Review of NOD32 Anti Virus Version 4.2:
NOD32 Antivirus has quietly grown into one of the best Antivirus programs over the last few years. Unbloated and User-friendly are NOD32's best qualities. Let's see how the 2010 version Of NOD32 compares to its competition.1) Installation: 4/5
ESET NOD32 Antivirus v4 installed in 63 seconds, and the computer was immediately ready for use - requiring no restarts after installation. It was a very quick and straight-forward installation process, but if you have another antivirus program on your computer you have to manually search & run the correct uninstaller. NOD32 Antivirus will hopefully remedy this next year.
2) Features & Ease of Use: 9/10  NOD32's user-interface is very clean and simple looking, yet very effective. The program comes defaulted to Standard Mode which is fine for most users. In Standard Mode the options are limited but the antivirus program runs fine - it's probably a good idea to hide the majority of the options, since for most users the extra options can be confusing. Simple is definitely good in this case.  For advanced users NOD32 has an Advanced Mode that gives the user much more control over the software with the many more options made available (see screenshot #6 for the Advanced Mode Options). NOD32's options are well thought out and give you more control over the program than any other antivirus program we've tested this year (except maybe Kaspersky). Eset's ThreatSense technology gives you protection against new viruses before they can be analyzed - this gives you Zero-Day protection against viruses and other malware. Our only issue with NOD32 this year is that Version 4.2 is essentially the same as Version 4.0 from last year - almost no noticeable changes this year. 3) Virus Scanner: 2.5/5  ESET NOD32 AntiVirus has both a Smart Scan as well as a Custom Scan option. Our testing found Eset's Virus Scanner to scan at a pace of 16.3 MB/s - making it one of the slower virus scanners we tested - #7 out of 10 Antivirus programs tested. Eset's scan speed translates into scanning 50GB of used hard-drive space in just over 52 minutes. NOD32's virus scanner also found 3 virus infections that several other antivirus programs (including Kaspersky & Norton) missed on our test computer which we thought was virus-free. So, Eset's virus database definitely impressed us. Although, one feature that NOD32 doesn't have that we wish it did is a Quick Scan feature to provide quick peace of mind.  Updates: Version 4 of ESET NOD32 updates 2-3 times per day, which is less than several other antivirus programs. For comparison, Norton 2011 updates about every 6-7 minutes, while Kaspersky 2011 updates about every 2 hours. Testing by AV-Test.org found that NOD32's response time to new threats is approximately 4-6 hours, slightly better than the industry average of 6-8 hours. 4) Performance Testing: 8.5/10  A good Antivirus program should not only protect your computer from Viruses but also not slow down the Performance of your computer too much by using up your computer's resources. We run each Antivirus program through a set of Performance Tests to see the impact it has on the computer. View the results below of our Antivirus testing for NOD32:
5) Effectiveness: (Virus/Malware Detection) 14/15
6) Help & Support: 3.5/5 ESET's Help Files within the program are very useful and well laid out, although why in Standard Mode we aren't sure why the "Help" link in the upper-right-hand corner of the program disappears. This "Help" link also links directly to the corresponding help file depending what task you're doing (ie. if you're doing a "Computer Scan" and click the "Help" link, then the help files on "Computer Scan" appear). ESET does also offer a very good Knowledgebase and user-forums. Their phone support is not all that impressive, since it has limited hours, deals with only a few topics (installing, downloading, purchasing, etc), and doesn't offer a toll-free phone number. CONCLUSION: NOD32 Version 4.2 is an extremely simple to use program. Its user-interface is the easiest to use that we've seen this year - with everything clearly laid out. NOD32's Performance and Effectiveness are both also top-notch. There are no draw-backs with NOD32 Antivirus - it's got everything a user of any level could possibly ask for. For computer novices, NOD32 is definitely the easiest Antivirus program to use we've reviewed this year, and accordingly receives our Most User-Friendly award! 
| ||||||||||||
a) AV Comparatives has 2 major Virus/Malware tests each year. In the first, the On Demand Detection Test, NOD32 was rated 3 out of 3 Stars. In the 2nd test, the Proactive Test, NOD32 again received a 3-Star rating - very impressive test results for such a major Antivirus test!
