Tham

I didn't say it was that good, but efficient enough amongst the antivirus programs of its time and against most of the threats then. I was using Norton 5.02 when I had the older computer (a first-generation Pentium 166 with 40 Mb ram !) running Windows 95, although it was supposed to run on Win 98. Setting the "Autoprotect" to detect only when the file is "Run", it had hardly any impact on system performance. This was the setting I used actually when downloading the deadly CIH virus from hacker websites onto my desktop, to test its efficacy - which it did detect with a manual scan. With the later 6.0 versions meant for Windows 98 and XP, it started using lots of system resources and attracting a lot of criticism for this drawback.

Thanks for the feedback. The recent infection I had above was unintentional since I had accidentally clicked "Ignore", when I actually wanted to click "Delete". This would not have happened if I had a shield or guard which had been set to automatically delete or quarantine. As mentioned by the Antivir people in their reply to my post in their forum, the "Automatic" mode is only available in their Premium version, which emphasizes the importance of it, since the fact that people are willing to pay for it indicates it is an essential feature. If the antivirus program wrongly detects and deletes the file, I think it is just a minor inconvenience and one could just redownload the file with the shield or guard turned off. Even more paltry, if it merely quarantines the file, it is just a simple matter of retrieving it. This contrasts with the huge risks involve if one were to actually be infected with a nasty virus, or worse, several viruses which mess up the whole system, including the registry. Worst case, if it were to be one of those which invade the BIOS (and the antivirus feature of the BIOS had not been turned on), such as the infamous CIH virus, then one would effectively kiss goodbye to the motherboard. Probably the antivirus program with the most versatile shield or guard settings is that of Norton. I remember when I wanted to download a file, I merely set the "Autoprotect" for last-ditch defense. I set it to react when the file is "Run", i.e. only when it was executed. Thus it would not detect and delete any files I wanted to download and save on to my desktop, effectively eliminating any erroneous detection and reaction which you mentioned above. After it had been downloaded, I would give it a manual scan just in case.

AVG performs poorly. Avast doesn't do very well either when it comes to detection, though its engine in removing viruses from memory before Windows starts up is quite good. My post in the Antivir forum some time ago may be of interest. http://forum.antivir-pe.de/thread.php?threadid=13506 After the above horrendous infection, I had switched from AVG to Antivir's free Classic edition, which has quite good detection capabilities due to a vast 700,000 database, but have since moved on to AOL's Kaspersky plus Bitdefender 8. The main reason behind this is the resident shield of this free Antivir version does not have "Automatic" settings, leaving you with just a manual "Interactive" option. See my post in this same forum. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...ost&p=66325 The principle of operation of an antivirus program is very much similar to that of a combat aircraft's radar jammer. Setting Antivir to "Interactive" is like setting the radar jammer to "Manual" mode. Imagine flying a Tornado or F-15E into Iraq or Kosovo with their jammers set to "Manual", when you are simultaneously illuminated by countless ground and airborne search, tracking and missile guidance radars. One simply does not have time to react, thus "Automatic" jamming modes are a must.

I've given up on Antivir, their free Classic version, that is. I was using it for some time, until this March 9, when on downloading a file from the net, it detected trojans and prompted me for action. In my haste, I accidentally selected "Ignore" ! My system was badly infected and I had to spend some two hours using multiple antivirus (including Bitdefender 8 and AOL's Kapersky), antispyware and registry backtracker programs to clean up. Apparently one of them, "Adirka.exe", as described in Prevx1's database link, is a particularly bad and very recent infection, being first detected on March 5. That is the main drawback of the free version - you can't set the resident shield to "Automatic Delete", which would have prevented the infection. You can see my post in the Antivir forum here. http://forum.antivir-pe.de/thread.php?threadid=19223 This must have been the infection which inserted in the two trojan horses (Xorpix.m and Worm.Glowa.Ar) in my post above, since a look at their "Properties" showed a "Modified" date of March 9, and about the same time. A manual scan with Antivir, despite its huge database of 700,000 (probably the largest on the market), failed to detect them. Kapersky detected the first, Bitdefender 8 the second. Sending them to Virus Buster confirmed the first infection. I've since switched over to AOL's Kapersky Antivirus Shield as my resident shield, despite its much smaller 280,000 database, with Bitdefender 8 (400,000 signatures) as a manual scanner.

I appear to have two trojans in my System32 folder. The free version of Kaspersky, Active Virus Shield, detected one of them at "Xorpix.m". Bitdefender 8, their free version, missed it. Bitdefender 8 detected the other one as "Worm.Glowa.AR". Kaspersky missed this though. Antivir, Comodo, Clam, Spyware Terminator, Super Antispyware, Asquared and Ewido missed both totally. I'm not sure if they were false alarms though.