Antivirus (AV) is a term applied to either a single program or a collection of programs that serve to protect a computer system from viruses. The main component of an antivirus solution is the scanning engine (for an on-screen example, see here). The intricate details of each engine vary, but all share the basic responsibility of identifying virus-laden files using virus signature files: a unique string of bytes that identifies the virus like a fingerprint. They view patterns in the data and compare them to traits of known viruses captured in the wild to determine if a file is infected, and in most cases are able to strip the infection from files, leaving them undamaged. When repairs aren't possible, antivirus programs will quarantine the file to prevent accidental infection, or can be set up to delete the file immediately.

In the case of new viruses for which no antidote has been created, some engines also use heuristic scanning. This allows the AV programs to flag suspicious data structures or unusual virus-like activity even when there is no matching virus definition. If the program sees any funny business, it quarantines the questionable program and broadcasts a warning to you about what the program may be trying to do (such as modify your Windows Registry). The accuracy of such methods is much lower however, and often a program with this running may err on the side of caution. This can result in confusing false positive results.

If you and the software think the program may be a virus, you can send the quarantined file to the antivirus vendor, where researchers examine it, determine its signature, name and catalog it, and release its antidote. It's now a known virus.


What does AV software protect me from?

The levels of protection vary according to the age of the antivirus product. Newer products include automatic update functions, scheduled scans, memory resident protection and integration with Internet applications such as e-mail clients and Web browsers. Older antivirus products may only consist of a scanner that needs to be manually operated. All virus scanners will protect your PC from viruses if used correctly to regularly scan the hard disks, removable media (such as USB drives, Firewire devices, floppy or Zip disks) as they are loaded into the PC, or any downloaded files prior to use. (Note: If you use a USB key from an infected computer on your PC, that does not mean you will get the virus too. However, you will if you run the infected applications from the USB drive.)

Where the new products shine is in their ability to protect PCs even when the owners aren't as careful as they should be. They include automatic removable media scanning options, helpful reminders when the virus definitions are dangerously out of date (see example here) and integration with existing Internet browsers and email applications. Some even automatically scan common file-dumping grounds like the desktop, ensuring that even if other measures aren't configured they still get to scan files before anything untoward happens.

At a minimum, you should be able to expect protection from boot-sector viruses, macro viruses, Trojans, executable files with viruses and worms. With new products you should also expect to find protection from malicious Web pages, scripts, ActiveX controls, Java applets and e-mail worms. Look for products with spyware support for additional protection.


Differences between AV solutions

Fundamentally, all antivirus packages do the same thing - they keep your computer virus-free by scanning and cleaning files. Many of them even share the same integral scanning engine to identify viruses. The main differences come in the polish of the graphical user interface (GUI), the number of add-on functions (e-mail scanners, scheduled automatic updates, heuristic scanning, antispyware etc.) and in the speed and accuracy of the product.



The usability of an antivirus program is essential for its ongoing success. If the pop-ups aren't friendly, then they'll quickly be disabled in options. If the system tray program is unstable, it will be switched off and unless the updates are quick and easy, they'll get neglected. Make certain the GUI works for you before you buy, and check with other people for their opinions on the stability of the products they have used. A memory-resident scanner with just a few nasty bugs in it for example, can cause all kinds of problems with using and copying files or just keeping your system stable.

Some antivirus vendors are now bundling their antivirus products with personal firewalls and Web filters to create "Security Suites", but they aren't necessary to just keep a system virus-free. Check that the extra features one product has over another are actually something you'll use as opposed to a neat marketing gimmick.

As for the speed and accuracy comparison, there are big differences between the vendors.

Why would I want a personal firewall included?

Any computer connected to a broadband link without a firewall of some kind is almost certainly infected. Recent research has shown an average time of around eight minutes from connection to the Internet to being infected by worms for unprotected and unpatched Windows XP systems. Many commercial antivirus products can be purchased bundled with personal firewall products that filter the computer's Internet traffic and reject attacks. In the case of Norton AntiVirus 2005 a cut-down version of their personal firewall software is installed by default with a set of definitions for repelling worm attacks.

BitDefender Internet Security 10

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BitDefender has always been good value for money, and it’s clear from the outset that Internet Security 10 continues the trend. A single licence allows installation on two separate machines and runs for two years. This works out to $30 per machine, per year, which means considerable savings over competing products. You can also knock another $16 off the cost by opting not to download the bootable rescue CD, which uses a Linux installation and brings the ability to analyse, repair or disinfect a system. But money isn’t everything, especially when it comes to security.

Stepping up to meet the latest challenges, BitDefender now ships with a rootkit detector, which scans your computer for hidden dangers before installing the security suite itself. Once installed, a predefined rule set for the firewall component means there are far fewer annoying pop-ups to deal with: the firewall doesn’t keep asking if you really want to allow an application access. It doesn’t cover everything, but it does cut down dramatically on initial configuration time.

Unfortunately, we were troubled by the need to keep running the Network Profile Configuration wizard. This appears to be connected to BitDefender upgrades, and at one point we were asked to configure the network, reboot and upon rebooting configure it again. Such interruptions are a major flaw and go against the move towards silent running within the firewall industry.

We were more impressed by the firewall itself, beefed up by the tweaking of the old HiVE (Heuristics in Virtual Environment) system, which has become B-HAVE (Behavioural Heuristic Analyzer in Virtual Environments). More than just a different acronym, the proactive detection system creates a virtual computer environment within which suspect processes are executed safely to check for potential malware where signatures have not yet been released.

Virus protection is equally impressive, covering all bases including peer-to-peer and Instant Message applications, with no extra configuration required to protect key areas, such as incoming and outgoing email. With an ability to filter Web traffic in realtime, and a new privacy guard to monitor all HTTP and SMTP traffic leaving your computer, it’s also possible to add user-defined strings such as password fragments to prevent them being intercepted. Happily, BitDefender sailed through our firewall and virus testing procedures.

The same can’t be said for the anti-spam or anti-spyware components. Despite the seven filters to refine email anti-spam controls, and the adaptive engines to respond to new spamming techniques, we were less than impressed. The false-positive rate remained too high at seven percent after a week of training. Compared to even Outlook’s spam filter, or the third-party service from Cloudmark, there’s no comparison. Equally, when it comes to spyware protection, we’d advise sticking with Spy Sweeper. BitDefender does have the rootkit detector module, which worked well, but keylogger detection was less polished, and it failed to identify, remove or block any of the threats during our test runs.

Parental controls, however, have been improved by adding heuristic classification and blocking of inappropriate Web content and email, with keyword filtering as a secondary filtration layer. Predefined profiles based on user age can be used, as can a time-interval-based access blocking system. Finally, it’s possible to limit access to specific application types such as games or IM software – an impressive showing.

Thanks to hourly updates, the typical update volume is only about 100Kb, so it flies by without much impact. But the same can’t be said of application start-up times: with BitDefender installed, you’ll see a slowdown in how long it takes for your day-to-day applications to execute. Firefox, for example, took over twice as long to get started.

So, while BitDefender has moved on, it still feels like a work in progress when compared to the market-leading security suites, with ZoneAlarm’s Internet Security Suite 2006 as the leading choice.

AVG 7.5 Anti Virus Review

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With the release of Vista and the new version of AVG (from Grisoft) in the last couple of months, I thought it would be a good idea to give a quick up on the first review done on AVG to give you an date on the changes of AVG . As we have reviewed AVG previously, we won’t redo that here. I just wanted to point out some of the cooler features of an already cool product.
Works with Vista
One of the biggest disappointments in version 7.1 was the incompatibility with Vista. Some versions would not even install and others just plain did not work well. AVG 7.5 is completely compatible with Vista.I have been running it the last three months and have had no issues at all.

Anti Spyware/Spam/Malware
AVG seemed to get a little bit of a bad reputation from many security vendors specifying that it did not come with anti spam and spyware protection. Grisoft has released AVG Internet Security, which is a full featured security suite. The product includes a firewall, Antivirus, Anti Spyware and Anti Spam utilities. The product still has a minimal footprint which appeals greatly to me in the world of bloatware. You should also be aware that if you are running Vista you have Anti spyware and a fully fledged firewall built in (Defender and Windows Firewall). As of this writing the AVG Internet Security is not fully compatible with Vista, so be careful when deciding to purchase.

Heuristics
Although I have never had any issues with AVG failing to catch a virus, it can happen. Grisoft decided to overhaul the heuristics engine with version 7.5. Heuristic detection is the mechanism by which the product decides whether or not a program is a virus by observing the characteristics of the program and comparing it to known viruses. Grisoft now uses a better algorithm and NTFS data stream scanning. NTFS Alternate data streams (ADS) were a sneaky way for ne’er do gooders to hide code in a legitimate programs right under the operating systems nose. ADS allow a hacker to hide executable code in a text file for instance. It literally takes 2 lines of code to enable it. AVG now scans for these ADS and attempts to detect exactly what is in each. The process may make the scan a little longer, but it is giving a much deeper level of protection.
Still Free
When January was rolling around, many users of the free version were disappointed as the nag message they received from version 7.1 made it seem that you had to pay for the new 7.5 version. A bit of creative advertising and a desire to be paid for their product prompted Grisoft to make it look like the free version would be discontinued. It is in fact up and running and fully functional. You just have to hunt a bit for it. Free version this way :).
Conclusion
AVG is still a superb product. The user reviews seem to speak for themselves. AVG recently attained the West Coast Labs certification also. If you are looking for a reliable product, then version 7.5 is it.

Norton AntiVirus 2007 Review

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Norton AntiVirus has been around for years and there's a good chance you've used it at some point. Symantec is the market leader worldwide, closely followed by McAfee. You'd think such a popular product would be astoundingly good at detecting viruses. However, in previous tests we've found its detection abilities to be patchy. Our latest tests are more stringent than ever before and the results are nothing less than shocking.

Norton AntiVirus only detected 75 per cent of the email viruses that we downloaded to the target system. This is the same number as its rival McAfee, but far fewer than lesser-known brands such as Kaspersky, F-Secure and Panda.

For the number one anti-virus program in the world to detect only three-quarters of a sample of real, current viruses is scandalous.

The web-based threat test was nearly as disheartening. Norton AntiVirus detected 28 per cent of the files, making it more accurate than McAfee VirusScan but significantly less effective than most of its competitors. When a free anti-virus utility detects nearly twice as many you know that something is very wrong.

Symantec has changed the look and feel of Norton AntiVirus. We preferred the old interface to the new one, which feels a bit like navigating a webpage using hyperlinks rather than a regular program with buttons. It's not a real problem, though, and it is possible to view all the important settings from one place.

Norton AntiVirus's results are almost exactly average in this labs test, although they are much lower than the best on offer. If you are happy to have a basic level of protection then this program will do the job, but it's worth remembering that you are going to pay for the privilege. The full, official price of £40 can be reduced to £27 if you buy from Amazon.co.uk, but we'd rather pay even less for Steganos and get much better protection into the bargain.

BullGuard 7

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BullGuard 7 is an internet security suite that combines anti-virus and spyware protection with a firewall, anti-spam software and an online backup service. We have tested its ability to detect viruses and spyware. The whole package is bundled into a single interface that feels cramped at times. Last year, we reviewed version 6.1 and criticised it for poor virus detection. Is this latest version, which uses BitDefender's anti-virus engine, an improvement?

In a word, yes. BullGuard detected 73 per cent of our email viruses and 31 per cent of the web-based threats. As you might expect, this is virtually identical to BitDefender's results. This detection rate is almost exactly average compared to the other systems here. This might sound underwhelming, but the previous version of BullGuard performed much worse.

Now BullGuard is snapping at the heels of McAfee and Symantec and actually beats the products from both of these market leaders when it comes to web-based threats. It detected fractionally fewer email viruses than both, but twice as many web-based threats as McAfee VirusScan.

If you think that, at £35, BullGuard 7 looks expensive compared to some of the others, remember it is a complete internet security suite and that the prices we have printed for McAfee VirusScan Plus and Norton AntiVirus are great deals from Amazon.co.uk. If you buy either product from their official websites, you are looking at £40 for each. Norton AntiVirus doesn't even include a fully featured firewall.

The BullGuard package also includes a support service that covers more than just product support. Licensed users of the software can ask just about any computer security-related question and hope for an answer within the hour.

The renewal cost of £30 is a bit steep, but overall this is a good security bundle that includes everything you need to keep a Windows PC secure at a reasonable price.

Steganos AntiVirus 2007 Review

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No, we haven't made a mistake with the screenshot to the left. Steganos AntiVirus 2007 is exactly the same software as Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 with some very minor cosmetic changes. This means that customers can buy the very latest version of the most accurate anti-virus software we've seen at a reduced price of �20. That is a bargain.

Despite the fact that both Kaspersky and Steganos products were updated with the latest virus definitions at the same time for our tests, there was a slight difference in their detection rates. The difference is so small as to be negligible, but it's still an interesting anomaly. Steganos missed one email virus that Kaspersky caught, and ignored five of the web threats.

Overall, though, the twins' email detection rate of 90 per cent beats every other product tested here, and absolutely thrashes better-known brands such as McAfee and Norton. The web-based threat detection was also significantly better than the market leaders and was rivalled only by F-Secure Anti-Virus, NOD32 and AVG. It found 45 per cent of the spyware and similar files.

There are a couple of security features that are not enabled by default. These include Application Integrity Control and Registry Guard. The former monitors critical parts of the operating system and can warn you if some malicious code tries to change them. The Registry Guard intercepts attempts to change the Windows Registry.

The program is easy to use, has all the features highlighted in the Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 review on page 127 and its annual renewal price of �12 is hard to beat. Add to this its impressive virus-detection rates, and choosing an anti-virus program to run on a home PC becomes an easy task. You'd be mad to ignore this deal.

Panda software Antivirus 2007 review

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Panda's anti-virus software often receives good reviews because it has a friendly interface and it lacks the complicated settings of some of its rivals. However, for some time now we have been giving Panda Antivirus a hard time. We have been criticising it for failing to detect many of the samples we've thrown at it, and for being rather expensive. Specifically, Panda Antivirus has had problems detecting Trojans. We didn't really have high hopes for this latest version, either. Having said all that, our test results were surprising.

Well, we were sort of surprised. Our web-based threat test demonstrated once more that Panda Antivirus's ability to detect Trojans and similar files is not the best. In fact, it was the worst by miles, and detected only 11 per cent of the files. If you already use this software then we strongly recommend that you invest in a good anti-spyware program to protect you from web-based malicious files.

However, the biggest surprise for us was that, despite its poor spyware and Trojan detection, Panda Antivirus did incredibly well in the email virus test, picking up 89 per cent of the files. This is comparable with the accuracy displayed by Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Steganos AntiVirus, and is far better than the rest of the competition.

Panda Antivirus is reasonably priced, particularly when you consider that the cost includes a licence to install it on two PCs. The fact that its email virus detection rate is so high means that it is worth considering, particularly if you have already paid for a good anti-spyware utility such as AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5 (formerly known as ewido) to look after the spyware side of things. Panda really needs to improve this area of its software before we can recommend it, though.

McAfee VirusScan Plus 2007 review

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We've been testing McAfee anti-virus software for years and, for a long time, VirusScan has looked much the same, save for a change of interface colour. However, the software has now been completely redesigned. It is much simpler to use and we're glad to see an end to the awkward registration system that plagued the earlier versions. It's slightly more expensive than it used to be, but currently you can buy it at half price from Amazon.co.uk. It includes anti-spyware protection and also comes with a firewall, which is a bonus.

It is no longer possible to buy a plain anti-virus program from McAfee. VirusScan Plus is the closest you can get, but you don't have to use the firewall. If you have another firewall that you prefer, you can choose to exclude McAfee's during the installation procedure.

The email virus detection rate of this software was, in our tests, average. It found 75 per cent of the viruses, which is a little worrying considering that this is one of the world's market-leading anti-virus products. What makes us even more concerned is that VirusScan's spyware protection was one of the least accurate in this group of products. It found just 16 per cent of the web-based threats. Only Panda Antivirus did worse and AVG, which is free, found over three times as many bad files.

Even with a reduced price of £20, McAfee's latest anti-virus program failed to impress us. Steganos costs the same and detects lots more viruses. If, for some reason, you are only willing to install a brand of security software that you recognise, bear in mind that Norton AntiVirus found nearly twice as many web-based threats as VirusScan. Neither is particularly good value for money, though, and we'd advise anyone who uses these products to consider a more accurate and less expensive alternative when it is time to renew the software's license.

Microsoft Windows Live OneCare review

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When we first reviewed Windows Live OneCare in What's New: Software, Shopper June 2007, we were disappointed by its ability to detect viruses and spyware. Compared with the fully featured anti-virus software we've seen, its results were poor. However, in this round-up of software it is one of the strongest contenders. This shows that, in some respects, an anti-virus or anti-spyware program is only as good as its last set of updates.

The program detected most of the spyware as it was downloaded, and it picked up a few more files when we ran a manual scan afterwards. There is more to Windows Live OneCare than anti-spyware and anti-virus detection, though. The firewall included in the package is superior to the one that comes with Windows as standard, and it also provides a marginally better backup program.

Windows Live OneCare's interface is quite basic, and there are few settings to play with. This is partly because it integrates closely with Windows itself. For example, it uses the Windows Updates service to download virus and spyware updates. You can also check for updates manually.

Getting hold of this program involves creating a Microsoft Windows Live ID, which you'll already have if you use Hotmail, buying a code from Microsoft, downloading the software and then activating it. You can use the software as part of a 90-day free trial first.

The price of this product seems high, but bear in mind that this includes a licence to install it on three PCs at once. At around £13 per PC, this is reasonably good value, and our tests show that the anti-spyware part of the program is more effective than Spy Sweeper, Spyware Doctor and CounterSpy, all of which cost more to run per system. We'd still rather spend a little more and get better protection from Steganos AntiVirus 2007, though.

Eset NOD32 2.7 review

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We always get a sense of deja vu when testing NOD32. The unusual interface of past versions remains and it won't appeal to everyone, but that's certainly not the most important factor when choosing an anti-virus program. The version we tested was for Windows 2000, XP and Vista; there is also a version for older operating systems from Windows 95 up to Me. You can even get a version for MS-DOS.

The program uses a modular approach, with different windows available to change settings for the email, document, real-time and on-demand scanners. It supports scheduled scans and there are tons of settings to play with. This will be of more interest to serious hobbyists than regular users who just want to install a program and leave it to run in the background.

The ability to create and switch between profiles is a nice touch. This lets you make changes to settings and apply them quickly and easily. You could load strict settings for times when you believe your PC is most at risk and choose a more relaxed profile when the emergency is over.

The last time we tested NOD32, it impressed us with its accuracy and, in our latest and most comprehensive tests, it holds on to its position as one of the front-runners. It detected 76 per cent of the email viruses and 46 per cent of the web-based threats. This means that its email virus detection is in the top five, just beating the Norton and McAfee products. It is also one of the better programs for detecting spyware and similar files, and is just beaten by Kaspersky and Steganos. NOD32's results are virtually identical to those of F-Secure Anti-Virus, which costs £5 more. NOD32 put less strain on our test system than F-Secure's product did.

NOD32 is a serious contender to win this anti-virus group test. However, we cannot ignore the fact that Steganos not only detects more email viruses but costs significantly less to buy and renew.

Webroot Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus 5.3 review

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Spy Sweeper is one of an increasing number of anti-spyware utilities to provide real-time protection. This means that the moment some recognisable spyware is saved on the system it kicks into action and removes it, optionally saving it into a quarantine area.

The program uses a protection system that consists of different modules, known as Shields. Different parts of the program track things such as Internet Explorer's settings, important Windows files, files sent over instant messaging services and the programs that load automatically when Windows starts up.

The program can scan a PC for spyware using different options. A full scan can take a long time, but is the most effective way to clean infected PCs. The Quick Sweep option runs faster but checks fewer areas, and you can also set up a Custom Sweep, which is useful if you know what you are doing and are suspicious about certain files.

The version of Spy Sweeper we tested includes anti-virus protection by Sophos. This company makes anti-virus software for businesses; this is the first time we've seen it in a consumer product. At £30, we hoped that this program would give other anti-virus programs (most of which include anti-spyware protection as standard) a run for their money. Sadly, it allowed half of the web-based threats to download to our hard disk, though it detected and blocked the other half. Manually scanning the files that got through improved the situation slightly - it detected just over half of the spyware we downloaded.

In an effort to prove that this program could handle real-time infections, we ran a few of the downloaded files. However, the program became corrupted by one of the bad programs. Although you are unlikely to encounter such a wide and undiluted mix of spyware in one afternoon, in this test the bad guys won.

Sunbelt Software CounterSpy 2

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CounterSpy impressed us so much when we reviewed it for the first time in Shopper October 2006 that we gave it a Best Buy award. This latest version has seen some cosmetic changes in the interface, but it's nice to see that the range of privacy utilities is still included, such as the History Cleaner and Secure File Eraser. It can also scan your system to check for unsuitable security settings, advising changes when it finds them.

By default, it locks certain settings, which are often the target of spyware. For example, spyware may attempt to change your web browser's default homepage, but CounterSpy monitors this and prevents unauthorised changes. Different security levels are available, from Trusting up to Paranoid. You can customise these, too.

We expected great things of this program's spyware detection. However, since the last time we tested it, we have upgraded our tests, making them tougher and more extensive. This shows in the results. CounterSpy failed to detect a single piece of spyware during the download phase of the test, although running a manual scan identified over 60 per cent of the bad files. It caught a few more pieces of spyware after we attempted to run them. This is a little disappointing, although it still puts this product ahead of rivals including Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor. When it detects a spyware infection it offers to create a Windows Restore Point, which is helpful.

This is one of the least expensive products available, so if you had to choose a dedicated, commercial anti-spyware program, this would be on our shortlist. It's currently available with a 50 per cent discount if you upgrade from a competing product. AVG Anti-Spyware Free was more effective, though, and has the advantage of costing nothing. Steganos AntiVirus 2007 is £7 more than CounterSpy but provides better anti-spyware protection, as well as more general anti-virus defences.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 review

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Kaspersky Anti-Virus combines a straightforward interface with slick reporting, advanced settings and accurate threat detection. It is the only program reviewed here, with the exception of the identical Steganos AntiVirus, that lets you create a bootable CD complete with virus scanner and the latest updates. This is invaluable should you need to attempt to recover a heavily infected PC.

Family-friendly features include a password-protection option to prevent others turning off protection, and there is an email notification system so you can get messages from other people's PCs should they encounter a virus. The Update system can be used manually or automatically. Kaspersky provides frequent, large updates so turning this to manual is handy if you are using the internet over slow and expensive connections such as GPRS.

In our previous anti-virus tests, Kaspersky's products, or those with Kaspersky technology at their heart, stood out as being able to detect all our samples accurately. Previously, these have included home-spun hostile scripts and disguised Trojans. We expected great things of this program, and we weren't disappointed.

Not only was it the most accurate here for detecting email viruses but it was nearly the most accurate at finding spyware, where it was just beaten by AVG. It found 91 per cent of email viruses and 48 per cent of web-based threats, giving an average detection rate of 73 per cent, head and shoulders abovethe competition. Norton AntiVirus averaged 55 per cent and McAfee VirusScan 50 per cent.

It doesn't cost the earth, either, so we would be more than happy to shell out and install it on our personal systems. There is only one thing stopping us from giving Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 our top award, and that is the fact that you can buy precisely the same software, albeit with a different logo, from Steganos for £8 less.

Alwil Avast! 4.7 Home Edition review

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Alwil's free anti-virus software now supports Windows Vista, putting it in the minority of current anti-virus programs for use at home. It comes with a choice of interfaces, including a media player-style default and a more conventional set of windows for changing the program's settings. Skins are available to customise its appearance. Upgrading to the professional version adds an 'enhanced interface' along with other features. The Pro version costs around £25, and you must pay this to use the software commercially rather than for home use.

Avast! 4.7 Home Edition has lots of settings compared to Grisoft's free AVG anti-virus software, so it seem an attractive option. It also has a so-called Virus Recovery Database to help repair infected program files. Avast! users may find this last feature particularly useful.

When we last tested Avast! we used version 4.6. We were concerned about its poor virus detection, which was the worst we've seen. We'd hoped that the latest version would be much improved. Sadly, Avast! 4.7 Home Edition again came last, detecting just 60 per cent of the email viruses. It beat three other programs in the web-based threat test, finding 22 per cent of the infected files, twice as many as Panda Antivirus. However, this is still below the average and well below the 40 per cent and higher figures the leading products were able to achieve. To be fair, Alwil does not explicitly claim that Avast! detects spyware, although it implies so on its website, where it highlights the increasing threat of spyware and discusses Avast!'s web filter.

It might be free and have a snazzy interface, but we require that our anti-virus software detects lots of threats, and Avast! doesn't cut it. If you want to install a free anti-virus program, AVG is better. However, we think anti-virus software is one area where you really have to spend money rather than relying on freebies.

Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2007 review

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PC-cillin is one of the most popular anti-virus programs in the world, although it is much more so in Japan than in Europe. It's worth mentioning this fact because an anti-virus product that is used by so many people really ought to be good at its job. Failing to be effective will mean that the millions of PCs on which it is installed will be vulnerable to all kinds of viruses that will then spread to other computers.

The PC-cillin virus scanner is part of an internet security suite that contains a good anti-spam scanner and a firewall as well as some privacy tools. If you think that the price looks a little heavy, you should bear in mind that the licence allows the software to be installed on three PCs. You can even use one PC to manage the security of the others over the network, and this is a very nice touch.

So far so good, but how did the anti-virus system perform in our tests? Sadly, the answer is: abysmally. With the exception of the free Avast!, PC-cillin was the least accurate product that we tested. It found just 65 per cent of the email viruses it downloaded from our server and a pitiful 16 per cent of the web-based threats. This is an astoundingly poor result for a piece of popular commercial software and it adds further support to our evidence that market leaders don't always provide the best products available.

Because of these dreadful test results, we simply couldn't recommend PC-cillin, even if the anti-spam and firewall elements were brilliant. If you do have three PCs then you can equip each with a copy of Steganos for only slightly more than the cost of this package. You will, of course, still need to fork out for a personal firewall and anti-spam software, but we think that this is a worthwhile expense to bear.

Symantec - Norton Internet Security 2007 review

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Unsurprisingly, just like its main rival, Norton 2007 doesn't contain any major additions since last year's version (although it's taken for granted that you're more likely to see the Pope instigate a radical reformation than you are to witness revolution in the Internet security world).

Internet Security 2007 consists of the essentials that keep your computer protected in these virus- and hacker-ridden times; there's an anti-virus program, of course, plus a firewall and some additional online security measures on top of that.

All of this is tied together by the usual user friendly interface, which provides clear menus and highlights any problems with large red exclamation marks (along with a quick fix button to sort them out). There are some impressive touches such as the security inspector, a one-click button which runs a check-list through various security settings, making sure that the configuration of your Web browser or instant messenger program isn't vulnerable to attack.

The anti-virus arm of the suite keeps itself up to date automatically and Symantec produces new definitions every couple of days. We've used the Symantec definitions on a test PC for the last two years solid, and have always found them very thorough and reliable - they've never let anything slip through the net. Anti-spyware routines and rootkit detection are also incorporated.

The firewall is pretty self-explanatory and easily configured. Again, it's provided comprehensive protection for us over a long period of time, blocking many unsolicited connection attempts.

The online security features consist of privacy protection and anti-phishing measures, which guard against fraudulent sites angling for your personal details. A new toolbar is installed in Internet Explorer which warns the user when a site on Symantec's 'dodgy' list is visited. There's also a button to report sites that aren't black-listed, but are suspect in your opinion.

It's all good so far, but the downside of Norton 2007 is that its security coverage ends here; anti-spam and parental control features are missing this year (and the latter might well make dad think twice about his purchase). Also, other features are lacking compared to McAfee, which offers all that Symantec does but with added extras such as an extensive data backup system.

Norton 2007 is undoubtedly a quality protection suite, plus it's user friendly and runs slickly. But when you consider that this year's McAfee offers more for the same money, then we have to give the nod their way this time around.

Symantec - Norton Internet Security 2007 features - Verdict

This year's Norton is user friendly and the interface is smartly streamlined. The suite offers a solid level of protection for your PC, although its feature set is somewhat limited compared to rivals such as McAfee.

McAfee - Internet Security Suite 2007 review

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Every Autumn you can depend on a number of certainties in life. Leaves will fall. Christmas stuff will start to appear in shops and on the TV. Electronic Arts will bring out the year's crop of sports games. And Symantec and McAfee will release the year's crop of protection suites.

So it's out with 2006 and in with McAfee's latest Internet Security Suite. The main difference with the 2007 version is that the box is now black instead of bright red. Alright, so we're exaggerating, there are some differences in the program as well, but as is often the case with these annual upgrades, the core components remain the same.

For anyone unfamiliar with the suite, those core elements are the virus protection, personal firewall, anti-spam (and anti-phishing e-mail scams) and privacy modules (which protect your identity online and also offer parental controls for surfing). The virus definitions are updated automatically every couple of days; we've used the McAfee definitions for over a year now and have found them thorough and reliable.

We've found the firewall to be similarly reliable as well. A typical month will see it block hundreds of unsolicited connections by possible trojans and other assorted nastiness. All these basic protective modules haven't changed, excepting the fact that the spyware detection routines have been beefed up for 2007.

The major new addition for this incarnation of Internet Security Suite is the data backup system, which facilitates the archiving and backing up of files. You can set the archiving process to happen automatically at specified intervals, and back up to a network or USB drive, or burn to a CD. These backups are compressed and encrypted, and you can select the folders and/or types of files you want covered.

Systemguard protection has also been added to 2007. This monitors your system and will detect any changes made, looking out specifically for things like Active X installations or modifications made to your startup registry keys which might be spyware-related. It's a useful little extra.

A bonus addition - so the back of the box tells us anyway - is the McAfee site advisor, a plug-in which provides safety ratings for Web sites and search engine results to back up the standard Internet Security Suite parental controls.

Finally, the interface has been given a minor overhaul and is slightly more streamlined than the 2006 version. For some reason, however, McAfee has removed the links from the taskbar icon which allow you to turn off the virus and firewall protection quickly. That's a minor annoyance when you need to temporarily switch them off to install a program.

Another unwelcome and slightly more serious change we came across was the fact that Internet Explorer took a second longer to open after we'd installed the program. Presumably this is caused by some monitoring feature, but Internet Security Suite 2006 didn't suffer from this problem. Okay, it's not a huge delay, but it's slightly annoying.

For current McAfee subscribers, the question is: are the added features worth the upgrade fee? And the answer is probably "No." There's nothing too pressing to upgrade for here, unless you would benefit from the new automatic archiving and backup module. The beefed up Systemguard and spyware protection certainly won't hurt, either, and families will benefit from the site advisor when it comes to making surfing safer.

Internet Security Suite 2007 comes thoroughly recommended for first-time buyers, though; it's an excellent suite with a full range of protection, privacy and PC maintenance features.

McAfee - Internet Security Suite 2007 features - Verdict

For upgraders from the 2006 version, there isn't a compelling weight of new content, but the data backup and extra protection features might be worth it for some. New users, however, will find this a thoroughly well-rounded security suite.

F-Secure - Internet Security 2007 review

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In recent years all the big names in Internet security software have added 'all-in-one' products to their ranges. Each new release sees more features being added to these packages (with some exceptions), and the latest 2007 release of F-Secure Internet Security follows that trend.

Last year's incarnation of the program offered core facilities: firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and parental control software. These are now joined by F-Secure's trademarked DeepGuard technology, a process that involves constantly monitoring program activity on the host PC, the aim being to detect and prohibit suspicious program behaviour from code that may have slipped under the fence during real-time monitoring. Personally, we'd rather have a better fence.

The upshot is that after installing the program you can expect constant interruptions to your work for the next few days as warning messages pop up to tell you that such-and-such a program has made a 'system modification attempt', when all it is doing is the job it was designed for. You then have to stop what you're doing to give the offending program the green light, but once placed on the safe list a program can run unhindered, and the warning pop-ups soon cease.

What doesn't cease is a performance penalty that affects everyday operations and makes the host PC slower to boot into Windows. The performance penalty is difficult to quantify and not significant on a fast Core 2 Duo system, but it's irritating on an older PC such as a 2GHz Athlon. Booting into Windows takes 30 seconds longer than when using a stand-alone anti-virus product, and while this doesn't sound like much, it's enough to rankle.

Installing the program is straightforward and the only significant decision to be made is whether to install for adult users only, or for adults and children. Separate browsing regimes are imposed on teenagers and younger children, with teenagers being given relative freedom to browse where they like, subject to content filtering, while younger children are restricted to browsing only those sites placed on a safe list by the parent. Time-locks can be used to bar access to the Internet at certain times of day.

Establishing a list of safe sites for young children needs to be done manually, but the default settings for everything else are fine for most users. The program integrates seamlessly with Outlook and Outlook Express and can be configured to work with other e-mail clients that support e-mail filtering based on header information.

Phishing e-mails are detected and moved to a separate folder, but during our evaluation two genuine e-mails from eBay were incorrectly identified as phishing attempts. Spam detection was much better, with none of 150 test spam messages escaping detection, and very few false positives; a big improvement on the performance of the 2006 version.

The firewall is of the packet-filtering type with stateful packet inspection, intrusion prevention and data leak detection. It can be configured in the usual way to permit specific inbound services to use designated ports.

The real-time anti-virus and spyware detection facilities are excellent, with signatures being kept current by daily automated updates. There is the option of automated rootkit detection (at the expense of speed), and there's a Web traffic scanner that identifies threats such as embedded malware. Supplementing the real-time scanners are the usual on-demand scans for embedded viruses and spyware.

The scanner missed only two of the twenty spyware threats we planted on the hard disk (both key loggers), but this is par for the course and is why it's always better to run spyware scans using several products instead of relying on one. Unfortunately F-Secure Internet Security detected Ad-Aware, another anti-spyware package, on our system and insisted on removing it during installation.

Most of the key settings and controls are just one click away from the main menu, and another nice touch is that the program CD can also be used as a bootable emergency CD to scan - but not repair - any computer.

F-Secure - Internet Security 2007 features - Verdict

Ideal for novice users and for anybody who wants an auto-updating safeguard against all kinds of net nasties. Experienced users might prefer separate products that make fewer demands on system resources, though.

ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 review

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Verdict: A best-of-breed approach to internet security pays off. This flexible and resource-friendly suite returns to the A List.

With this release, Check Point (maker of ZoneAlarm) addresses the most common criticism of any all-in-one security solution: "wouldn't I be better protected by adopting a best-of-breed approach?" Gone is the Computer Associates-driven engine, replaced with Kaspersky Antivirus 6, which we called "hugely impressive". After the initial lengthy check, this remains one of the fastest AV scanners we've seen, and it certainly helps speed up ZoneAlarm while increasing its ability to handle viruses. Improvements include more effective removal capabilities, faster scanning and hourly signature updates.

Although not new to this release, the spam filtering is provided by MailFrontier, which remains a Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express tool - disappointing if you wish to protect additional mail clients. The anti-spam performance is also down slightly from the last version, reflecting the problems with image-based spam included in our current spam zoo. False-positive rates remain low, however, and filtering can be manually tweaked, including an option to more aggressively weight messages with embedded images for removal. The MailSafe protection continues to impress, ensuring suspect attachments are quarantined to prevent infection. It will alert you if more than five messages are sent within a two-second interval by default, although you can configure this to allow for your circumstances.

The firewall is improved significantly. Rootkit and kernel-level threats are all covered, and a new pre-install scan automatically configures common applications on your PC so they'll work without interruption. The OS-level firewall layer, monitoring more than 30 behaviours of every program on your PC, and with the ability to stop (and block) a malicious program from running, continues to impress. The firewall now also features a new Auto-Learn mode, which reduces the number of alerts significantly. After two weeks, this reverts back to the usual ask mode, but by now knows your usage patterns so doesn't need to ask much at all.

Check Point has resisted using Kaspersky's spyware engine, sticking with its own in-house-developed tool. Promising tweaks to provide deeper system scans and more robust removal, our spyware tests bear this out. The site-blocking feature helps, preventing access to known spyware sites. It's also clever enough to block previously installed spyware trying to get online for updates, or to transfer personal data.

Disappointingly, only US-based users get the advanced Identity Protection Center services, covering real-world credit card monitoring in IRC channels, offline credit rating checks and finance application monitoring. UK users are left with the standard myVAULT personal data protection, which flags when your details are about to be transmitted to unauthorised destinations.

But there's ultimately plenty to like, from the very useful three-minute Flash-driven tutorials, to the uninstall icon that appears within the Windows Control Panel, removing all traces of ZoneAlarm. Then there's the yet-to-be- bettered application interface itself.

Unlike some suites, which are cutting back on features to reduce system resource impact, ZoneAlarm remains both feature packed and resource light. There are category-driven parental controls should you need them, IM security built in and even a gaming mode to prevent alerts spoiling your fun. All that's potentially missing are data-shredding and backup tools.

The vocal and helpful online support forums ensure any problems are ironed out quickly, and even on bottom-line value for money it stacks up well. Costing the same as F-Secure Internet Security 2007 for a single licence, only when looking at a three-user pack does ZoneAlarm fall back, costing £10 more. But ZoneAlarm provides more features, a firewall that's almost as quiet as Norton's, and is even more user-friendly than F-Secure.

Bear in mind that the initial release of ZoneAlarm isn't Vista compatible, so check on the current status of that if you're thinking of taking the plunge. But for XP installations, this is clearly the best internet security suite we've seen and, as such, it reclaims its place on the A List.

Panda Internet Security 2007 review

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Verdict: A competent suite delivering good value for money, but it offers only average spyware and spam protection

The Panda interface is much the same as previous incarnations, even down to the misspelled "phising" on one screen. That's a shame, as it could do with an overhaul. Although the system status screen is informative, you can end up with numerous screens on the go if you start drilling down beyond this. Panda has followed the "simple" path in some areas, though - the firewall, for example. While not being as truly silent as Norton's, it's adopted a strictly behavioural-analysis strategy. This does away with the myriad confirmation pop-ups, and didn't block anything we wanted to have access to, nor allow anything malicious to do so.

Unfortunately, if an application is mistakenly blocked for displaying "dangerous behaviour", the only evident solution is to submit it to Panda for clearance. Unlike AVG, the firewall is also difficult to turn off, so much so that we didn't succeed by attacking the Registry, Task Manager or even turning off various services. The firewall also includes a wireless network-intrusion detector, which worked well in our tests, and can even report missing security patches.

The anti-spyware performance was distinctly average - well below the standard of Webroot Spy Sweeper, and lagging behind Norton
and F-Secure as well. TruPrevent comes to the rescue when attempting to infect a clean system, but check this has been installed, as we discovered the "smart install" system won't do so by default if system memory is below 500MB. This provides real-time behavioural protection for emerging threats, and is an essential component of a modern security suite. Although it can be added manually after installation, we'd prefer it was included by default, or the minimum system specs revised accordingly.

Also not installed by default, acceptably so this time, are the parental controls. These work well, although you have to create specific Panda accounts, as it doesn't pick up your Windows user ones. Since filtering is done in the HTML stream, it doesn't matter which browser client is used, but there's no time-limited access option. The spam filtering, like AVG, didn't produce a single false positive during our testing, but was just as poor when it came to letting spam through the defences: 510 (17%) of our spam emails bypassed it. Unlike AVG, diverting spam in Outlook is handled automatically. There's some basic data-privacy control, but no browser-based anti-phishing protection of the kind you'll find with Norton or McAfee suites.

The Panda system footprint is small at 160MB of free space and 128MB of memory. Although not as resource friendly as AVG, it performs much better than either Trend Micro or Norton in this regard, and is on a par with the A-Listed F-Secure. But, despite being good value for money, Panda is more expensive than F-Secure for a three-user licence, and it can't match it in terms of performance.

Avira AntiVir Premium Security Suite review

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Fans of Avira's free AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic antivirus take note: Avira also offers a full security suite. Called Avira AntiVir Premium Security Suite, it includes antivirus, spyware protection, antispam, and a personal firewall. The suite's not free, though, and it isn't as polished as Norton Internet Security or ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, despite the fact that it costs about the same.

The AntiVir engine gets kudos from independent labs for its virus detection. It has received the VB 100% award from Virus Bulletin, and ICSA Labs certifies it for virus detection. It also scored quite well in a recent malware detection roundup by AV-Comparatives, the same roundup that flunkedAPS scans files on access, on demand, or on schedule.

You can schedule any number of different scan types to run daily, weekly, at log-on, or at every so many minutes. The antivirus also scans the incoming POP3 e-mail stream for virus content in messages or attachments. By default, if it finds a virus, it halts the e-mail download and asks you what to do. You'll probably want to change the configuration so that APS simply deletes the virus.

Installing APS on my malware-infested test systems was an exercise in frustration. Its AntiVir Guard module (the real-time protection feature) kept popping up to report a threat and ask me what to do: quarantine, delete, ignore, and so on. But no matter which option I chose, the malware was unaffected, and the pop-up warnings continued unabated. Because the pop-up warnings have the "always on top" attribute, I could hardly get past them to complete the installation. I finally had to start afresh, choosing a custom installation and initially omitting AntiVir Guard. Avira representatives confirmed that AntiVir Guard cannot actually do anything about a threat that's already running in memory. "Because the process or service is active, our on-access scanner can't just delete it." Maybe so, but if it can't do anything, it could at least stop yammering!

With APS (eventually) successfully installed, I ran a complete scan on each of the infested systems. I made sure to check the box telling it to search for rootkits first, since about a third of my samples use rootkit techniques. When the scans finished, I checked to see whether APS had successfully removed the threats—success being defined as removal of all executable elements, even if some data files or Registry keys were left behind. I gave it half-credit if it detected the threat but couldn't fully remove it. On a scale of 0 to 10 it scored 7.0, the same as SuperAntiSpyware. That's decent but not as good as Spy Sweeper or Spyware Doctor, which scored 8.0 and 9.1, respectively, on the same test. I also observed that even when it managed to remove malware, it tended to leave way more than the usual quantity of Registry data and nonexecutable files—sometimes hundreds of keys or files. Avira verified that the product's "main focus is to identify the actual malware and remove the infection" rather than attempt a complete cleanup.

Every time APS found a rootkit, it required an immediate reboot and a new scan, which was a pain. And even with this precaution, it didn't remove all the rootkit samples. I also tested APS against a number of commercial keyloggers, though I give these tests less weight. It detected about half the samples but didn't fully remove any. In fact, several of them were visibly still running. APS scored 3.8 on this test, compared with 7.1 and 7.9, respectively, for Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor.

Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.0 review

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Spyware Doctor 5.0 with AntiVirus is effectively a completely different product from Spyware Doctor 4.0. PC Tools rebuilt its flagship product from the ground up over a period of many months, developing it in parallel with the existing product. This Vista-compatible from-scratch rewrite was designed to deliver a "smaller, faster and supercharged" product. It also displays some of the problems you might expect in a version 1.0.

PC Tools developed the antivirus component entirely in-house. West Coast Labs has already awarded it Checkmark certification for virus detection and removal; ICSA Labs hasn't finished testing it yet. And it will be included in the next round of testing by Virus Bulletin. The virus and spyware scans are completely integrated, so the biggest difference you'll notice is the much longer time required for a full scan. On my standard clean system, a full scan with all options enabled needed 1 hour 15 minutes. That's not what I'd call supercharged. The faster but less-comprehensive IntelliScan component ran in about 15 minutes. Spyware Doctor 4.0 scanned the same system in 7 minutes! Of course, it wasn't trying to scan for viruses too. A better comparison would be Spy Sweeper 5.2 with Anti-Virus at just under 25 minutes or Norton Internet Security 2007 at a bit under 30 minutes. [Note: Representatives from PC Tools were surprised at my report of Intelli-Scan taking 15 minutes. Their tests showed it running in one to two minutes, though they did identify a situation in which turning AV settings to their highest could slow the scan way down. Naturally, they plan to fix that problem ASAP. And in fact, it turned out I had accidentally cranked up the AV settings on my clean test system. When I re-tested with the default settings, Intelli-Scan ran in under two minutes. It really did take fifteen minutes on the malware-infested systems; that didn't change. –njr]

Though I didn't actually measure performance before and after installation, I got the distinct impression that SD5 slowed down my test systems, especially the malware-infested ones. Launching programs from the desktop seemed to take extra long, and IE7 in particular loaded slowly. Of course, these virtual machines have significantly less memory and hard drive space than your average computer, so any performance hits will be exaggerated.

As always, Spyware Doctor employs many layers of security to keep your system free of malicious software. The first line of defense is Site Guard, which blocks access to malicious sites. Site Guard isn't browser-specific—in fact, it blocks access to bad sites even if the program trying to connect isn't a browser. Site Guard would have prevented me from downloading over half of my malware samples, about the same as Spy Sweeper's equivalent Internet Protection Shield. It also derailed the installation of several samples that require Web access for full installation.

There are a bunch of other "OnGuard" layers, too. The new E-mail Guard scans incoming and outgoing mail attachments for spyware and viruses. Startup Guard, Browser Guard and Network Guard block malicious changes to the start-up sequence, your browser, and network settings, respectively. Process Guard halts malicious processes, File Guard prevents access to known malware files, and Keylogger Guard stops keyloggers based on behavior. Taken all together this layered protection should keep out most malware. However, in testing it seemed to me that not all the OnGuard modules were pulling their weight. Process Guard and Keylogger Guard in particular didn't seem to be giving a 100 percent effort to the team, as I found during testing.

I installed SD5 with AV on a clean system and let it get all available updates. Then I threw nineteen malware samples at it, including adware, spyware, Trojan horses, and rogue antispyware products. Impressively, it wiped out fifteen of the malware installers the moment I clicked on them, completely preventing any whiff of installation. The other four managed to launch, but SD5 didn't let them finish installing their malicious payloads. Wow! That's better than SD4 did, and in fact better than any other product tested with this same collection. However, it didn't hold up against my commercial keylogger samples. Where SD4 detected all eight samples and prevented installation of all but one, SD5 detected only seven and didn't completely block one of those. That's not a huge difference, but I expected as good or better performance.

Because SD5 blocked so very many of the spyware samples by whacking their installers on sight, I challenged it with a set of twenty modified samples. In each case I renamed the file and changed a few nonexecutable bytes using a byte-level editor. Here's where the OnGuard modules seemed to be asleep at the switch. SD5 still blocked eight of the modified samples from installing, but completely missed six others, including a rather nasty Trojan. As for the remaining six, it popped up warning after warning about this or that malicious behavior but didn't actually manage to keep the malware from installing. In a similar test with modified samples, NIS 2007 and Spy Sweeper 5.2 both did much better.

As usual, I tested SD5's ability to clean up existing problems by installing it on eight malware-infested systems and running its full scan, including the optional rootkit scan. One system put on a veritable fireworks display during SD5's installation, popping up dozens of messages about errors in different areas. The installation finally completed, but the program itself crashed every time I launched it. Fortunately, rebooting in Safe Mode and running a scan there solved that problem—good save!

The full scans were taking well over an hour per system, so after a few of those I switched to Intelli-Scan. This more focused scan finished in about 15 minutes and detected all of the preinstalled malware. However, several of the threats required a full scan for complete removal, so I didn't really save time. That doesn't worry me; if my antispyware reported that it detected a serious problem I would definitely scan again with every possible detection method turned on.

In the end, SD5 detected every single one of the nineteen spyware samples and successfully removed all but two. It left behind significant executable files for those other two, though they may not have been able to function at their full nasty efficiency. That's pretty good, but in an equivalent test SD4 successfully removed all but one—a different one! Here's more evidence that this really is a brand-new product. Like its predecessor, SD5 detected seven of the eight commercial keyloggers. But whereas SD4 fully removed the seven it recognized, SD5 left one crippled but running and left the rootkit portion of another still hiding.

I ran into some other oddities while testing. I have a simple text file listing my malware samples by name along with their associated files and Registry keys. SD5's full scan insisted that this file was actually a part of the SurfSideKick malware and kept deleting it. PC Tools technicians verified that this behavior is caused by some of the new heuristic detection methods. I didn't hit any other false positives, but this one left me wary. I mean, it's just a text file! On several systems the main Spyware Doctor screen got stuck in a "checking status" mode at start-up and didn't recover for 5 minutes or more. The experts at PC Tools know why this happened and they say it'll be fixed very shortly.

I like the way all of the OnGuard modules now report their actions in a single History list. I like the fact that Smart Update works without any user intervention. The list of quarantined malware items is now much more informative than in the past, offering as much detail as the scan results page and more. There's a lot to like in this update. The problem is, as many users in the Spyware Doctor forums are commenting, it seems the company released it before it was entirely ready. For blocking and removal of spyware it's slightly better than SD4, but it's not as strong against commercial keyloggers. And my tests with modified malware installers suggest it may not do as well against new and unknown threats. Spyware Doctor 5.0 is still a good choice if you're currently without protection (shame on you!), but if you're using 4.0 you may want to wait for 5.1 before you upgrade. If you don't have any protection at all (shame on you!) and you can't wait for version 5.1, you ought to check out Spy Sweeper 5.2 with AntiVirus.

The CA Antivirus 2007 review

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Interface
The CA Antivirus 2007 interface is clean and straightforward. The left-hand navigation icons offer a choice of Overview, Quarantine, Options, and Reports. The Overview screen contains Main Tasks (Scan my Computer, Select files, and Folders to Scan), Status, Top 5 Virus Threats, and Latest Threats (which includes phishing and non-viral threats). Like McAfee and Norton, CA offers a one-button Secure Now, designed to bring your security status up to speed quickly.

In the course of our testing, we sometimes needed to stop a complete system scan. In doing so, we witnessed our security status change from a yellow triangle with exclamation point, warning us that we had not completed a system scan, to green, indicating that we had completed a full scan and that our system was clean. We were able to replicate this error several times. We also discovered that CA Antivirus 2007 will run up to seven days before it will flag you that it's missing the latest antivirus update. We suspect these are minor interface glitches; however, this problem could expose users to unchecked dangers.

Features
CA offers a guarantee that a system protected with CA Antivirus 2007 will be free of damage from computer viruses and worms--or it will pay up to $1,500 for technical service and hardware replacements (see the CA site for specific rules). Frankly, we see this as a marketing ploy and do not expect other antivirus vendors to match CA's offer.

As for technical features, CA Antivirus 2007 offers the same basic features found in competing applications. However, unlike most other antivirus applications hitting the market for 2007, we could find no mention of root kit protection within CA Antivirus 2007--a notable omission, we think.

Performance
CA Antivirus 2007 scored well, although the program placed consistently within the middle of the pack in our CNET Labs real-world application testing. While performing a CA Antivirus scan, the iTunes application took 206 seconds to open, and Sorenson video compression took 335 seconds to open--both scores about average. On single-file scans, CA Antivirus 2007 took 102 seconds (fast), and the program influenced system boot time by 63 seconds (above average). To see how CA Antivirus 2007 stacks up against the competition, see our complete CNET 2007 antivirus performance test scores page.

In terms of protecting your PC, we refer readers to two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from CheckVir.com, eTrust Antivirus v7.1 (the predecessor to CA Antivirus) was one of four products to earn their Advanced rating. Our second source of independent antivirus testing, AV-Comparatives.org, did not test eTrust Antivirus v7.1.

Support
Overall, we expected better support from a major antivirus vendor like CA. The built-in Help feature within CA Antivirus 2007 opens not within the program but within your default Internet browser, and uses a series of arrows to advance within an expandable list of topics. In general, we found the information cursory--adequate for most needs, but lacking in detail. Also, if you don't have an Internet connection, you won't be able to access Help files. CA's online technical support failed to impress us. Like McAfee, CA isn't consistent with its own naming convention. For example, when we looked at the Top 10 FAQs for CA Antivirus 2007, we found FAQ solutions for eTrust Antivirus 2005 instead. Also, as you drill down the FAQ, the support page opens new windows/tabs within your browser for each layer, creating several useless open windows/tabs. Web support requires you to enter a first and last name, a telephone number, and an e-mail address, as does a request for the online chat service. Live telephone support is available 24/7, but it costs $29.95 per incident.

Conclusion
While CA Antivirus 2007 is an improvement over the previous iterations of eTrust Antivirus, CA still has a ways to go. Designed to work within the larger suite of security applications from CA, CA Internet Security 2007, the CA Antivirus 2007 standalone application unfortunately suffers from minor interface glitches and poor technical support.

Woolworths Computer Protect & Antivirus review

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Verdict: Easy to use and not too demanding of your PC's resources, this survived most of our tests but let through a Trojan in a zip file.

Kitting out your PC with all the software required to make it useful can be expensive. The cheapest version of Microsoft Office costs around £300. A good photo editor will set you back around £70, while anti-virus and other vital security software can cost £30-50. Before you know it, you've spent more on software than it cost you to buy the PC. It's barmy - or so Woolworths seems to think. The venerable vendor of unnecessary plastic objects has brought out a range of own-brand software, including such essentials as an office suite and an anti-virus program. No title costs more than £25, and most are much cheaper. We filled our basket and tried them all.

This is just an anti-virus program, without any extras, but it's easy to use thanks to a simple interface. This is a welcome change from many anti-virus programs, which are far too complicated. We tested it with a range of infected files and executables (programs), plain and compressed in .ZIP files, and it found them all. When we downloaded the old and well known Trojan Subseven virus in a zip file, the program allowed us to unpack it, but did catch it and stop it when it was being run. But it let us download and run the more recent Trojan troj_start.in without doing anything - not good.

Tesco Software: Antivirus & Antispyware review

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Verdict: Antivirus & Antispyware, also includes a firewall, anti-phishing safeguards and a blocker for dialler hijackers A complete mix of programs, ranging from the superlative Complete Office to the lacklustre Easy Record.

Tesco's foray into the world of software distribution isn't as crazy as it seems - the company already has its own internet service and an online store through which it sells computers and peripherals. The first six Tesco software products have been brought in from outside sources, then re-packaged and re-branded.

Star turn

Complete Office is a gem for £20. It's based on Ability Office Small Business Edition, which costs twice as much, so Tesco's version is a real bargain. It provides all the key facilities of Microsoft Office Professional through its five main modules, which cover word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, database management and picture management.

The word processor is called Write and it mimics Microsoft Word right down to the items on each menu and the options available in dialog boxes. Files are saved in Write's own format, but it can also save in Word format and open documents created in just about any other word processor that has ever existed. It has everything you'd expect of a professional word processor, including spelling and grammar checking, mail merging and auto-correction as you type. It even includes an equivalent to Microsoft Word Art in the form of Write FX.

The spreadsheet mimics Excel and can handle multiple-sheet workbooks, selected via tabs at the bottom of the screen. After importing a ten-sheet Excel workbook with cross-references between the pages, everything worked perfectly, with all formatting preserved and even the cell notes intact. Other workbooks containing complicated macros or conditional cell formatting needed tweaking in Tesco Office, as did the formatting of certain dates.

The presentation package creates slide-shows containing pictures and graphics for use in business and educational presentations. It can open files from Microsoft PowerPoint and save them in both PowerPoint and PDF formats. It's easy to use and includes a wide range of transitional effects between slides. The database isn't quite a clone of Microsoft Access, but it's close. Most users will have no use for it because basic list-making and record-keeping is easier to do in the spreadsheet, but it's a powerful tool for anyone who has database experience. The least significant module is a picture manager called PhotoAlbum, which is used to view, organise and print pictures downloaded from digital cameras or created by other programs, such as Tesco PhotoRestyle.

Perfect partner

PhotoRestyle is a version of Ability Photopaint, so it complements Complete Office very well. It's an image editor that can be used to create artwork from scratch, but will more often be used to enhance pictures taken by digital cameras. Pictures can be edited in layers, so that changes made to one part of a picture don't affect another, and it has the usual tools for correcting bad pictures, removing flash red-eye and applying special effects.

Protection and detection

For Tesco to devote a third of its six software titles to protecting its customers against internet threats seems excessive. The two products on offer are Internet Security and Antivirus & Antispyware. Both are variants of products from Panda Software, a firm with a good record in this field.

The cheaper of the two is Antivirus & Antispyware, a name that doesn't quite say it all because the program also includes a firewall, anti-phishing safeguards against websites that try to con you out of personal information, and a blocker for dialler programs that try to hijack dial-up modems for nefarious purposes.

Virus and spyware detection is performed both by scanning hard disks for existing threats and in real-time by maintaining constant vigilance against new intruders whenever the PC is switched on. The main detection tool is a database of virus identification 'signatures' that is updated when you first install the program, and regularly thereafter, plus Panda's TruPrevent technology which detects viral programs for which no signatures exist, but which are behaving suspiciously in other ways.

The firewall is not a very sophisticated product and if you're running Windows XP, you'd be better off using its own built-in version. For a more configurable, protective firewall you should choose Tesco's dearer product called Internet Security. Though broadly similar to Antivirus & Antispyware, it adds features such as anti-spam control for email messages and a bar against passwords and other confidential items being transmitted over the web.

Probably the most convincing reason for buying Internet Security is to protect other users of your computer. It provides three levels of filtering (for children, teenagers and employees) to restrict them from viewing unsuitable material on the web. Each user is assigned an individual password and level of access. The purchase prices of both security programs include updates for 12 months - thereafter you'll have to pay an annual subscription.

Money matters

The programs mentioned so far have been so thoroughly Tesco-ised that they seem like original programs, but the origins of Tesco Personal Finance are not so well disguised. It's original name, Moneydance, appears in its File > Open dialog box.

This traditional double-entry bookkeeping system is optimised for personal rather than business use, but it can be used to run a small business. To anybody with experience of financial managers like Microsoft Money, Tesco Personal Finance looks primitive, but hidden beneath its austere surface are tools to plan and track budgets, calculate loan repayments and schedule payments in and out of your accounts.

What's missing is a sample data file to help you get the feel of things before committing yourself to setting up your own finances, and it would be nice to have a 'getting-started' wizard and some tutorials to help you through the early days.

Burning issues

Easy Record is Tesco's program for creating CDs and DVDs. These can be copies of existing discs or you can make compilation audio CDs based on audio files stored in MP3 and other formats on a hard disk. Data discs containing any type of file can be created on both CDs and DVDs, and the program is also able to store an image of a CD or DVD on hard disk, so that a physical disc can be burned in the future.

Easy Record is based on a Sonic Solutions program called RecordNow and of all the Tesco programs, it's the one with biggest split personality problem. Clicking on the Upgrade options takes you to Sonic's site where you're offered Sonic, not Tesco, products. If you view the web tutorials, you'll see Tesco Easy Record at the top of the page, but everything else refers to RecordNow and some of the features described, such as making jukebox CDs, are not even possible in the Tesco product

Most computers and CD/DVD drives come with free programs for burning CDs, and if you've already got one of these it's probably better than Easy Record, which is limited in scope and confusing in execution. We can't recommend it.

Norman Virus Control 5.81 review

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Verdict: An effective anti-virus system with a wide range of features and a different approach

Although Norman Virus Control supports the current versions of Windows, Linux and Novell NetWare, it also offers useful support for legacy systems, including Windows NT4 and Windows 95, and even OS/2. These operating systems may no longer be "state of the art", but there are still a significant number of them deployed and doing useful work and are in just as much need of protection as their more modern counterparts.

The Corporate version of the product provides a number of administration tools to assist in distributing and managing networked installations of the virus control software. Networked installations nominate a system as a central server used to distribute software and updates. This would normally be a Windows server system, although a reasonably powerful workstation would be adequate.

As far as 32-bit Windows systems are concerned, networked installation using the supplied "Ndesk" software is straightforward provided that all the target systems have Microsoft File and Print services running and are in the same domain. If this is not the case the software will need to be installed using the SelfXWiz distribution wizard, which is also used to install software to Windows systems running Windows 95, 98 and ME. This generates a small executable that must be run from the target machine to pull down and install the required software. This could be an issue for installations with remote offices, however the "Ndesk" software can be used to monitor all the supported versions of Windows once the software is installed. Clients can be configured to check for updates at intervals from a networked server or from the Internet. There were no problems with this during the test period.

Norman Virus Control uses an "exclusion list" facility that allows specific files to be ignored during virus scanning operations. Directories and associated sub directories can be excluded as well, and files can be excluded by file extension if required. A major feature of Norman Virus Control software is its "Sandbox", a virtual environment that provides everything a program needs to run while isolating it from the real operating environment. In this way programs can be checked for suspicious behaviour without exposing the system to attack. Since the virtual environment always starts from a known state, any changes that occur in it are the result of the program's activity. These changes can then be examined to see if there are any undesirable effects before deciding if the program is acceptable.

This technique enables the sandbox to detect network and peer-to-peer worms and new file viruses without relying on new virus signature files. This was effective under test conditions, but although the system detected our virus files it did not detect our remote control software, even with an empty exclusion list.

Norman continue to update its product, however, and the latest release offers support for Instant Messenger clients as part of its Norman Internet Protection module, and provides an optional scanning facility to monitor incoming access to file shares. These additions, coupled with its support for legacy systems, make it an effective anti-virus product, although the restrictions imposed on centralised installations could be an issue for some network administrators.

Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition 10.1
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Verdict: A mature and flexible system for the corporate network

Symantec's Corporate Edition offering is a real heavyweight, capable of supporting thousands of clients running a mix of operating systems. Clients are available for Windows, Linux and Novell NetWare, although the core system components, comprising a System Management Centre, an AntiVirus Management Server, a Reporting Server and a Quarantine Server, are all Windows-based.

The software can be configured with several instances of Management Servers and Management Centres deployed across the network, and careful planning of a complex installation beforehand will be time well spent, building in load distribution and resilience factors right from the start.

Administering software in a large network environment can be a complicated business, and Symantec has addressed this with a management system that can divide a network into groups, with each group having a primary management server, several clients, and secondary servers for resilience. Symantec advises having at least one secondary server.

Clients retrieve their updates from the group management servers, which in turn retrieve their updates from either the primary server or from Symantec's own LiveUpdate servers. This minimises Internet traffic while spreading the load on the LAN. Updates can be scheduled to occur at different times to distribute the load still further if required. This worked well during testing.

Remote deployment is essential in larger networks. Once the initial installation is completed almost everything else can be deployed from the Management Centre, including any secondary management servers. The system offers standard options that should suit most purposes, but also provides the means to tailor Windows client installations to any specific needs. Although the majority of systems are still running 32-bit Windows software, the inclusion of clients for 64-bit Windows systems is an important future-proofing factor. These systems are appearing on corporate networks in larger numbers, and there are specific viruses around that target them.

During testing the system detected and reported our viruses, although it did not comment on our remote control software. In fact, only Kaspersky's software detected it. The system offers a wide range of alerting options including e-mail messages, broadcast messages and SNMP traps. User programs can also be set to run when specific alerts occur, allowing an increased range of responses to meet particular needs.

All management systems need reporting and logging facilities and the larger the network the more important it becomes to be able to home in on the important items. Symantec's software uses separate servers for the reporting functions to cope with the volume of information generated by large networks. This also allows routine report generation to be a separate activity that can be delegated to less technically skilled support staff. A number of predefined reports are available, and customised reports can be set up using combinations of filters and rules to cater for specific needs.

With its ability to handle thousands of clients and management software that can cope with a huge volume of data, Symantec's system is ideal for larger networks and one of the most impressive products on test. It also offers future-proofing in the form of 64-bit Windows client support plus the option of installing reporting functions on separate servers. A well-deserving award winner.

McAfee Total Protection review

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Code-named Falcon, McAfee Total Protection is the penultimate security product from this longtime security vendor, offering a complete suite of security and system-maintenance tools, including various wireless security tools absent from Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare and Symantec Norton 360. Certainly McAfee Total Protection provides the most security and performance features, however it is hobbled by some design and program flaws. It feels like a grab bag of security and performance tools without any clear focus, which will likely frustrate the average user. While it bests Windows Live OneCare, McAfee Total Protection could learn a few things from Norton 360.

Setup and Interface
We downloaded and installed McAfee Total Protection without a problem, although we thought the process was needlessly confusing. From the McAfee.com site, we entered our ID and password, then downloaded the Download Manager onto our desktop. Despite choosing McAfee Total Protection from the McAfee.com site, we were again presented with a list of options and ended up downloading the McAfee VirusScan Plus application instead of the McAfee Total Protection application. If you are not paying attention, you might download the wrong application. Once we downloaded the correct application, however, the installation process was smooth.

McAfee Total Protection requires a mere 175MB, almost half of what Norton 360 requires, and nearly one quarter the size of Windows Live OneCare. Like the others, McAfee Total Protection requires 256MB of RAM. Only McAfee Total Protection works on Windows 2000 through Windows Vista, while both Norton 360 and Windows Live OneCare work on only Windows XP and Windows Vista. Like the other super security suites, the price for McAfee Total Protection includes installation on up to three different PCs (for example, two desktops and a laptop).


The interface for McAfee Total Protection is shared among all the 2007 product offerings. It features a gray border with a left navigation for various tools, and a right main window to display the current security status of your PC. We take issue with the left navigation panel, which displays by default what McAfee calls the "basic" options with a button to display the more-advanced settings. There are duplicated between the two menus, and it gets easy to confuse them.

Should you ever decide to remove McAfee Total Protection, you'll need to use the Microsoft Windows Add/Remove Programs; there was no uninstall icon provided in the All Programs listing. However, you will need to check which of the eight applications you want to remove. Fortunately, this did the trick. After uninstalling the application and rebooting, we were impressed to find a relatively clean uninstall, with only one empty McAfee folder in the Program Files directory, which we manually deleted, and no traces remaining within our test PC system registry.

Features
McAfee Total Protection represents all the consumer security and performance tools available for Windows XP and Windows Vista users. But rather than redesign the interface to make access user friendly and intuitive, as Norton 360 did, McAfee simply added more options to its already crowded left navigation panel. Thus it's possible to overlook some useful features among the less-useful eye candy offered along the way, such as the Virus Map feature.

The Maintain Computer feature is another good idea that could stand to have more McAfee-specific tools in the future. McAfee QuickClean clears cookies and junk from your Internet browsers and removes deleted applications from the system registry. It is no longer available as a standalone application and finds a new home here. However, the other two items on the computer maintenance page are Windows utilities that are already available within Windows XP, Disk Defragmenter and Task Scheduler, both of which you can run for free from the Start menu in Windows. On a separate page, under Advanced, is the McAfee Shredder, a valuable security feature for writing over deleted files with 1s and 0s to ensure that no one can read what you've deleted. Here, too, there are free options are available, including Eraser, but it's nice to see the feature included within the suite. In the future, we'd like to see the Maintain Computer feature dispense with the free Windows applicationss and combine the McAfee-specific QuickClean and Shredder onto one page.

The traffic monitor, a visual interpretation of your firewall activity, is valuable, as are the virus information library and HackerWatch, McAfee's site that logs recent Internet attacks. However, some of the other features are of questionable security value. The Virus Map is superfluous. It's a real-time map showing where virus outbreaks are occurring, according to McAfee. And McAfee Visual Tracer is a Traceroute-like application with a map of the world so that you can see who it is that's attacking you (although the end point isn't necessarily the origin of the attack, just the last hop that's traceable through McAfee's servers).

Operating behind the scenes are some useful new tools: McAfee SystemGuards and McAfee X-ray for Windows. McAfee SystemGuards are behavioral monitors that check for unusual system activity and enlist the appropriate protection when necessary. McAfee X-ray for Windows detects and removes rootkits, malicious code that hides deep within the Windows system kernel. McAfee's current approach to both the behavioral analysis and rootkit prevention is conventional, and perhaps future releases of McAfee Total Protection will include more advanced enterprise technology from Citadel, a recent McAfee acquisition.

McAfee's Parental Controls feature includes new methods of discerning and blocking offensive images from e-mails. Despite the name, even households without children may have use for this feature. Norton makes its parental controls optional, via download, but ZoneAlarm includes them within its suite.

Unlike Windows Live OneCare and Norton 360, McAfee Total Protection includes its McAfee Wireless Protection application. On a public network, there's little use for the setup features as Windows contains its own network manager that identifies, associates, and disassociates you from a public hot spot. On a home network, however, McAfee Wireless Protection is much more useful. Before you purchase the product, check this wireless router/AP compatibility list to see whether your wireless router is supported by McAfee. If it is, you'll be able to make almost all your security configuration changes through McAfee. On a test system, we were able to connect to a Linksys WRT54GS router with no problem.

If you haven't already changed your router's SSID, which is how the router identifies itself, or enabled WEP or WPA encryption to make it harder for attackers to eavesdrop on your wireless sessions, McAfee Wireless Protection can help with that. One cool feature within McAfee Wireless Protection rotates your WEP key every few hours for added security, with the option to suspend this feature while you're playing online games or using other services that might be disrupted. For everything else, however, vendor-supplied software and even the Windows XP Wireless Network connection console already provide the basic security tools needed; McAfee just puts them all in one place. Unlike Windows Live OneCare and Norton 360, McAfee Total Protection supports Internet Explorer and Firefox. None of the three suites support Opera.

Overall, there is very little missing from McAfee Total Protection.

Performance
McAfee VirusScan improves its scores on our CNET Labs' performance tests over those of last year in all cases, except in our boot-time test. On our iTunes test, VirusScan Plus gained ground compared with last year, taking 196 seconds as opposed to 243 seconds last year. On our Sorensen Squeeze test, VirusScan Plus also improved, taking 329 seconds compared to 337 seconds last year. McAfee showed the most improvement with individual file scans, taking only 116 seconds this year as opposed to 368 seconds last year. But in terms of boot speed, McAfee lost the most ground, taking 88 seconds--the most of any antivirus product we tested; it took 62 seconds last year. To find out how we test, see CNET Labs' How we test antivirus software page.

To determine how well a product will protect your PC, we refer to test results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, McAfee VirusScan 2006 earned an Advanced (second-highest) rating, catching 92 percent of all malware tested, and from Checkvir.com, McAfee VirusScan 2006 was one of eight products to earn its Standard (highest) rating.

Check back to read about CNET Labs' tests of the McAfee firewall and antispyware protection in the coming weeks.

Support
Like Symantec, McAfee put its resources into improving its technical support. McAfee Total Protection Suite 2007 doesn't offer any downloadable manuals nor a tutorial. What McAfee does provide is a contextual knowledge base that asks you a series of questions. Should the knowledge base fail to answer your question, you're taken to another window where a remote scan will attempt to diagnose what is wrong. If none of these solutions work, you're given more options, including online chat, user forums, e-mail, and finally live technical support at $45.95 per incident (one of the highest technical support fees we've seen).

McAfee Total Protection feels like a grab bag of security and system performance tools. By refocusing its product line on fewer individual consumer products, McAfee is on the right path, but McAfee Total Protection could be leaner, should run with fewer processes across all computers, and McAfee needs to simplify its interface even more next year, dispensing with the two tables of content and submerging the eye candy in favor of the tools that are most useful. In our opinion, Norton 360 strikes the right balance between overall ease of use and the right tools for today's threats.

Antispyware Detection Rate:

* BitDefender Internet Security v10: 94.85%
* ESET NOD32 2.7: 89.12%
* Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0: 88.86%
* Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5 (ewido anti-spyware 4.0): 88.50%
* Alwil avast! 4.7 Home Edition (free): 84.47%
* Norman Virus Control 5.82: 79.41%
* Rising Antivirus 2006: 69.11%
* F-Secure Internet Security 2007: 68.20%
* Sunbelt CounterSpy 1.5: 67.51%
* Panda Internet Security 2007: 65.79%
* Spyware Terminator 1.5 (with WinClamAV 1.1): 65.57%
* AVIRA AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic 7.0 (free): 57.57%
* Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2007: 49.18%
* EMSISoftware a-square free 2.1 (free): 40.61%
* McAfee Internet Security 2007: 38.35%
* Microsoft Windows Defender 1.1 (free): 33.88%
* ZoneAlarm Security Suite 6.5: 32.12%
* PC Tools Spyware Doctor 4.0: 31.70%
* Trend Micro Anti-Spyware 3.5: 28.30%
* SUPERAntiSpyware 3.4: 23.75%
* AhnLab SpyZero 2007: 23.45%
* Comodo AntiVirus 1.1 (free): 17.57%
* Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.2: 16.51%
* Symantec Norton Internet Security 2007: 13.33%
* Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal (free): 12.42%
* CA Internet Security 2007 (antispyware part only): 9.92%
* CyberDefender AntiSpyware 2006: 3.08%
* Outpost Firewall Pro 4.0: 0.93%
* Tenebril SpyCatcher Express 4.0 (free): 0.52%
* TrojanHunter 4.6: 0.00%

Antivirus Detection Rate

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I have edited and updated all the reviews on page 1 and 2. I will edit the reviews on page 3 tomorrow.

These reviews are reviews of the current version of these AVs. Please read carefully before choosing the AV that you want to install on your computers. Most of these reviewers are using computer with 128mb RAM and 1.7GHz.

Finished updating the reviews! Read from page 1 until page 3 for the newest reviews. I have also posted the most up-to-date detection rates of many AVs, taken from the most reliable AV tester web, AV-comparatives.

If you are lazy to read the reviews, just take a look at the AV detection rate and choose those with the highest rate.

Happy always, keep your PC virus-free!

Cheers.:)

Very well!!! please post more review.

do you have any detailed reviews about sophos anti virus ?

how many detection what type what it does like the others please

@lezwez, I'm afraid I cannot give you a detailed review of the newest Sophos AV. The last review was done last year and the Sophos company demanded the review to be taken down from the website for its poor detection rate. I managed to save the summary report just before it was deleted from the server. Sophos last years' detection rate is 69.48%.

Many AV experts criticize Sophos for failing to detect some of the most common Trojan virus out there, so if I were you, I would switch to another AV immediately.

Hope this helps,

Cheers :) .

Thanks, this is very usefull for choosing av. Hope for continuing update!

Any strong anti-virus which can effectively clear all "autorun.inf" in my pc???