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Immunet's free cloud antivirus for Windows steadily gaining users
You may not have heard much about it (if at all), but Immunet Protect's free antivirus for Windows continues to steadily attract new users. On Novermber 19th, their install base was around 20,000 users. Today, that number has reached more than 31,000 and it keeps on growing.
Founded by former Symantec research exec Oliver Friedrichs, Immunet has been available as a beta download since August of this year. Like Panda's more well-known cloud defense app, Immunet boasts a small resource footprint and no massive definition downloads while utilizing community-powered detection and analysis.
Microsoft Security essentials was getting a little out of hand with memory usage and CPU spikes on my Atom-powered netbook, so I decided to give Immunet a try about a month ago. So far, so good. No viruses, and no more issues with performance.
Founded by former Symantec research exec Oliver Friedrichs, Immunet has been available as a beta download since August of this year. Like Panda's more well-known cloud defense app, Immunet boasts a small resource footprint and no massive definition downloads while utilizing community-powered detection and analysis.
Microsoft Security essentials was getting a little out of hand with memory usage and CPU spikes on my Atom-powered netbook, so I decided to give Immunet a try about a month ago. So far, so good. No viruses, and no more issues with performance.
Immunet Protect is a free download and runs on 32 and 64-bit Windows. Head over to their web site to take it for a spin!
Comments
12
Subscribe to commentstigsfanDec 11th 2009 1:08PM
Did Immunet convince you to switch from Panda on your main machines?
I'm just curious.
Thanks
DanDec 11th 2009 1:52PM
I'd be curious about this too. I wonder how different the DEFs are. What we need is a review of all cloud-based AV products out there and how effective they are at detecting/removing malware.
If you were to ask me, I'd stick with Panda. How can you say no to a panda bear?... :P
polobunnyDec 11th 2009 1:49PM
Without a professional analysis of the database files, it's pointless.
A lightweight antivirus solution not catching most virus isn't really useful. I'd rather take a slightly more bloated solution with proven detection rate.
Either way, Avira Antivir hasn't let me down yet. It's speedy and it's the best around when it comes to detection. One sole bad thing is the slightly large (I use large loosely here) number of false positives.
Then again, I'd rather get warned of a false positive than not warned of a real virus and I guess this goes for anyone caring about their security.
ImmuneDec 11th 2009 2:01PM
"Immunet Protect provides protection by harnessing the collective wisdom of the security products that you already run, as well as knowledge on the applications installed across our entire user population. Simply put, Immunet Protect collects security judgments on what is, and what is not safe from its community. These aggregated judgments are coalesced in the cloud, and, if they are sound, made available to the rest of the Immunet Community immediately.
You no longer have to rely on isolated security labs to find and resolve security threats. With the power of Collective Immunity, you can benefit from the eyes and ears of the quickly growing population of Immunet Protect users. Dont wait for other vendors to re-architect their products when you can use Immunet Protect today."
This sounds like Immunet is monitoring installed real antivirus software, and simply copies their reaction to files. Some antivirus companies may consider this as stealing their database.
marcoDec 12th 2009 6:15PM
>> I am running other Anti-Virus already, should I uninstall it??
>> No, you should not. Immunet Protect is unique in the Anti-Virus world
>> in that is is designed to work alongside and compliment other
>> Anti-Virus products.
From their website...
NotRocketboyDec 11th 2009 3:53PM
I've been using Immunet w/no issues. All I need is something lightweight, as the best anti-virus is user behavior.It's harder to have stupid things happen to your PC if you're not doing stupid things with it.
minibarDec 11th 2009 5:44PM
I've seen "cloud" antivirus apps promoted at DLS, but I see no benefit from "cloud" antivirus per se, and any promotion on this basis sounds like propaganda. I've also seen excuses at DLS that "cloud" antivirus apps cannot be compared to traditional antivurus apps, even if by citation. The benefits of antivirus apps traditional and "cloud" should be directly compared to put this issue to rest.
@Immune also makes a valid point piggybacking traditional antivurus apps IP.
Lee MathewsDec 11th 2009 5:45PM
Propoganda?
Sorry you feel that way. The truth? I'm using this app. I like it. It does what I need it to.
polobunnyDec 11th 2009 6:59PM
@Lee
I think what he means is that nowhere in any article regarding cloud antivirus you or someone else at DLS are outlining what are the benefits of said cloud antivirus over a typical antivirus solution.
I can somewhat understand the idea behind cloud antivirus solutions for the detection rate but as I said earlier that's not something I will adopt before getting a proof said antivirus are worthy when it comes to detection rate. Speculation isn't my cup of tea. ;)
@NotRocketboy
I'm definitely a "good" user. I have near perfect computing habits regarding security but that's not exactly a valid reason to be reckless. Better be safe than sorry?
I don't see exactly what is the problem with being more protected over being less protected for the same amount of work, resources or whatever other factors comes into selecting an antivirus solution.
Besides it's not like everyone I recommend Avira Antivir to have good computing habits sadly. You can't sugar coat it too much for some users. :/
FredDec 12th 2009 6:29PM
This whole 'community/cloud' detection and determination thing seems kind iffy. Doesn't this mean that definitions are necessarily slower in appearing because they have to be rated first by th community?
chheberDec 13th 2009 10:55AM
It seems this is just about sharing the detections by the installed antiviruses.
Even if if I'm wrong, any AV (even Immunet) will be about either signatures, heuristic or both. If not, it's not really an AV but maybe an HIPS.
As there's no stats about detection rate and just "we're much better than AVs, oh right but we rely on AVs" I would never install Immunet.
I rather just use Antivir. 99.4 % detection with signatures, 74% detection rate with heuristic. As someone said it doesn't really have many false positives, it had ~20 false positives of thousands of files (AV-compartives.org).
EzeArisDec 25th 2009 8:12PM
Hmm.. I should try it, I have a very old PC with 256 of RAM without antivirus, but I don't know, maybe I'd let it without antivirus.