I do agree that the need for a removal tool is sometimes a pain. I have not run into it myself (I have it running on 20+ computers); but I have seen it on other people's personal computers. I don't know what I do differently when I remove it.

Other Thoughts: The purpose of AV is to keep you safe. While Kaspersky is not perfect software it does that. Since I deployed it on our external computers over 2 years ago I have not had one infected computer. I tried SEVERAL different AVs after leaving Kaspersky the first time (due to painful licensing issues.) I am back because none of them worked.

If you have something that works keep it...

Pros: Seems to do a good job protecting, but at a high cost. See cons.

Cons: It randomly goes into 100% CPU use and renders computer unusable until rebooted. Using task manager to try and kill their avp.exe utility doesn't work and says "not allowed."
Maybe it works better with WIN7, but on XP with 1GB memory... well, suffice it to say that after paying for this and many frustrating sessions trying to just get my comp to just be normal, I decided to uninstall it and throw it away.

Pros: I started filling in this review box and I got to "Pros" and I sat here thinking and, really, I could not think of a thing ... ok... except, and this is how I ended up with a KAP product to begin with, they have a free download that you can burn to a CD and use it to remove viruses; I had to do this once with a friend's computer as she had no antivirus installed (don't get me started). It worked well - so I decided to try the full install. ... which leads me to "cons"

Cons: Here's the thing: I believe the antivirus portion of this software worked fine on my Win7 Home Premium desktop. But here's a couple things: First, even though you can install this KAPAV 3PCs on three pcs, you only get updates for 12 months from the date of your first install (more or less - you might get up to an extra month if you install on a second computer within 30 days of the first install). This would not bother me except that I did not remember reading this policy anywhere.

Next: the warnings/begging for you to renew your subscription for their product gets a little heavy handed during the last month before your updates are scheduled to expire. In some ways this is good - I'm sure a lot of people need to be reminded this many times - so, in that sense, fine.

However, and this really is the deal and don't call me paranoid: Kaspersky is this Russian IT whiz with some sketchy history and people have wondered if his antivirus program(s) send info back to mother Russia. Don't blame me; I didn't come up with this theory.

The real thing, however, is what happened to me: The day my updates expired, I could not boot my computer. After a bit a blue screen of death would flash on the screen but it would disappear before I could read any information on it. Worse still, when I tried to boot my computer using a Norton Ghost 15 disk - which had worked many times before - I got the screen that said "Press any key to boot from cd or DVD drive . . . " ... and when I pressed any key, nothing would happen and then the computer would reboot. I tried to boot from various Windows 7 rescue and install disks and...... the same thing every time: nothing but endless reboots.

Finally I just booted the computer into safe mode with networking. This went fine. However, when attempting to remove the KAP antivirus, I found there was no install/removal msi file on the computer - in other words, no easy way to remove KAP antivirus.

Not having an easy-to-use removal tool packaged with your software is one of the major sins of any software maker - just look around. Ten years ago people did this kind of stuff but the reaction finally got to be so negative that software companies pretty much routinely package an uninstaller with their software. But not Kaspersky. Bad. Very bad.

Luckily, I had Internet access in safe mode. I did a search and found - surprise, surprise, - that being unable to remove KAP products is a major problem. So much so that KAP publishes a removal tool on its Web site. Why do this rather than packaging it with your product? Beats me. Maybe they're collection IP addresses, who knows.

Downloading the removal app was easy and so was removing the software, once I installed the removal tool.

And then came the big test. Would I be proved wrong - that the KAP software hadn't torpedoed my desktop on the day it expired? I rebooted.

The problem was gone and the computer has run perfectly ever since the KAP antivirus program was removed.

Other Thoughts: I will never use Kaspersky again.