Yawn.. New Virii scanner

[er0k]

So uh.. i've been out of the game for a long time now and am feeling kinda lame (hey that rhymes) but it doesnt rhyme with lazy. ;)

Anyway, whats the best virii scanner out right now?

[Tedob1]

sophos beyond a doubt

[The Duck]

What is the best free virus scanner? Is Sophos free?

[Und3ertak3r]

Anyway, whats the best virii scanner out right now?

i suspect you are refering for winduz.. but Sophos seem to do one for RH.. and there was another.. lost the link..

For Win Xpee and for free, it would have to be AVG
But sad to say if you want to pay.. the NAV and McAfee you will have to stay away..
But Sophos from the above advice you may need to considder, along with Command

Cheers

[therenegade]

How does something like PCillin rate?

[nihil]

Trend Micro's PC-Cillin works pretty well for me, I have it on a couple of boxes.

Don't forget:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

Which is their free, online, on demand scanner. Very good for a second opinion.

Also e-Trust eZArmour is free until the end of the year at least.

Cheers

[Info Tech Geek]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=258074#post749943) by Tedob1
sophos beyond a doubt

I second that, I use it with my linux box.

[AngelicKnight]

I use AVG, but Sophos is new on me. Is there anything that makes Sophos the better of the two?

[Spyder32]

I have PC-Cillin for both my Win boxes and Sopho's for my OpenBSD box.

[fyrewall]

I use PC-Cillin aswell, never had a problem with it, at home however i dont use any :\

[phishphreek]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=258074#post750162) by AngelicKnight
I use AVG, but Sophos is new on me. Is there anything that makes Sophos the better of the two?

Of course! Because tedob1 just said so... :D

[gn0min0mic0n]

I'm using AVG free on WinXPro...seems ok, but the full system scans take only a fraction of the time as NAV2k2 or NAV2k3 -- about 10 min compared to over an hour -- does this mean it isn't scanning all files, or can it truly be that fast?

I recall reading that Sophos gets their virus updates out more quickly than competitors because they are located in England, timezones and such -- and this gives them some kinda competitive edge...sumthin like that. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)

And yes, TrendMicro's Housecall *is* an excellent online, on-demand scanner!

[Spyder32]

fyrewall -- Please, for the sake of god, install a/v software on your home computer.

[The Grunt]

Why? The only thing I use mine for is... Well, wait, I don't...

All you have to do is not open unknown or dangerous files and keep your box updated and be alert and you are fine... AVG has not done me the slightest good except maybe make me feel I am more protected... I do a full system scan every night, never find anything... If you practice good computing habits, there isn't much use of a virus scanner if you never download anything from untrusted sites... That is the only thing I can think of to use mine for.. But I don't download programs off of p2p or warez sites...

[NAMOR]

IMHO Kaspersky ver 4.5 is the best.... Haven't had a chance to try 5 yet. Drweb and NOD32 are good as well.. For free I think it would be AVG 6 or Antivir PE.

[Spyder32]

The Grunt, I'm basing it on the fact he has other people in his household who are less security-oriented then he is and might not know the security measure's that we all know. I'm assuming he might have kid's, or might just have someone less tech-smart than him who use's that computer along with him.

[!mitationRust]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=258074#post750416) by The Grunt
Why? The only thing I use mine for is... Well, wait, I don't...

All you have to do is not open unknown or dangerous files and keep your box updated and be alert and you are fine... AVG has not done me the slightest good except maybe make me feel I am more protected... I do a full system scan every night, never find anything... If you practice good computing habits, there isn't much use of a virus scanner if you never download anything from untrusted sites... That is the only thing I can think of to use mine for.. But I don't download programs off of p2p or warez sites...

Yep, It's just a "matter of dealing with process propagation and trusted resources correctly".

I'm waiting to see what DARPA is going to release, you know dealing with worms.
http://www.darpa.mil/ato/programs/dqw.htm

[The Grunt]

Ahhh... If that is the case, then he should without a doubt install an AV on it...

But I do believe most of us on this site have our own personal home computer and another for the rest of the family...

[Spyder32]

I do too, I believe so as well. But when he said "Home" computer and not his PC, I assumed he meant one that could be shared with people other than him (family, kids, etc).

[dopeydadwarf]

All you have to do is not open unknown or dangerous files and keep your box updated and be alert and you are fine

This is only half true. Sasser used a vulnerabilite in lsass.exe. The patch was only avaliable for 11 days I believe. Correct me if I am wrong here, the original vuln was found by eyee. One of the good guys. What happens when one of the bad guys finda a zeroday. Instead of running their mouth about it, writes a nasty little worm that nobody even knows exists. However ironic, I just supported your argument. Because if the aformentioned example came true, we'd all be in trouble irregardless of AV or not. Their might be exceptions to this, like a finely tuned firewall. Or not even using the effected OS. Otherwise security officer to <any key users> would be screwed.

Be safe and stay free

[The Grunt]

That is why everyone should have a good firewall running... 11 days is MORE than enough time to patch yourself... Anyone running a server and any home poweruser should be checking http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com at LEAST once every 2 days... If you are running a server, you should also automate it...

Also, I think most of us here hear of vuln's the day they come out, and we hurridly download the patch for it if we are using the affected OS...

The bad guys finding a zero day would be hell for us... If that happens, we are screwed. That's when hopefully our well configured firewall will come through for us.

[bluthund]

:)
Personally, I think that F-Secure is the best AV of all time, but at $56.90, a bit pricey. I'm happy with my McAfee, and in conjunction with XPSP2 RC1 and good habits times are good...

[vvirtho]

Has anyone tried e-trust eZArmour? I put it on one system to see what was up but removed it as soon as it turned out to be Zone Alarm with an AV. (Is this the Trend Micro - Zone Alarm combo which was scheduled to be released?) I like PC-cillin because it protects a system without slowing things down. I've tried Panda as well which is also rated high in AV testing.

IMHO I don't understand why anyone would NOT run some sort of AV on a system - no matter HOW updated the OS was . . . unless it NEVER went online or ran data from floppies or CDs originated from other than its own system . . . then again . . . you'd still have to ensure the disk the OS came from was clean as well. I'd rather be safe than sorry especially if there were other users with access to my system.

V.

[The Grunt]

The reasons not to run an AV are simple. If you watch whats going on, and stay alert, you don't need it. I personally have no need for an AV. I don't even use outlook or Outlook express, heck I don't even use any email other than hotmail. So my chance of getting email viruses is about 0.1% because I won't open anything stupid in hotmail, and hotmail itself is quite secure in the way it deals with emails. Boot virii are pretty much phased out, and I don't boot from floppies anyway, so I won't get those.

Now for worms. If your OS is kept updated, you should not need any protection against worms. But most of us run firewalls as well. Firewalls + a solid, patched OS will protect you from any worm that has been released into the wild so far.

Another thing you can do that will act as an anti virus is to run only a limited account. Rust wrote a wonderful bit in his "My Methodologies for Configuring XP" http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=258172 that explains the in's and out's of it. Basically, you set programs that need admin rights to run it to "run as" an administrator. This means if you do download a virus, nothing bad can come out of it unless you right click on it and tell it to run as an administrator.

I would like to see your reasons why you think an AV is so important. I like a good discussion :D

[nihil]

V. and anyone else interested.


Has anyone tried e-trust eZArmour

I am running it on this machine. It seems pretty good. I tested it against AVG and used Trend Micro's "Housecall" as a second opinion.

It "beats" AVG to finding a virus, as it appears to examine files before they are opened, whereas AVG seems to cut in once they are opened.

It also spots .txt versions of viruses, which AVG generally does not

It is much better with trojans than AVG. Housecall also found them, which speaks well for PC-cillin?

Cheers

[vvirtho]

nihil -
Thanks for the info. Are you running the full suite of programs or just the AV? The firewall portion of the suite (Zone Alarm) takes up more system resources than I like which is why I removed everything from the computer I was testing it on.

V.

[AngelicKnight]

TheGrunt has a point, theoretically, but you darn well better know what you're doing before you ditch your AV. That's the catch -- Grunt knows his system intimately enough to basically be his own AV. If you're not so fine-tuned to your machine, however, a good AV is practically a must, and there's a chance that even the best of us may still get caught anyway without an AV, however unlikely that may be. However, one must weigh likelihood alongside damage done if the unlikely occurs. Best to err on the side of caution.