Free Anti-virus

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Computer Associates makes what is and has been a completely free anti virus program called Innoculate It!

I have mine set up to check for updates every three days, used to do it every time I rebooted and surprise surprise, sometimes there was more than one update a day.

Follow this link and register so you can get the updates. You wouldn’t go out into the world without protection, why should your computer?

http://antivirus.ca.com/cgi-bin/ipe/connect.cgi%5B/url%5D

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Thanks, Went there, Did that.

My copy of NAV started nagging me to subscribe to new virus updates a while back. Said to heck with that and went to http://www.antivirus-online.de/english/%5B/url%5D to get the updates. Symantec however changed the SARC updater to close that hole about 2 weeks ago. Just about ready to pull out the plastic when I saw your note.

Need to do a little reading before I leave the “comfort” of a package I have used for years, but, hoping for the best.

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I know what you mean. I did the McAfee thing for a while and eventually switched to Norton. Faithfully updated for about 2 years. I too got the “time to buy the new version” noticed when I heard about this software, ran both for a while, just abandoned Norton about a month ago. What really freebied me (can’t really say sold since it’s free) was when I saw updates available sometimes more than once a day. This told me this was “on the ball” AV software. They haven’t asked me to buy any updates, only let me know the new free one was available.

What a deal!

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Quick question. I use DAP (DownLoad Accelerator Plus- Another great free package) which includes the capability to automatically virus-scan new downloads. It accomplishes this by registering the EXE name for the AV scanner and invoking the package in file scan mode.

Should this work InnoculatIt PE?

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Quick note.
Finally finished testing, including using “fake viruses”.
Works fine, including DAP integration.

Now using it full time and will recommend it to others.

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Just an observation – my copy of Symantec Systemworks 2000 started bugging me about subscribing in order to get more virus updates. I simply set my computer’s date back a couple of months and it let me get the updates. Admittedly, I’ve only tried it once, but it seemed to work as expected; it definitely downloaded virus updates and those updates seemed to be new (based on the version date that it shows me).

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Hi Ian
InoculateIt is a very reliable vscanner. You can get it from my (totally non-commercial) website as well as all the apps mentioned below. Used in conjuction with

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Tx.
I already ZoneAlarm. Why don’t you post some of the others here. ZoneAlarm is already posted.

Part of my no back door policy is to try to use known reliable sources for downloads. I usually try to point to ZdNet, Tucows, Download.com or failing that the original authors site. In the case of InoculateIt, I downloaded, per FlatSpin’s link, directly from the CA site.

Check out the posting for ZoneAlarm to get an idea of the template we are trying to promote here.

PS: I did do a quick run around your site. Looks good. Will go back later when I have a bit more time to browse.

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Hi
Not sure what would constitute a ‘find’. I have a very small selection of the available freeware for making Windows safer and more convenient. I’ve been singing the praises of Zone Alarm, VCatch, InoculateIt, AdAware, Cryptext, BCWipe, etc. etc. for months : mainly because they nearly always do as good a job (and sometimes a better) than commercial offerings. I doubt you’d find anything you didn’t know about already – but it’s all been scanned and imho is usually the best available for zero outlay.
Regards

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My criteria for posting a “find” are:
1)I personally use it
2)Distribution is available from a known reliable source
3)It is free or low cost
4)I think others could find it useful

The template I use for posting the find covers most questions people would ask and usually shamelessly plagarizes from one the URL’s posted with the find.

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many companies, including CA and ZA, have strict policies about redistributing software without their permission. it’s better to provide links to the copyright holder’s site and this insures people they are getting the latest and greatest.

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Hi Mel:

Does Vcatch integrate with Netscape?

Was there anything about NAV that you didn’t like besides their nagging? Currently, I use NAV 4.04. It’s an older version, but the virus updates are the same, of course, & they’re free. I haven’t had any trouble with it, and it doesn’t use a lot of resources, so I’ve been hesitant to “upgrade”. It doesn’t scan email, but you can’t get a virus reading email…and I NEVER open attachments directly. I always save them to disk & then run the virus scanner. (It will detect viruses in email attachments, however, during a scan.)

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Hi Phil
The answer must be ‘yes, it does’. I can’t speak from personal experience, as I would not have Netscape on my system, but in the Settings screen for VCatch you can set it to scan 6 types of download, Netscape being one of them. It can also scan Netscape Messenger.
There’s nothing much wrong with NAV – I know people who like it and are comfortable with it. It sometimes appears to get in the way of iirc, shutting down properly. As far as I remember, it also does not remove trojans and spyware, for which I use AdAware – often. NAV may come with the N Utilities package, and some of the other apps maybe aren’t so good. I use an older version of Norton Utilities on Win98SE, but not NAV. My main objection to it would be that for Win2k I’d have to buy it. InoculateIt is free, and it does the job I want – with regular and frequent updates, and so far has not got in the way of anything. Although it is free for personal use, it is simultaneously a commercial product – best of both worlds. Mind you, if you’re happy with your scanner, and it would cost to upgrade it, why bother? Other than removing it altogether and installing InoculateIt, I doubt you’d improve things. As you suggest, keeping the virus sig. files up to date is the important thing.
btw : you can get infected simply by opening an e-mail.

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Hi Mel:

Thanks for the information. I try to keep my machine running “lean & mean”. You mentioned [indent]

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btw : you can get infected simply by opening an e-mail.

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[/indent]So far as I know, you can’t. But I’m not claiming to be an expert. Here are a couple of my sources:
http://www.UFAQ.org/commonly/delete_email.html
http://www.vmyths.com/hoax.cfm?id=120&page=3. I’m certainly willing to read more.

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Hi Phil.

your sources are correct. another good source is http://www.slipstick.com. Russ Cooper’s NTBugTracqs is good too. I don’t have the url handy, i suppose I should go look it up.

if running a virus scanner full time, it’ll pick up scripts like KAK that might run in preview if scripting is not set low (but not ever in outlook2000’s preview)

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[indent]

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Many companies, including CA and ZA, have strict policies about redistributing software without their permission. It’s better to provide links to the copyright holder’s site and this insures people they are getting the latest and greatest.

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The first is a matter of courtesy, and getting their permission to add their freeware to your site (I’ve never yet had a refusal, providing you include their link). A rather thornier issue is if you have a freeware version for download that is no longer available on the homesite.
The second is a matter of responsible site maintenance and housekeeping your downloadable files.
Rgds

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Hi
It is not possible to get a virus by just reading an e-mail, unless the e-mail contains a macro or attachment that you then execute.
We all know the second bit, but the bit in bold is often forgotten about. I think it has something to do with double extensions (such as *.txt.scr) and hiding the last one. The best way to eliminate this possibility is to disable HTML e-mail and receive/send plain text only. If you can’t receive the script, you can’t get infected.
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“However, some new email software, such as MS Outlook, does provide a mechanism for automatically executing macros whenever an email is read, so there is the possibility of email viruses in the future”.
(We are now in that future…)
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/antivirus.htm

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However, watch out for hoaxes, which play on peoples’ ignorance of the true state of affairs.

Have a read of :
http://mssg.rutgers.edu/ie5hole.htm
http://eros.cis.upenn.edu/~majordomo/eros-port/0278.html

Advice :

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uninstall/reinstall will reset it too… but come on guys, isn’t it worth $3.95US? Isn’t your data worth that much per year?

They gotta cover their expenses somewhere and my concern is that AV software will end up like Netscape and we’ll have one choice.

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