Anti-Virus

Here is something to take into consideration when purchasing an anti-virus program.  The main idea of the article is that the authors of new viruses check to make sure that their new code can slip by the most popular anti-virus programs, to the tune of 80% or 4 our 5 will not be detected by the most popular anti-virus programs.  A good reason not to use Norton or McAfee, in addition to the bloated one size fits all program that they have both become.

I recently ran into a situation where someone called me because they were having problems with their computer and they thought that they had anti-virus protection.  The situation was that they had Norton Anti-Virus installed on their machine and it was running.  The problem was that the virus signature files were over two years old.  You can check the date/age of your virus signature files on most anti-virus programs by right clicking their icon down by your clock and selecting about.  If your anti-virus signature date is over a week old you are out of date.

New viruses are released on a daily basis.  If your virus signatures are not kept up to date then your anti-virus software doesn't know about the new viruses and cannot protect you from them.

If you do not want to pay for an anti-virus program there are several free options.

Antivir

Avast!

AVG

BitDefender

EZ Antivirus

Here is a recent (March 2006) report from PC World comparing ten different anti-virus programs.  Of the free programs I listed I prefer Avast!, number 8 on the list.  I attempted to use Antivir, number 7 on the list, when reloading my new machine and found that their updates tended to interrupt what I was doing, playing a game, and were very annoying.  I no longer recommend AVG since a computer that I had it installed on came back to me infected.

If you are going to purchase an antivirus package all of the free versions listed above come in pay versions that provide more features.  I recommend staying away from Norton as it has only gotten larger and larger over the years and has proven difficult to remove.  McAfee in not far behind on "code bloat" (becoming larger and taking more computer power to run).

Another product worth looking into is Prevx.  Prevx is no longer free, but is very reasonably priced, $40 for five machines.  Prevx monitors the things that a virus needs to do to survive.  The main thing that a virus must do to survive is to start back up after the computer is shut down.  Prevx alerts you when something attempts to place itself in a place that will allow it to restart when the computer reboots.  It also monitors the locations of important files and alerts you if something attempts to put a file in  a protected area.  Prevx will not protect you if you allow everything to run.  If you are installing a known safe program you can suspend Prevx until after the install to cut down on the alerts or you can run it as a trusted install.  Prevx protects you against Zero Day exploits, viruses that use vulnerabilities that have not been made public and for which there is no fix.  Zero Day exploits are what happens when the people who create viruses find a problem before the manufacturer and create a virus that takes advantage of that problem.  Zero Day exploits will be effective against a machine with up to date patches and anti-virus software.  Prevx protects you by not allowing the software to access your system without your permission.  A good example of this is the recent Sony DRM (Digital Rights Management) problem.  When I inserted a CD with this protection on it my computer alerted me that the CD was attempting to install software and I was able to not allow that to happen preventing my system from being compromised.  Without Prevx the software would have been installed on my machine.  The other side of the coin is that it would have been installed if I told Prevx to allow it.  This puts most of your security in your hands.  If you say yes to everything without reading it then Prevx is not the product for you.