Virus Checkers

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I’d like to keep this thread alive, if I may, albeit maybe a little bit less active. I have two reasons:

1) Wanted to thank Bruce and MerC for the tips about Mailwasher, which I’ve downloaded but haven’t tried yet.

2) Keep the thread here so some of us (you) can keep an eye on Grisoft and see what incremental programming they come up with. My small taste of the program, contrary to what it may have looked like, were favorable and I hope to be able to come back to it eventually.

I’d also like to see more of the dirt bags of the world hung up by the thumbs for inflicting such trouble on the world of computing! Too bad more of them can’t be caught and persecuted, er, prosecuted!

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Hey Al!

Let me know how it works out. I have had it for some time but never bothered to install it. I have been asked to install it on work unit to filter/bounce spam and am curious to hear first hand the set-up and useability goes.

Edited by Eileen to remove scatological Smilie

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Here’s one that got past my copy of AVG, but I wasn’t gullible enough to fall for it:
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AMISH VIRUS:

You have just received the Amish Virus. Since we do not have electricity nor computers, you are on the honor system. Please delete all of your files.

I thanketh thee,

Abe

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Seriously though, Mailwasher has been good for me, though I had to tell it to trust a few of the newsletters I receive to keep them from getting flagged as spam — which is why I don’t have it autobounce & delete what it thinks should be blacklisted.

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I like to check what it’s marked too before going ahead. I feel more comfortable that way.

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I wasn’t gullible enough to fall for it

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[/indent] You mean it wasn’t for real. I wish you had told us sooner. I felt honor bound to delete all my files. Good think for backups, huh?

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Why don’t you start a thread exclusively for AVG. I have a feeling these threads will just get lost.

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Not if I have anything to do with it! I have this thread on my “hot list” so I can come back when we see what Grisoft is gonna do about a standalone email checker…..

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Edited by WyllyWylly on 13-Jul-02 23:35.

I have been in touch, via email, with Lynn Pittman at Grisoft and Larry Bridwell at ICSA Labs regarding AVG.
As of July 12/02 both are aware ot this ongoing discussion. Perhaps one or both will sign on and participate.
The emails we exchanged were rather lengthy so I ‘m not going to post them here but the email addresses for both follow if anybody would like to contact them.
Both answered my emails promptly and without a lot of heifer dust.

Lynn Pittman – lwilson@grisoft.com
Larry Bridwell – lbridwell@icsalabs.com

Ken

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Just to save you the trouble, Ken, I sent Lynn Pittman another email yesterday since it’s been a couple of weeks, just to see if they’ve got anything going? I’ll post it here if I hear from her.

By the way, when we were in the heat of our discussions about Avg, McAfee and Norton, I remembered that BUBS made mention of another one I’d never heard of – NOD32. Nobody picked up on it and said anything. Yesterday, when I was looking for something concerning RADMIN, there was a link to NOD32 on their web site. Seems they (NOD32) rate pretty highly on at least a CNET review, after a little preliminary “stink” about whether the reviewer was qualified to make the initial negative comments he apparently made. This quote is from NOD32’s pages, not from Bubs: [indent]

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After hard evidence proving beyond all doubt that the ridiculous findings and figures published in CNet’s April 2002 antivirus review were shonky and the exact opposite of the findings and figures of professional antivirus testing organizations was presented by Eset to CNet’s CEO Mr Shelby Bonnie, CNet has updated its review of the NOD32 Antivirus System.

In a very modest modification to the review in which amateur antivirus product tester Ken Feinstein severely trashed NOD32 and gave it a detection rating of “poor”, CNet has bitten the bullet and admitted it was wrong … but a couple of lines of weasel words do not repair the damage caused to NOD32’s reputation by CNet’s “review” … nor do they compensate us for the sales we undoubtedly missed thanks to CNet’s “review” !!!

By way of correction, CNet has added the following text to Ken Feinstein’s review : “But NOD32’s track record with the 200 or so circulating wild viruses tops the charts. In our tests, we also check how well an antivirus program handles the current viruses in the WildList as an indicator of a program’s performance. And Virus Bulletin’s 100% Award, handed out only to programs that spot every virus making the rounds, shows that NOD32 performs as well as Norton AntiVirus.”

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Hey Al ~

I received a personal e-mail from Ms. Pittman not long after the heat of the discussions thanking me for the nice things I had to say about AVG, to acknowledge my apparent brand loyalty, and that the discussions contained herein were taken with seriousness. I forgot to mention this. Funny, huh?

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July 29, 2002 email from Ms. Pittman: [indent]

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In about 1 month, we will have EMC , which is an independent email scanner that will work with Netscape and other POP3 email clients.
It will be posted on our main page at http://www.grisoft.com when it is ready. It has been in beta and they are working out all the last bugs in the program before we officially release it.
Thank you for your interest in the AVG Anti Virus Product Line.
Sincerely,
Lynn Pittman
Director US Operations
Grisoft Inc.

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Edited by WyllyWylly to add URL code. See the Quick Guide.[/i][/size]

Grisoft now has an add-in. Check out…

http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_avgbat.htm?…a9ef4caa8e14ee3%5B/url%5D

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Well, it ain’t what I’m waiting for, but it’s something. I’ve never heard of (the plugin for this mail client) The Bat. Anyone?

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Off topic – may I ask if anyone knows if my Norton AV 2002 would have picked up any Trojan, Back Orifice or any other sneaky stuff lurking on my PC someplace? I have always used Norton AV (though it does not seem popular in here) and have found it good, I run a virus system check on auto weekly and it always comes up saying everything is virus free on the system and in all files/folders. Do I need to do anything further to check my computer? After reading horror stories recently relating to system invasion, I would like to be sure. Thanks.

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I’ve been using Norton AV for years & I’m happy with it. It’s only caught two virus/worms (i.e. I’ve never been infected at home), but I tend to be very careful what & where I download. Basically, I’ve only been infected once, & that was at work where they had NO virus checker (at the time). I still use an old version of NAV, but keep the definitions up to date, of course. And, I download virus definitions free; I have for years.
Cheers,

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As you probably know, Cyberdance, I don’t personally use Norton but, sheesh, they’ve been around a long time and so has Back Orifice (is that how ya spell that?) I have to believe that a NAV 2002 user would be safe from that oldie and probably all trojans. I didn’t go looking, but I bet a check of their web site would list Back Orifice. If I were you, I’d rest easy.

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Thanks everyone, I have run an independent program to check my system and all is well, so even though Norton is not too popular in here, it does the job – this has been a good exercise testing my computers, good lord Mark you put the fear of God into me with the analogy of the hotel room doors, sure made me take a look at things I have taken for granted as safe! I have a version of ZA 2.6 and will install it as well. Wont go for the newer ZA version 3 till I find out if it is okay on my oldest machine as that is the one working hardest.

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Cyberdance,

Just in case you need just a little more confidence I too have used Norton AV versions 2000, 2001 and now 2002 on my XP machines. I have never been infected by any virus or trojan. But Norton sure has intercepted tons of them for me over the years, and especially over the past several months with the Klez virus running wild. In spite of what the nay Sayers might say, Norton is probably the #1 AV program around and IMHO simply the best, although there are some others that also do a good job.

I dumped ZoneAlarm Pro after many years of using it when I installed version 3.x on my XP machine and ran into myriad problems, conflicts, etc. It would appear from recent articles and discussion board posts, that they still haven’t straightened things out yet so that it works smoothly with XP and/or IE 6.0. Consequently, I tried Outpost Firewall, the trial Pro version for several weeks and loved it. The configurability and additional Plugin features are outstanding. And best of all is the tech support they offer. It is without question unbeatable. Their support board is incredible. . . and fast too.

Jeff

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I agree with you to a point on ZoneAlarm having issues, but I think some of them have been resolved with the latest update. Until recently I was using Outpost too, but I encountered a “bug” – and a sever one at that. The support board is indeed full of information, and that is where I found out about the details on this issue. Outpost has a memory leak that is most prevalent on high-speed internet connections. It’s also an issue only when you leave your PC on and logged in continuously for long periods. Both of these conditions describe me perfectly: DSL line and a workstation that remains on 24×7. The bug that I referred to will suck up all of your system resources due to the processing of rules.

There is a workaround for the issue, but it’s extremely convoluted and I wasn’t about to jump through fifty hoops when I still owned a license for ZA Pro. If not for those two conditions being true in my case, I would still be using Outpost. If they clean up the interface and this bug, I will be a repeat customer.

Lastly, the most recent issue of PC World magazine also has an interesting write-up on the Klez virus, and why virus scanners aren’t enough anymore. Cyberdance, I am a fan of Norton and like Jeff have been for a long time. We need to be careful talking about it here because discussion regarding these products tends to induce flame wars over brand loyalty, and we just had a thread going in Software Finds and Wants that got locked for that reason!! Rest assured – the split between Norton and McAfee, amongst others, is pretty even.

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Mark,

Sorry to hear that you had a specific problem with Outpost. Personally, I am using Cable, a 2-PC LAN and both XP machines are left on 24/7. Both are using Outpost Pro and neither has had a problem with a “resource leak” or any other major problem like you describe. It is hopeful that the new version of Outpost will resolve your particular issue when it arrives in the next couple of months, D.v. IMHO, Outpost is so far superior to ZA, which is a fine firewall, that I would rather be without one rather than return to ZA which caused me endless grief.

Jeff

PS. Couldn’t agree more about “brand wars” and avoiding them if at all possible.

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I’ve got high hopes too, Jeff – I really liked the product. SInce the development team is aware of it I fully expect that they will address it. I just hope they don’t decide to mimic the ZA interface, which is WAY too busy and confusing!

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and we just had a thread going in Software Finds and Wants that got locked for that reason

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[/indent] You Rang, Sire!

Cyberdance is Kool! I think she’s feelin’ better about her computer situation. I think we should offer her an “Attagirl” on her revised sig. Very appropo, Cyberdance!

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Hi
Just in case anyone thinks I’m at all biased in favour of AVG, I have to mention a bug which I reported to Grisoft. If you happen to use an NTFS partition, and you have encrypted anything on it, AVG locks up solid when it comes to it. And I mean solid. No escape, no Ctrl-Alt-Del. Clearly this is an urgent problem they need to address, and they tell me htey’re on it even now.
Rgds

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Hi Mark, Point noted and understood. I can see how brand wars could easily become a problem, I would hate to cause another discussion to be locked. Thanks to this forum I have learned much about online security and protection, this information has not only been useful and informative but made me look at areas I had not considered. Now having done so I am comfortable relating to this topic and thank everyone for their input and help.

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Jeff, thank you very much for the feedback, always good to know other people’s experiences with the same product. Ditto exactly on the interception comment, have seen the same pickup and prevention many times on my machines. Feeling much more confident now.

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Yeah, the Bat is a cool little tool. Small memory footprint, and some interesting innovations (I like that you have a separate pane with the original message, so you can easily refer to it when making a reply). Odd that they would choose to support this smaller user base, but I like that they are. If you want to read more about the Bat, go here: http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/reviews/618/2/%5B/url%5D

Why do I get the feeling that a certain person named Al is going to download this and tell us what he thinks?

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Nah, this time I gotcha, Mark! As much anguish and trauma as I went through trying to convert my years-old Netscape mail habit to the ever popular Eudora, I think I’ll pass. The last thing on my computer that I ever have trouble with is mail, so I’m gonna leave well enough alone.. Funny this Bat software hasn’t popped up before.

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Thanks for that link. The ‘stink’ arose because CNet had done a review in which they used various pseudovirii. NOD 32 can tell a pseudovirus from the real thing, so did not pick then up. As far as I know, the only pseudovirus it will react to is the EICAR test. The Virus Bulletin and ICSA certification tell the true story as to what is good and not so good, and both indicate that NOD32 is as strong as any product anyhwere. ESET cried foul – very loudly – as you will see if you visit http://www.eset.com[/url%5D.

It is good to see that CNet have retracted – quite right too!

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Re MailWasher: It’s the greatest! I just love marking those e-mails “blacklisted” and watching them disappear. Yahoo! (no pun intended). It’s nice not to get all that garbage and smut arriving in my Outlook inbox. Support is topnotch (I had a few questions re functions when I first started using it back in April of this year and the response was within a day!)

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I agree. I was pleasantly surprised today when it even spotted a virus-carrying email and flagged it virus.

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Well, I am very glad but actually jealous that eveyone is experiencing smooth sailing with MailWasher. I have, though, been fruitful on my blitzkrieg campaign to squash the unsolicited filth I was getting. In the short amount of time since I was pitching a hissy-fit, my well targeted campaign has brought the spam from 100-200 a day to – hold on to your hat – zero. I don’t beleive it either, but I am just counting my lucky stars!

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Is this thread about Auntie Virus software or about Auntie Spam software?

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How ’bout Auntie Maime?

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Hey, was that a I saw there?

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