• http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan/ Panda’s ActiveScan

Currently these online scanners require Internet Explorer, but a cross-platform version of Housecall is reportedly under development.

Symantec’s http://sarc.com Anti-Virus Research Center is a good source of virus information. The site also lists hoaxes and offers many free virus removal tools. Most anti-virus companies maintain similar sites. Unfortunately, there’s no standard for virus names, so you may have to look around to find the right page.

If you’re a Windows user you need an Anti-Virus. I do not recommend the current top sellers: Norton Anti-virus or McAfee. They’re bloated and less effective than others. Check any anti-virus before you buy by visiting the independent http://www.virusbtn.com/ Virus Bulletin. Any anti-virus you choose should also be certified by the http://www.icsalabs.com/ ICSA Labs (all the big commercial products are).

If you’re a Windows user you need an Anti-Virus. I do not recommend the current top sellers: Norton Anti-virus or McAfee. They’re bloated and less effective than others. Check any anti-virus before you buy by visiting the independent http://virusbtn.com Virus Bulletin. Any anti-virus you choose should also be certified by ICSA (all the big commercial products are).

If you’re a Windows user you need an Anti-Virus. I do not recommend the current top sellers: Norton Anti-virus or McAfee. They’re bloated and less effective than others. Check any anti-virus before you buy by visiting the independent http://vbtn.com Virus Bulletin. Any anti-virus you choose should also be certified by ICSA (all the big commercial products are).

• If you can’t afford, or don’t want to buy, an anti-virus program I recommend the http://free.grisoft.com Free Version of AVG from Grisoft. It’s fairly accurate but to reduce bloat you might want to turn off the background tasks.

• The best commercial anti-virus is http://www.eset.com/ NOD32 from Eset. It’s relatively inexpensive and has a 100% effective rating from the Virus Bulletin. [Disclaimer: ESET is a sponsor of the radio show, but I use it myself and would sincerely recommend it even if they weren’t.]

If you are having problems installing an AV product it may be that your system is infected. Use one of these free online anti-virus scans to check for infection:

• http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml F-Secure
• http://housecall.antivirus.com Trend Micro’s Housecall

http://www.clamwin.com/ ClamWin Free Antivirus for Windows- Yet, another free Antivirus for Windows. Works great!

Andy

Also, if you’d like learn more about anti-viruses, go check out my show, http://pepsipaul.xwiki.com
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I have been using Registry Mechanic & SpyDoctor for many months. To see how well they are working, I used the free virus scan at Symantec.com. It found one virus, called it a trojan dropper, at c:\windows\system\bcs.dll. I renamed the dll file and turned the system off for the night. The next morning the system popped up two errors at the start of a system scan. The screen went blank, rebooted, and reported INVALID SYSTEM DISK. There were no other disks in the system. Using the startup floppy disk, I discovered that my 20 gig drive only had one file on it, “Scandisk.log”. I reported this to Symantec so no else removes this dll file. After many days, I was able to recover almost all of my files to reload onto another hard drive.

I have been using Registry Mechanic & SpyDoctor for many months. To see how well they are working, I used the free virus scan at Symantec.com. It found one virus, called it a trojan dropper, at c:\windows\system\bcs.dll. I renamed the dll file and turned the system off for the night. The next morning the system popped up two errors at the start of a system scan. The screen went blank, rebooted, and reported INVALID SYSTEM DISK. There were no other disks in the system. Using the startup floppy disk, I discovered that my 20 gig drive only had one file on it, “Scandisk.log”. I reported this to Symantec so no else removes this dll file. After many days, I was able to recover almost all of my files to reload onto another hard drive.

Also, if you’d like learn more about anti-viruses, go check out my show, http://pepsipaul.xwiki.com
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{{http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&DisplayLang=en}}-

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http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&DisplayLang=en-
Microsoft® Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)

http://www.mcafee.com McAfee Antivirus- Very good anti-virus, I was using it, but I have switched to AVG (thanks to leo). But, McAfee is pretty good, it doesn’t hog up all your memory like norton does.

http://www.norton.com Norton Antivirus- This is not an anti-virus I would highly recommend. It is a big time memory user! If you have lots of ram on your computer, you should be fine. But if you are using 256 and below, I would highly recommend not to use this. Norton still works fine, but it’s just a big memory user.

http://www.grisoft.com AVG Antivirus- This is a free antivirus that Leo recommends. It’s easy to use, just not as advanced as Norton and McAfee. It still gets rid of viruses, but it does not always block the virus. It will sometimes ask you to do a virus scan to remove the virus. It has the free virus definitions updates, and it doesn’t take up much of your memory.

http://mcafee.com/common/images/shield_ASAP_56x72.gif http://www.mcafee.com McAfee Antivirus- Very good anti-virus, I was using it, but I have switched to AVG (thanks to leo). But, McAfee is pretty good, it doesn’t hog up all your memory like norton does.

http://leoville.tv/radio/pmwiki.php/Profiles/Techboy Paul Tevis writes:

Here’s a few anti-viruses I would recommend to you people in need of an anti-virus. Feel free to email me if you have any questions about anti-viruses, pepsipaul13@aol.com.

http://www.grisoft.com/css/img/logo7.gif http://www.grisoft.com AVG Antivirus- This is a free antivirus that Leo recommends. It’s easy to use, just not as advanced as Norton and McAfee. It still gets rid of viruses, but it does not always block the virus. It will sometimes ask you to do a virus scan to remove the virus. It has the free virus definitions updates, and it doesn’t take up much of your memory.
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http://mcafee.com/common/images/shield_ASAP_56x72.gif http://www.mcafee.com McAfee Antivirus- Very good anti-virus, I am currently using it on my computer. I haven’t had any problems with it. It’s very easy to use, so if you aren’t very good with computers, this would be an easy anti-virus to use.

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http://norton.com/images/homepage/global.global.logo.gif http://www.norton.com Norton Antivirus- This is not an anti-virus I would highly recommend. It is a big time memory user! If you have lots of ram on your computer, you should be fine. But if you are using 256 and below, I would highly recommend not to use this. Norton still works fine, but it’s just a big memory user.
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http://www.grisoft.com/css/img/logo7.gif http://www.grisoft.com AVG Antivirus- This is a free antivirus that Leo recommends. It’s easy to use, just not as advanced as Norton and McAfee. It still gets rid of viruses, but it does not always block the virus. It will sometimes ask you to do a virus scan to remove the virus. It has the free virus definitions updates, and it doesn’t take up much of your memory.

Paul Tevis writes:

Here’s a few anti-viruses I would recommend to you people in need of an anti-virus.

http://www.mcafee.com McAfee Antivirus- Very good anti-virus, I am currently using it on my computer. I haven’t had any problems with it. It’s very easy to use, so if you aren’t very good with computers, this would be an easy anti-virus to use.

http://www.norton.com Norton Antivirus- This is not an anti-virus I would highly recommend. It is a big time memory user! If you have lots of ram on your computer, you should be fine. But if you are using 256 and below, I would highly recommend not to use this. Norton still works fine, but it’s just a big memory user.

http://www.grisoft.com AVG Antivirus- This is a free antivirus that Leo recommends. It’s easy to use, just not as advanced as Norton and McAfee. It still gets rid of viruses, but it does not always block the virus. It will sometimes ask you to do a virus scan to remove the virus. It has the free virus definitions updates, and it doesn’t take up much of your memory.