G DATA INTERNET SECURITY 2010
http://www.gdata-software.com/

Pros: Consistently tops the charts in independent testing year after year. Superior protection against the full spectrum of malware. Ease of use.

Cons: Zero tech support. Weak network activity logging. Can't set individual alerts for firewall rules.

Summary:
For USA customers: no forums; broken on-line tech support; disfunctional phone support.

Four of my inquiries entered via a Web support form remain unacknowledged and unanswered as does an email directly to two company officers, Dirk Hochstrate and Frank Heisler. Even during business hours in Germany, the automated response at a 1-888 toll free number transfers to Germany and may disconnect after 6 minutes of silence or just deliver a message in German and disconnect immediately. The one time I did connect to a support person it was at 1:15 AM MST. After describing the issue, I was assured of an email follow up; that never happened. And while even the most elemental of IT departments could implement a forum (and most do) in about three hours, G Data has not chosen not to do so. (A British reseller had in August establised a support forum for their customers, but as of this writing it remains abandoned.)

As such, only seasoned Windows users should consider G Data and the lack of support drops the overall rating to fair from excellent plus. With impartiality, it must be noted neither their Web site nor the user agreement indicate any support is included in the price.

Otherwise, GDIS2010 performs as advertised and updates smoothly. The dual engine model (BitDefender & Avast) ranks in the top tiers of independent testing, returning near 99+ percentiles in protection against a far-flung and sweeping range of threats as well as the usual suspects. By editorial content and popular acclaim GDIS2010 is one of the best suites available at any price.

The firewall has a unique "Autopilot" mode and when set at "Maximum" is the first ever and currently the only firewall I would ever install on Aunt Petunia's computer where her access to Flikr photogs of the grand nieces and searches for new embroidery patterns will go unhindered by pesky pop ups. Experienced users and control freaks will want to forgo the default rule sets, create an empty rule set for each network, set "Custom security" and "Create rule manually," reboot and build rules as each alert presents itself.

Everything else has mostly "set and forget" modes with an acceptable range of geek tweaks. Overall, this is an easy to use security suite.

It's fast and trouble free on my old PIII/1GHz laptop and my E8400 system doesn't even know its there. There are no issues running it along side Zemana AntiLogger and ThreatFire or IObit S360.

At $40 for a one-year three-license subscription, this is the best deal bar none. For each PC that's about thirteen bucks a pop; practically free.

At long last, an update for the English versions of G Data: 20.2.3.6 (12/10/2009).
The firewall version remains at 3.0.

According to a posting at the Rokop forum, roughly translated by Google:
- Optimization of the signature update process
- Improvements in Web protection

The update will also occur for AntiVirus 2010 and TotalCare 2010.

While it seems the update spans most language releases, as the Germans got three, maybe four, updates since the English 20.1.2.6, this is the first update for us since then.

I'd like to publicly thank a fellow over at G Data for allowing me to work on the beta and express my hopes that future updates will roll out successfully and in alignment with the German users.

Cheers.

Cheers, thanks for the update

The G Data English version received an update today, 20.2.4.1.
The Internet Security firewall remains at 3.0.

No changelog to be found, yet. I'll post it up if I run into it.

This was a pleasant surprise. Obviously, the powers at G Data have responded to the complaints and become serious about product updates - for customers, a seriously critical need in the ever escalating dangers on the 'Net. Hopefully that will eventually migrate to their customer support pipeline should they want to enjoy continued success. Though their 2011 product is in the works, to say that their market competition is ferocious is an understatement.

Cheers.