Jeff -- thanks for this. This will sound odd, but I like having VIPRE compared to Sophos, as opposed to many others. It's a very decent product and a product we look at as being in the same class as VIPRE.
With regard to your points: Exclusions -- the next major release of VIPRE (Q4) will have best-practices templates, which will pre-define roles for various types of systems. This will dramatically help in pre-defining exclusions for servers. Updates -- We actually turned on hourly updates a few months ago, and found users didn't like it. I think a lot of that had to do with the updating scheme inside the product, which spiked CPU usage when applying the update. The next minor update to VIPRE has code written in it to allow going back to hourly updates. 24/7 support -- Got it. We are working on improving weekend support, and I expect you'll find things getting quite a bit better. Your general comments about support are also perfectly reasonable and we will continue to improve. Reboots -- New code is being written to separate non-boot required functions from boot-required functions, which will enable us to only require a reboot in certain occasions. Our developers have been beaten into submission on this subject, and they are now terrified of releasing update which requires a reboot ;-) Sophos actually does require reboots, but they schedule it around major upgrades, and they push all the reboot-required functions into one release (I believe they have a policy of only doing reboots once a year). However, not doing a reboot around a deployment --- I would like some more information on this. Was this on Vista/Windows 7 machines? Or on XP machines? On XP and below, it is technically impossible not to require a reboot, based on the driver model (there are some exceptions to this, but it's a long technical discussion). Once again, thanks for the frank evaluation, and I can assure you this email has plenty of readers inside the organization. Alex Alex Eckelberry, CEO Sunbelt Software 33 N. Garden Avenue, Clearwater, FL 33755 p: 727-562-0101 x220 e: a...@sunbeltsoftware.com MSN: alex...@hotmail.com<mailto:alex...@hotmail.com> w: www.sunbeltsoftware.com<file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/exec3/Application%20Data/Microsoft/Signatures/www.sunbeltsoftware.com> b: www.sunbeltblog.com<file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/exec3/Application%20Data/Microsoft/Signatures/www.sunbeltblog.com> ________________________________ From: Jeff S. Gottlieb [mailto:jeff.s.gottl...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 4:56 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Sophos vs. Vipre Enterprise (now that we have tested both) We are in an SMB environment of roughly 60 servers and 1000 hosts, including Server 2003, 2008, SBS2003, SBS2008, XP Pro SP3, Windows 7, and Vista workstations. Sophos Endpoint Security along with PureMessaging, and Vipre Enterprise Premium along with Vipre Email Security are being put to the test head-to-head. We are staunch fans of Sunbelt Software. Our experiences with Vipre Email Security (much improved over Ninja) has been great over the years. For over 10-years we have placed our trust in Trend Micro, something that has deteriorated slowly over the past 24-months. In any event, we are hoping that our published comparisons will meet objectivity, and help to give reassurance to future Vipre users regardless of the decisions we ultimately made. The Sunbelt 'NT System Admin Issues' forum has been a great help, dating back to April, more specifically... 4/01/2010 Subject: Enterprise Anti-Virus, rz...@qwest.net<mailto:rz...@qwest.net> 4/21/2010 Subject: Sophos vs. Vipre Enterprise, jholmg...@xlhealth.com<mailto:jholmg...@xlhealth.com> 5/06/2010 Subject: NOD32 Antivirus, jda...@asmail.ucdavis.edu<mailto:jda...@asmail.ucdavis.edu> 5/09/2010 Subject: Life just keeps getting better...., kurt.b...@gmail.com<mailto:kurt.b...@gmail.com> 7/29/2010 Subject: Vipre effectiveness & false positives, c.house...@gmail.com<mailto:c.house...@gmail.com> 1) Installation / Deployment Server installs both went smooth. In deployment Sophos had few if any issues. Viper deployment to server required countless exclusions (painfully so)... in fact when our server crashed, we were told that a few exclusions were missing (Agh!). Viper deployment to host on two systems came with MANY surprises. The Vipre agent loaded a "NDIS IM" element in the TCPIP stack, causing CISCO (IPSec) clients to connect... oddly not allowing us to remote TS, Dameware, and other remote applications. SonicWall VPN clients remained unaffected. Vipre even caused slowness, freezing during printing, multi-tasking, and issues with Adobe Acrobat. Some of these issues we just gave up on attempting to resolve and disabled the firewall entirely. When a MSP firm cannot remote access...this is serious!! We couldn't get support soon enough... and unfortunately cases remain open 4-5 days after the fact. Vipre left our accounting department, using a PSA software (ConnectWise), locked out for an entire day. 2) Post Installation Sophos agent with firewall was documented as utilizing up to 150+ MB of RAM (enormous)... we were told, "...the price you pay for good protection". We were not comforted, despite this fact the users never complained about slower speeds. Vipre utilized a fraction of this, maybe 7 MB... albeit given the deployment issues (above) we remain unimpressed by any benefit there might be. Sophos comes along with definitions updated hourly, Vipre (so we are told) is heading in this direction too. Vipre currently is defaulted to update every 3-hours, and that default can be changed (...the value??). 3) 24-hour Enterprise support Vipre Enterprise technicians we found were skilled, sadly they are scantily available on weekend (evenings). Sophos Endpoint Security we found were equally skilled and *always* available. Despite not having a "Premium" support agreement, we found Sophos enthusiastic when it came to remote access (LogMeIn). If (in the rare occasion) Vipre was asked to remote, remote was either unavailable or they were flat out reluctant. Vipre on several occasions seemed overwhelmed... Sophos *never* gave us that feeling. 4) Additional Items Sophos PureMessaging (SPAM filter) catches SPAM well (notice we didn't say unsolicited advertisements). If you differentiate (most do) between the two you will NOT enjoy PureMessaging. Additionally with PureMessaging each account receives email called "spam digest", there are options to either Delete or Deliver. In either event chosen, this is a singular event... it does NOT automatically allow or block these addresses on a going forward basis. It's impossible meeting the demands of users wanting NOT to receive Golf Digest solicitations, eBay, Amazon, LL Bean, Victoria Secrets (no joke!), all that legitimate stuff that gets overwhelming. Ah... then there's Vipre Email Security!!! If *anything* unwanted makes it to the Inbox (a rare occasion), the individual users can manage without support. More systems like this create nearly passive income for us. Vipre has agent (not definition) updates. These agent updates require reboots... can you imagine 200 users rebooting their workstations for updates?? We cannot, and furthermore in the 6 long weeks we have been in proof-of-concept, Sophos has never needed an agent reboot... not even following deployment (Nice!) We invite your comments and encourage you to make the same comparisons and let us know your results. If we are wrong on any account... or seem less than objective, please let us know. We are expecting this thread will live for quite awhile... and Alex will have a lot to say. Turning down Vipre Enterprise (Sunbelt Software) hurts, especially understanding the culture of the company... the best of the best, "the American way", etc. I personally wanted to see Vipre getting our stamp of approval...sadly I didn't get my way this time. -Jeff ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
