Cyberdefender?

So I recently found this program CyberDefenderFREE. It is, supposedly, an Internet security suite (as in, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, anti-“everything that could possibly ever go wrong on your computer or the others close by”) that they release for free.

So… The positive:

  • It’s not spyware: I’ve installed and then checked. As far as Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spyware Doctor, and Trend-Micro are concerned, this isn’t bad for you.
  • It seems to do what it says: There’s anti-spyware and anti-virus scans; there’s anti-spam settings, there’s even fraud monitoring. Plus, there’s a networking option that connects you to other people using the software to (transparently) share detection data.
  • The system footprint is tiny: I don’t have a screenshot now (I’ll get one soon), but when CyberDefender is simply running in the background it’s using up a whopping 6 mb of memory in two processes. Obviously during scans it uses more, but even then, it’s around 40 mb. Compare this to the hideous Norton product line and rejoice.

The negative:

  • I don’t know anything about its detection rates: CyberDefender is, as far as I can tell, completely new (although they’re already on version 2.0). There were no studies I could find anywhere about CyberDefender.
  • Who the hell is CyberDefender? And since when are they the Internet’s first line of defense? I tend to lean towards SARC and similar groups as the Internet’s first line of defense. But then, I’m not in marketing… Naturally this means: how do we know that this product will stick around for any length of time?
  • How does the anti-spam and anti-fraud software link into the appropriate software? I didn’t see any changes to IE or Firefox in my tests. I assume that they link in somehow, or they’d be rather useless…
  • The networking options could raise some privacy concerns: Obviously CyberDefender isn’t the only product that does this (Trend Micro comes to mind), but not everyone is comfortable with information being sent from their computer.
  • It’s ad-supported: Obviously, this isn’t that bad. Who didn’t mind using Opera or any other ad-supported software that was genuinely useful? However, I know some people really don’t care for this type of freeware (and probably wouldn’t even classify it as freeware, which means I’m gonna get in trouble with the semantics police) and wouldn’t use it because of that.

So the real test comes now. I’m gonna leave it installed on a machine for a while and see if it causes any problems over time. I won’t be able to really judge its detection abilities since I seem to manage to avoid most malware, but still, we’ll see if it works for me.

Final word? Don’t go dumping your current protection scheme (unless you’re using Norton Internet Security or something…that program is fucking terrible), but there might be some use for this for older computers that need cheap security solutions that don’t hog memory.

Update: A few screenshots of CyberDefender:

  • The single process that is running on my computer connected to it:

task manager

  • The main program window. Notice the windows update monitor in the upper right:

UI

Edit (7/21/10): It’s been a while since I’ve used this program and I’m now eating my earlier “this isn’t so bad” words. The program has been completely subsumed in ads and upsell tactics. Stay away. Please.