Antiviruses: The Final Defense

Van T. Do --TekZone Team--

Like everybody knows, you need an antivirus. Picking one is a little tricky. With all these outbreaks lately, you have to know who is protecting you, and how effective they are. In this article, the major antivirus programs, will be compared, and rated.

Symantec Norton Antivirus 2001- A great program, one of the best. Symantec is one of the big companies, with fast and quick liveupdate virus definitions, your computer will always have the latest protection. Norton Antivirus also features their BloodHound heuristic virus engine, that can detect unknown viruses. Norton Antivirus real time Auto-Protect feature will detect viruses in files you download, and in e-mails you get. Norton Antivirus also takes up the least system resources. Overall, Norton Antivirus is a strong contender in the antivirus market.http://www.symantec.com --htpp://www.sarc.com 
Rating:--- New virus protection has been downgraded to:11-25-00

McAfee VirusScan 5.02- VirusScan is used by almost all the big corporations. It has one of the best heuristic engines and has ranked high in Virus Lab Tests. VirusScan filters every file you encounter on the internet, and even scans java applets, and Active X controls for viruses. VirusScan 5 supports quicker downloads that take only about 20 seconds or so to update your DAT files. However, there may be a flaw in the program, that makes the download feature not work, and you'll have to download a 2mb file from their site. McAfee VirusScan 5.02 also has the largest library of Viruses with 53,000. Norton has about 48,000. http://vil.mcafee.com --- In test, McAfee's virus research team was the quickest to respond in virus submissions, and support questions. Rating:2nd Place in Ultimate Defender I. 11-25-00

Inoculate IT Personal Edition- Inoculate IT PE, is FREE!!! From the people who brought you Neugents (software that can think) here is the product from Computer Associates(3rd largest software company) In an attempt to stop the spread of viruses, Computer Associates has started a program to distribute this antivirus for free, to consumers. Inoculate IT PE has fairly good virus protections, with all the features of other antivirus programs. Inoculate IT also has a heuristic engine, and has a quick virus dat update download, with their auto-download utility. Inoculate IT might have a drab interface, but its one of the best for a free program.--http://www.cai.com---Rating:3rd Place in Ultimate Defender I. 11-25-00

Antivirus ToolKit Pro- A great program that has one of the best heuristic engines. This is a superior program that detects many unknown viruses others can't. Antivirus ToolKit Pro has weekly virus dat releases. --http://www.avp.com Rating: 
---Kaspersky AVP 3.5.133.0 Has been upgraded to & Has won the TekWarrior.com Ultimate Defender I award. 11-25-00

AVG Anti-Virus provides excellent protection against computer viruses. This free program includes fine documentation and is a strong all-around contender in the field of anti-virus utilities. It runs constantly in the background, checking files and removable disks before you access them. You can also run complete disk scans manually or by using the built-in scheduler. In addition to scanning your boot sector, memory, and files for known viruses (including macro viruses), AVG Anti-Virus employs heuristic analysis to detect unknown viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. It offers special support for Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, automatically checking all incoming and outgoing email messages and their attachments for virus infections. Other features include boot disk creation, MS-DOS support (useful if you can't load Windows due to virus activity), automatic online updates, logging, and shell extension support. **You may need to go to http://www.grisoft.com to get registered** Rating:---Downgraded to 11-25-00

eSafe Desktop provides comprehensive security for PCs, emphasizing protection against Internet hazards. It uses four modules, covering antivirus scanning, personal firewalls, sandbox protection for applications, and administration. All modules can be configured to precise specifications. A wizard helps you to put everything in place -- the level of safeguards should satisfy even the most security-conscious. Virus protection is fairly comprehensive, with automatic and on-demand scanning, integrity files to detect unknown viruses, and multilevel scanning of popular file archive formats. You can define multiple firewalls to control access to particular IP addresses, forbid access to URLs containing particular words, and force encryption of sensitive information (such as passwords) before transmission over the Internet. The sandbox feature lets you create safe working environments for any application -- especially important for browsers and email clients. Finally, the administration module helps you to coordinate and schedule everything and is invaluable if your PC has multiple users. Rating:

F-Secure Anti-Virus(demo) is a comprehensive real-time and on-demand virus scanning and protection system for all Windows platforms. F-Secure Anti-Virus is the first line of anti-virus software to combine multiple-virus scanning engines into a single framework. What one virus scanner misses, another will find. Rating:

AntiVir Personal Edition Another free antivirus from a German company. AntiVir has solid protection, and many features like those of other antiviruses. The version I tested had to get manual dat updates. Rating:

Upcoming: Firewalls and other Safety Measures