Home Page : Anti-Virus Software
Anti-Virus Software
For protection against viruses and worms.
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Anti-virus software gives protection against viruses and worms. In order to be
effective, anti-virus software should be regularly updated - otherwise it will fail
to give protection against new viruses. No surfer (i.e. PC or workstation) should
be without anti-virus protection. Serious thought should also be given to installing
Firewall software (which protects against hackers and
provides additional protection against some viruses).
The following anti-virus products are free for personal use. There may be some
conditions attached to their use and definitions of "personal use" may vary between
products (although typically this means for personal, non-commercial, non-profit
use), but check their terms and conditions:
- AntiVir Personal Edition
- AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic from AVIRA. Private and individual use of
AntiVir Personal Edition is free. Free support and signature updates. They also
provide a commercial version for corporate use.
- avast!
- Free for home users using their pc for non-commercial, not-for-profit work. Evaluation available
for all other users.
-
AVG Anti-Virus
- AVG AntiVirus. Free English Language edition for private non-commercial
use only. For other language versions and for commercial use, a 30 day trial
version is available. Updates can be downloaded after (free) registration.
-
BitDefender
- BitDefender provide free anti-virus for both Windows and Linux platforms.
You can also get versions customised to your local language.
- Comodo AntiVirus
- Comodo anti-virus (they also provide a free firewall product), is free for
desktops for both private and commercial use. XP and Vista only. (Free product no longer
supports server operating systems.)
Whilst the Anti-Virus software listed here is geared towards personal use, there
are many commercial anti-virus solutions. If you know of other anti-virus software
that you would like to see listed on this page or wish to report any errors on this
page then please e-mail:
feedback@cryer.co.uk.
If you ever wish to test whether your anti-virus software is working then have
a look at www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm.
This site provides a download of a short harmless file that your anti-virus software
should flag up as the 'EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE'. Your anti-virus software
should either prevent you from downloading the file or prevent you from then doing
anything with it.
If you are after a standalone virus scanner - which will just scan your PC for
viruses but will not provide any protection from new viruses then consider:
- Stinger
- Stinger is a stand-alone executable utility from McAfee (Network Associates),
that will detect and remove some specific viruses.
There are also a number of so called "on-line" virus scanners. For each of these
you will need to agree to download and install their scanner component:
Note: These scanners can be very useful but are not a substitute for anti-virus
software.
- Norton AntiVirus Software
- Norton Antivirus is the most widely used Antivirus software for personal
computers. Protect your computer by instantly downloading one of their antivirus
programs: Norton Antivirus,
Norton Internet
Security, or Norton 360.
-
F-Secure Anti-Virus 2009
- Complete protection for home and home office PCs. F-Secure Internet Security
provides a complete and easy to use protection against Internet threats. It
includes antivirus, personal firewall, anti-spyware and anti-phishing. F-Secure
is a very popular anti-virus product, especially in the commercial sector.
-
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Products
- Kaspersky Lab is one of the world's top anti-virus companies, and well known
all over the world as one of the leaders in the development of advanced anti-virus
technologies. Kaspersky Lab produce anti-virus defence systems for workstations,
file servers and application servers, e-mail gateways, firewalls, and Web servers
for both Windows and Linux.
- Serious thought should be given to installing Firewall
software to protect against hackers and worms.
- Whilst it is not an anti-virus product, a related product worth considering
is 'Ad-aware' (downloadable from
www.lavasoft.de). This is a free 'spyware'
removal utility that scans your system for known spyware programs allows these
to be removed safely - Spyware is often integrated with popular shareware or
freeware programs and installed on your system without you being aware. Another
similar popular product is spybot,
available from www.safer-networking.org.
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