Free Antivirus Corner

Top 9 Windows Antivirus

2008-05-22T18:52:00.001+07:00

Antivirus software is must-have protection. This review picks the best antivirus software based on its virus detection abilities, features, and breadth of protection. Whether you're seeking total system coverage or an ala carte solution, each of the following products provides superb virus protection for Windows-based PCs. Because every system is unique, evaluate several of these antivirus products to find the software best suited for your PC and your level of experience.
1. Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium
AntiVir is a consistent leader in independent antivirus tests. Avira's AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium is a low-impact, easy to use virus scanner that also includes rootkit detection and phishing protection. Five euros of each purchase is automatically donated to the Auerbach Foundation, a non-profit that supports various charity and community-related services. AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

2. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal offers excellent antivirus protection, perhaps unsurpassed in its ability to unpack and scan compressed files - something that trips up a lot of other vendors. Should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

3. BitDefender Antivirus Plus
Softwin's BitDefender Professional protects against viruses, spyware, and instant messaging threats, as well as offering firewall rules to block undesirable traffic and a privacy gateway to keep your identity and preferences private while surfing the Internet.

4. McAfee VirusScan Plus
McAfee VirusScan Plus is an ideal candidate for those seeking an antivirus/firewall combination without all the bloat of traditional Internet security suites. McAfee VirusScan Plus makes an easy job of removing adware and spyware, something not all antivirus products deliver.

5. Panda Antivirus 2007
Panda Antivirus 2007 combines antivirus, antispyware, and antiphishing with its highly touted behavior-based TruPrevent Technology. License covers use on two computers and includes free tech support via email (telephone support options are also available).

6. F-PROT Antivirus
F-PROT Antivirus for Windows offers a feature that's increasingly harder to find - it includes a command-line scanner that can be used to create a rescue CD for scanning the system in Safe Mode. This is a particularly effective way to remove stubborn resuscitators. Firewall not included.

7. G Data AntiVirusKit (AVK)
AntiVirusKit (AVK) provides a double layer of protection, bundling two of the best antivirus engines - Kaspersky and BitDefender - under a single, easy-to-use console. Like Nod32, you'll also want to bolster G Data's AVK with a firewall.

8. AVG Anti-Malware
AVG Anti-Malware combines traditional virus protection with adware and spyware scanning, in a low impact footprint ideal for resource-strained PCs or those who just want the best performance possible out of their computers. Free tech support is available via email and the standard license includes two years of protection. Should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

9. Eset Nod32
Nod32 features a small footprint, low performance hit, and fast scan speeds, providing focused virus protection ideal for gamers or those with an older PC. Should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

Trojans, Dialers and Worms – Oh My! Anti-Virus Software

2008-04-23T13:18:00.000+07:00

Remember in the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy and her friends were walking through the dark forest with threats lurking in every shadow and around every corner? That's kind of how it is when you surf the Web without adequate anti-virus protection. Unfortunately, when you're on the Web, the threats aren't imagined – they're very real.

According to a recent Washington Post article, there were about 5.5 million viruses introduced to the Web last year alone. That's more than 15,000 new viruses a day – or 625 new viruses each hour. Quite a challenging number for anti-virus companies to keep up with.

Getting adequate anti-virus protection is only half the battle. You have to keep that anti-virus program updated and have to scan your system regularly. Just having outdated anti-virus software on your PC isn't going to do you a lick of good. Fortunately, some of the anti-virus products make it easier on you with automatic updates and scheduled system scans.

Companies like Star Reviews give consumer some insight as to which anti-virus programs are easiest to use and which ones offer the most protection. By researching reviews conducted by investigative sites such as this one, consumers are better able to determine which anti-virus solution would best meet their needs without taking the antiquated "trial-and-error" approach.

Tips on avoiding Viruses and Worms: Anti-Virus Software

2008-04-23T13:12:00.002+07:00

Install antivirus software, update regularly, and use it regularly.
Do regular backups. If you contract a virus it may be the only way to recover your data. Ideally, you should backup your entire system on a regular basis, however if this is not practical, at least backup files that you can’t afford to lose or that would be difficult to replace: documents, bookmark files, address books, important emails, etc.
When possible, avoid e-mail attachments both when sending and receiving e-mail.
Never open email attachments with the file extensions VBS, SHS, or PIF. These extensions are almost never used in normal attachments but they are frequently used by viruses and worms.
Never open attachments with double file extensions such as NAME.BMP.EXE or NAME.TXT.VBS.
Disconnect your network or modem cable when you’re not using your computer-or just power it down.
If you feel that an e-mail you get from a friend is strange (if it is a foreign language or it just says odd things) double check with the friend before opening any attachments.
When you receive e-mail advertisements or unsolicited e-mail, do not open attachments.
Avoid attachments with sexual file names.
Do not trust the icons of attachment file. Worms often use executable files which have an icon resembling icons of picture, text, or archive files to fool the user.
Never accept attachments from strangers in online chat systems such as IRC, ICQ, or AOL Instant Messenger.
Avoid using floppies to excha>nge information between computers.

Government Takes Anti-Virus Action Anti-Virus Software

2008-04-23T13:10:00.001+07:00

If you thought you were the only one worried about getting a computer virus, don’t. It turns out the United States government feels the same way and the FBI is warning PC owners of the dangers of becoming infected with a virus, particularly so-called ‘botnet’ viruses. Even some of the best anti-virus software cannot fully protect your computer, but the software in our reviews on this page can substantially reduce your risk of a serious virus attack.

What exactly is a botnet virus attack? According to the FBI themselves, a botnet is a collection of computers all under the control of a “botherder.” The botherder is usually a zombie computer with software programmed into it to send out a virus, compromise security and wipe out hard drives internationally.
A botnet program not only spreads a virus, it can also phish, infect your PC with spyware and adware (which can have as bad an effect as a virus) and spread spam. For this reason, the government is taking vital anti-virus action to prevent major economic and security glitches as a result of these dangerous identity-compromisers.

OPERATION BOT ROAST is the US Government’s newest anti-virus initiative, designed to combat the toughest botnet virus software out there. They are working with software companies to identify IP addresses that were victimized by virus software applications and to notify the PC owners. Thus far, over 1 million addresses were classified with botnet virus intrusion.

Although widespread efforts to prevent each and every virus will have a positive impact for most people, many citizens’ PC’s have already been effectively destroyed, important files have been lost and identities stolen. But installing a firewall and one of our recommended anti-virus software packages can alert you of possible botnet symptoms before the virus can take a hold on your computer.

At 6Star Reviews we have thoroughly researched anti-virus software and our reviews indicate that The Shield Deluxe anti-virus software is a popular package, which will very effectively fight virus activity and protect your computer from any virus attack which comes your way. The Shield Deluxe offers free technical support (almost unheard of in this day and age) and comprehensive anti-virus scanning capabilities. It has ongoing updates, so that you can be protected from all the latest virus attacks.

While new virus outbreaks emerge each minute, we believe that using ant-virus software to build a wall between your personal files and the outside world is an absolute necessity.

Spybot - Search and Destroy

2007-11-23T16:26:00.000+07:00

Spybot - Search and Destroy is an adware and spyware detection and removal tool. This includes removal of certain advertising components, that may gather statistics as well as detection of various keylogging and other spy utilities. In addition, it also securely removes PC and Internet usage tracks, including browser history, temporary pages, cookies (with option to keep selected) and more. The program offers an attractive outlook-style interface that is easy to use and multi-lingual. SpyBot-S&D allows you to exclude selected cookies, programs or extensions from being reported, allowing you to prevent false positive messages for items that you dont want to be alerted of every time. It can even scan your download directory for files that have been downloaded, but not yet installed, allowing you to detect unwanted programs before you even install them. SpyBot produces a detailed and easy to understand report before it deletes any files and allows you to deselect any item that you do not want to be processed. In addition, a recovery feature allows you to restore your settings if needed. Very nice. Freeware

Spyware Warriors and the Digital UnderGround: Part 1 Podcast

2007-11-23T16:08:00.000+07:00

Download it direct or listen in MP3 Format!
We talked about this some time ago and gave you a teaser. Now Part 1 has been put out on the net- and it gets wild! If you want to hear spyware researchers taking you into the inner workings on how it all goes down, along with some other tidbits that will shock and awe, surf on over to hear about the following subjects:
00:01 - 02:37 Introduction
02:38 - 04:08 What does Facetime do and for whom?
04:09 - 05:19 What is a botnet network? (Boyd)
05:20 - 06:11 What are hackers and e-criminals motivations? (Boyd)
06:11 - 07:54 Things changing for the worse; paradigm shift (Porter)
07:55 - 10:19 The story of RinCe, tipster on major bust (Boyd, Porter)
10:20 - 11:43 Anatomy of a good tipster; motivations (Boyd)
11:44 - 12:53 Changing vectors & new dangerous hacker tactics (Porter)
12:54 - 13:23 Instant Messaging no longer safe (Porter)
13:24 - 13:43 Botnet criminal motivations (Boyd)
13:44 - 14:33 New perspectives (Molander)
14:34 - 16:23 Attack complexity increasing, vectors changing (Porter)
16:24 - 16:58 Dark Economy: Organized crime moving online (Porter)
16:59 - 19:02 Cloak & Dagger: How to penetrate a botnet (Boyd)
19:03 - 21:56 Gathering intelligence from 'the underbelly' (Boyd)
22:54 - 23:33 Fallout from adware, spyware & Web crime (Porter)
23:34 - 25:10 Warning to e-commerce executives (Porter)
By SpywareGuide Staff

Free Antivirus: Finally Ready for Prime Time

2007-11-23T15:51:00.000+07:00

As W32.blaster, Sobig, and earlier virus threats have shown, the Internet is not a terribly safe place to connect your PC. Besides updating Windows and your Internet applications regularly, please, I beg you, install two key utilities--a firewall and antivirus software--to ward off future attacks. And if you install any of the products I recommend below, the ounce of prevention won't cost you a dime.
In last month's column ("Ultimate Network Security: How to Install a Firewall"), I recommended a quartet of effective no-cost firewalls. If you'd had one of those apps running on your PC when Blaster hit in August, you'd have escaped the worm's effects. Free antivirus utilities have been around for a while, but I've never felt comfortable recommending them because testing organizations such as Virus Bulletin and ICSA Labs hadn't endorsed them. To pass the tests administered by these labs, an antivirus utility must, among other things, stop all viruses known to exist in the wild, on demand (during manual or scheduled scans of the hard disk and memory) and on access (using memory-resident shields to block viruses from loading into memory).

How the Free Four Score
Up-to-date performance test results for free antivirus programs aren't always easy to come by, but the little information I've been able to dredge up indicates that most of these utilities are improving. I tried all four of the programs below--the only free Windows antivirus programs I could find--and though I found Grisoft's AVG and Alwil's Avast 4 to be the most feature-rich, I feel comfortable recommending any of the four. They all update their virus definitions automatically and have a seal of approval from at least one testing lab.

Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus System: AVG passed Virus Bulletin's June 2003 VB100 Windows XP test (the most recent available at press time) after failing previous attempts; it also passed ICSA's June 2003 test. AVG includes memory-resident scanners, plus e-mail scanners for Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, and Exchange client.

Alwil's Avast 4 Home Edition: Avast likewise passed both the VB100 and ICSA tests, and it offers memory-resident scanning. But Avast surpasses AVG by scanning both Outlook and standard Internet (POP3/SMTP) mail, making it a good choice if you use a non-Microsoft mail client. Amazingly, Alwil also offers support via e-mail for its free product.

H+BEDV Datentechnik's AntiVir Personal Edition: This utility doesn't appear in Virus Bulletin's June 2003 tests; it did, however, pass ICSA's June 2003 tests. AntiVir includes a memory-resident scanner, but it lacks e-mail scanning (it watches only file read and write operations and looks for suspicious macros). You can use AntiVir's separate scheduler program to launch scheduled hard-disk scans, and virus-signature and program updates; but how to perform these tasks (or whether they're possible) is far from obvious.

Softwin's BitDefender Free Edition Version 7: BitDefender Free Edition does not appear in the VB100 and ICSA test results, but the Standard Edition passes both tests using the same scanning engine as the free version. Like the other free AV tools, BitDefender employs a memory-resident scanner and is set to download updates automatically. But like AntiVir Personal Edition, it doesn't scan e-mail for viruses during send and receive operations.

Set Phasers to Kill
After installing one of these programs, configure it for maximum protection. For example, Avast's heuristics (scanning techniques used to trap new and unknown viruses) are set to medium sensitivity by default. To configure the program for maximum safety, click its system tray icon to open the on-access scanner's settings, and then move the scanner sensitivity slider to High. Click OK (see Figure 1).
The downside of setting an antivirus program to its highest security level is that it might noticeably slow PC performance. If you're stuck with an older machine, you may need to go with the default security settings, or try one of the other three freebies to see if it has less impact on performance.
By http://www.pcworld.com/article/

Analysts Work on Improved Antivirus Software Test

2007-11-23T14:09:00.001+07:00

Antivirus vendors are closer to agreeing on a new way to test their software after widespread agreement that older antivirus tests can be misleading.
AV-Test.org, a German antivirus testing organization, is meshing suggestions from vendors such as Symantec Corp., Panda Software ASA and Trend Micro Inc. as well as its own for a new testing regime, said Maik Morgenstern, who conducts product tests at AV-Test.org.
The new testing proposal -- also supported by vendors Kaspersky Lab Ltd., F-Secure Corp. as well as other testers such as Virus Bulletin -- will be presented next month at the Association of AntiVirus Asia Researchers 2007 conference in Seoul.
"We believe this is the way tests should be conducted," Kennedy said. "The hope is that other companies will join us."
Still, the proposals will be optional guidelines for antivirus testers, which ultimately can choose to adopt or ignore them.

Antivirus testing groups have typically tested antivirus products by running the detection engine against hundreds of malicious software samples. If the product doesn't detect a sample, it gets a lower ranking. The style of evaluation tests whether an antivirus product has the right "signatures," or indicators that can identify a specific piece of malware.
The test is relatively quick and easy to perform. But over the last three years or so, many security companies have added technology that can flag malware based on how it acts. That's because signatures have become a less reliable way to defend a computer due to the high number of malware variations that now appear on the Internet.
A signature test does not take into account behavioral detection technology, so vendors have argued that a failed signature test doesn't mean their product wouldn't have protected a PC.

Software vendors have proposed testing antivirus products under the same conditions a consumer would encounter on the Internet. In essence, antivirus testers would use real, active malicious software samples from the Internet and present them to computers in the same way people encounter them, such as through e-mail attachments or Web pages rigged to exploit browser vulnerabilites.
Before a test, antivirus suites would be "frozen" a few weeks prior and not allowed to update their signatures in order to really test the proactive or behavioral technology. Debate is still ongoing whether testers should use malware that is actually doing bad things on the Internet, which poses questions of whether the test machines could potentially do harm.
An alternative is setting up a simulated Internet environment in the lab, but that may not allow malware to run in the way it would if it could access the Internet. "There's always a trade-off," Morgenstern said.
Security analysts are still working on how the products will be scored. It's tricky, since there are many different levels at which a product may detect and neutralize a threat. The scoring has to be clear and comprehensible to people who read technology magazines that write about the tests.
"If the magazines are not able to communicate that in a simple manner to the consumer, then it's not worth much," said Pedro Bustamante, senior research advisor for Panda.
The new parameters mean it will likely take a lot longer to conduct the tests, but Morgenstern said he believed AV-Test.org could do it with their existing staff and without any significant fee increases to publishers who commission work from them.