Grisoft’s AVG (5/5)
Their freeware is basic antivirus, antispyware and anti rootkit. Not bad at all. After testing other products on several occasions,... time and again, I come back to this product. It deserves a 5/5 because it’s the best you can get for free these days.

Free Avast Home (4/5)
The free version of this Alwil software. Do not forget to register online to get the license key. This software is mildly resources friendly. Good enough for any user, even for a heavy user like Nondisputandum. It finds 99% of known virussen and gives fairly little false positives. Free Avast lost it’s (5/5) reward because it missed a trojan on my system in 2006 that AntiVir found. And lost another half point when it started blocking internet up- & downloads in 2008. But has a lot of potential.

AntiVir Personal (4/5)
The most resources friendly free antivirus that works as well on demand as on access and contains a heuristic module to find a balance between false positive and false negative results. Runs on all Win95-up systems. It also searches for dialers, malwares & backdoors what makes it a superb choice. While scanning, it calles the action “Luke Filewalker”. Not only a free lightweight anti-virus solution. It also searches for malwares & backdoors. Learn how to set-up the automatic update function. The only reason why I removed it is because of the daily harassing giant pop-up screens. They exaggerate. basta.

PCTools Antivirus (4/5)
Perhaps they have less history as virus killers, but their other software is in the “not bad” category. So if you want to try something else? It’s “set up and run” software for those who want no questions asked, just cleaned. They have a payware version that is similar but offers a faster definition download. Oh,.. and they also have a Mac antivirus tool. Good for some more respect.

Comodo antivirus (/)
Not impressed yet. Offers constant protection, heuristic analysis, host intrusion detection, daily automatic updates. Like their anti-spyware, no big deal yet.

Clamwin Free Antivirus (/)
This is a free open source virusscanner that uses the Clam AntiVirus Engine. It is a good tool for a second scan and can imho be installed with any other virus scanner as long as you don’t run ‘em both at the same time. (Yes this is controversial to do so.) It scans really slow, what is the downside of this tool and does not recognize older virusses as it is kept up to date by volunteers. It can be set to update automatically, weekly, dayly and even hourly. It it kept up to date by many freelancers. Obviously...
When you use it as a second scanner, you might choose not to install the Integration with Windows and the Integration with Outlook components to avoid conflicts with your primary scanner, though on Nondisputandums machine, it runs smoothly alongside the primary scanner. But do choose the option to install a desktop icon ;-), might come in handy. Once installed, you can select a drive, folder or file to be scanned. I would not trust it as a first scanner. Not yet.

Remember the 3 lines of defense.

Pandasoftware (4.5/5) (payware):
Yes,.. Panda is payware, but one of the best solutions. It has a very good FIREWALL and a really good ANTIVIRUS killer that is daily updated. Panda is stable and, even on an older computer with little resources, it runs smoothly in the background. When you get infected by a virus that Panda does not know yet, they guarantee a solution within the coming hours. These are no bogus words. Panda has been tested time & again. They also offer is a good local support. (addresses)
If you want additional protection against spyware & stuff. Panda has it in a suite with Platinum.

Symantec (4.5/5) (payware):
Good old Norton.
Norton is in no way inferior to Pandasoftware. But Norton shows to use more resources than it’s opponent Panda for a similar job. So forget about running Norton on a low-end PC. During the entire year 2004, I used Norton security suite on a beeped-up but stable P4 3.6 GHz HT running a fully patched WinXP Pro with 2 GB Ram on a 960 MHz clocking Asus Motherboard. I finally removed Norton in 2005 ‘cos it slowed down the performance of this system, specially while using Outlook. A pity ‘cos I really like the overall power of the Symantec tools. Theoretically, Symantec offers the very best combination of security & maintenance tools available. What does not mean that there are no individually better (free) tools around.

AntiVirusKit Professional
(4.5/5) (payware)
Combines the virus-engines of Kaspersky and Bitdefender and is the overall best protection against virusses. It makes almost no false positives but runs rather slow while scanning.

If you can identify an infected file send it to:
Virus Total (5/5)
They promptly check any individual file with 11 major antivirus tools. It than offers an overview of the results found by the virus scanners. Remind that it takes the time to flush the file through your internet connection. It does not clean the file but only diagnoses.

(5/5).

Virus entry points (4/5) (Panda)

Types of viruses (4/5) (Panda)

Transmission & camouflage (4/5) (Panda)

Kaspersky Virus List (4.5/5)

Trend Encyclopedia (4/5)

Vmyths (4/5)

Wildlist (4.5/5)

Spohos Virus List (4/5)

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions & HTML offer the possibility do do more than read ASCII text,... but also allows worms to enter your system. Find more info on:
ms technet (4/5) (info)
securityfocus (4/5) (newsletter)

www.slipstick.com (4/5)

E-mail Security Test
(4.5/5)
Thinking that you are 100% safe against E-mail passing viruses? Try this battery of tests to find out... and just don’t be scared if having a virus and malware protection is simply not enough.
Among these is the Eicar test fake virus... so your antivirus should detect this fake virus.

Prevx Home: (evaluating):
Virus (and spyware) prevention on the fly by monitoring the memory, file and registry activity to avoid a zero day attack. It avoids hackers running exploit code on your computer. It also checks during install additional security setting.
<tomasito> It is a little tedious to get registered, have to give your E-mail and then respond to their E-mail, and the first couple of days there were a lot of alerts as various programs started up.  It's a little slow when you first turn on the PC, but after all the startup programs are running you won't notice it. Prevx-Home prevents anything from installing, uses no virus database, and suggests you check for program updates periodically. </tomasito>
Download.com review.
Nondisputandum says:
I would not install this along with Spybot’s Teatimer or Scotty the watchdog as both monitor the registry. They simply DO NOT work together well.

Panda: (4/5)
(Only Internet Explorer)
Besides the fact that you NEED IE,.. you also need to give an active mailaddress and allow ActiveX control. And you better deactiviate your actual virusscanner during the online scan...

Kaspersky (4/5)
(Online scan - Files up to 1 MB)

Bitdefender (4/5)
(Online scan)

RAV (4/5)
(Online scan)

Trend Micro (4/5)
(Online scan)

Asking for help after a system totally locked-up as soon as Windows had loaded. My first reaction was: Hey, that’s what Windows is for,.. . but than I got explained by my correspondent that she installed a new antivirus... what was a good idea after her outdated antivirus software had not been updated for ages. She choose free Avast.

What went wrong?
She did not de-install the antivirus that was still running on her system. So, both antivirus killers were constantly under friendly fire. Now the same advice goes for installing a new software firewall and some other resident tools.

Elementary:
It seems obvious but when you choose a new antivirus or firewall, first go to safe modus (continue to press F8 during startup), than remove the old antivirus first and fully clean up your system and registry before you install a new antivirus of firewall. And make a system recovery point before you install new software.
(Carl)

The moral of this story:
57 infected files were removed after the first scan with Avast. So,... don’t think that you are more or less safe with an outdated antivirus killer,.. you are not! And don’t wait to get a fully updated scanner,.. do it NOW!

ITsafe.gov.uk (5/5)
Stay informed about the latest virusses & security menaces. The government of the United Kingdom has taken its fight against online viruses to the front lines with a new Web site called ITsafe, designed to send rapid security alerts to home and small-business computer users. The free service will be run by the National Infrastructure Security Coordination Center (NISCC). Along with alerts, it offers advice on protecting personal data on both home and work computers.

Sign up for the ITsafe News, the bulletin AND the bulletin Alerts. NOT the TEXT messages, unless you live in the UK.

• ITsafe bulletins
• ITsafe Advisories
• NISCC