While there isn’t an "exact" definition of what a product marketed as an "NGAV" must include, most experts agree it needs to go beyond the signature-based detection of traditional antivirus and use advanced technology to detect the threats traditional antivirus was missing.

Four general checkpoints of quality for an NGAV solution, vendor regardless, are as follows:

• NGAV solutions should provide protection for next-generation attacks (behavior-based detection of zero-day exploits, shellcode inspection, fileless payloads).
  
• NGAV solutions should use cloud-based or built-in AI learning to detect suspicious activity independent of hash and signature inspection, a technique made gradually more ineffective by open source malware availability increasing. Open source = custom versions = unique file signatures = starting detection timeline all over again.
  
• NGAV softwares should incorporate endpoint detection and response (EDR), even if it's just as a passive threat or intelligence listener.
  
• NGAV softwares should utilize cloud-based analytics and intelligence for aggressive detection and wide-scale mitigation.

A "next-gen" antivirus (NGAV) and a classic, file-blacklist-based antivirus (CFBA) are two distinct types of antivirus solutions with significant differences in their approach and capabilities.

• A CFBA relies on a database of known malware signatures or patterns (blacklist/blocklist/denylist) to detect and block malicious files. When a user downloads a file, it is compared to the blacklist and if there is a match or similarity with a known malware pattern, the CFBA blocks the file from executing. It is a reactive approach that classically only detects and blocks known threats. However, it may not detect new or zero-day malware that has never been seen before.
• On the other hand, an NGAV incorporates a range of advanced detection techniques, such as machine learning algorithms and behavior-based analysis, to identify both known and unknown malware. It monitors the behavior of the file, looks for suspicious activities, and can identify potential threats before they cause harm. More advanced NGAV solutions use techniques such as sandboxing, semi-automated threat hunting/threat hunt prompting, and predictive analysis to identify zero-day and fileless attacks that CFBA may miss.

If you have an active antivirus or antimalware service running on your PC, you should uninstall it prior to installing ours. Many antimalware tools include something known as "Tamper Protection" - and equally, to scan for viruses, antiviruses have to tamper with files to figure out what exactly they are, and what they do.

TLDR: Our antivirus cannot be used with another active antivirus/antimalware engine.

However, our security client can be used alongside industry-trusted EDR agents, as well as our own, and will not interfere with them.