O
Onno
Another option is to download the eicar.com test virus and mail it to
yourself. AVG should find it.
http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm
Another option is to download the eicar.com test virus and mail it to
yourself. AVG should find it.
http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm
R
Richard Steven Hack
It appears to be the product called the "Personal E-Mail Scanner"
(also known as AVG EMS) as in this reference I found on the Net in an
email from AVG to somone:
The Personal e-mail scanner is intended to use with Outlook Express
and other clients that are not supported directly by plugin.
In other words, if you have a plugin for a given email client, you
don't need this thing. If you have OE or some other email client that
does NOT have a plugin, then you need to install this thing when you
install AVG. It does not appear to be available for download from
their site as an independent utility, it apparently comes bundled in
with the install package for AVG 7.0 or 6.0.
According to the Version 7.0 Installation Guide, when you install AVG,
it detects the current default email client in the Registry and sets
itself to install the appropriate plugin if there is one for that
client, else you need to install the Personal E-Mail Scanner.
It also says that the Personal E-Mail Scanner will work with any
client that uses POP3 or SMTP to include Pegasus and Outlook Express.
They have individual plugins available for The Bat, Eudora, and
Outlook.
If you change mail clients, you have to rerun the AVG install and
select the Add/Remove Components item and when AVG detects the new
default email client, it will offer you the relevant plugin.
AVG Installation and Administration Guides are in PDF format here:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_doc.php
Hope this helps.
S
sf
I've used AVG for a couple of months... up to then I'd used
InnoculatIt and then it's incarnation for pay: e-trust. I
really liked both, but found that e-trust's year was only 9
months long, so the second time it happened, I decided it
wasn't a mistake and quit using it.
Q: Why is AVG so slow to update? It makes me very nervous!
`````````````````````````
InnoculatIt and then it's incarnation for pay: e-trust. I
really liked both, but found that e-trust's year was only 9
months long, so the second time it happened, I decided it
wasn't a mistake and quit using it.
Q: Why is AVG so slow to update? It makes me very nervous!
`````````````````````````
B
Boomer
[snip]
Hi
You can read and or ask over at alt.comp.anti-virus
And could you kindly bottom post here? Please.
Thanks bunches.
R
Richard Steven Hack
What do you mean slow to update? You mean when updating definitions,
or frequency of new virus definitions, or updating the program
versions?
AVG just had a major new release (V7.0) IIRC around the beginning of
the year, and just recently they introduced the new small incremental
virus definition update method. So they are enhancing the product.
Updating of virus definitions is pretty constant, sometimes they go a
couple weeks, sometimes it's a couple a week. Just depends on the
virus situation.
Updating the definition after download is quick, but you do
occasionally have to wait a while for the server to respond. I guess
that's either a problem with their server speed, their bandwidth to
the Net, or the Net itself on occasion. I download from the Czech
server, so I'm not surprised by anything.
S
sf
Sorry for this reply to take so long... I'm talking about
updating virus definitions. I'm used to getting daily
definition updates with InnoculatIt/eTrust, so I'm never
quite sure if AVG is on top of things - especially in this
day and age of Swen & the gang.<snip>
R
Richard Steven Hack
Ah, well, I suppose it depends on how heavily you're exposed. I don't
get a lot of email at my main email address - I use a spamtrap and
just don't get much besides - so I'm not that worried. If you're
heavily exposed - e.g., you get hundreds of emails a day or you have
serious business to do on your system - you shouldn't be using a free
AV anyway. Buy the best commercial one and spend the money for top of
the line protection - including daily updates if that is really
necessary.
In any event, you have to assume that even with daily updates, you're
still not getting the update until a couple days at least after a new
virus appears. It takes time for the AV vendors to get a sample of
the virus, do the signature detection, make the signature, test it,
update the definition file and set it up for download. Got to take at
least a a day or two at best. In that time, you could get nailed. If
AVG takes two or three days to do an update for a particularly nasty
virus - and I've seen them do daily updates too at times - you're not
really that much more exposed.
It's a cost benefit tradeoff as always. There is NO way to be
completely safe from viruses. AV's can miss viruses that they've been
able to detect for months. The only way to totally avoid viruses is
not to put ANYTHING on your machine that you didn't personally create.
For me, the tradeoff of free versus less-than-100% protection is
adequate for now. It's just not worth it for me to worry about the
odd virus that "might" hit me.
In the two years I've been using Windows 98 and my current setup, I
have been exposed to exactly ONE virus - and that was a Chernobyl that
came in on a file downloaded from a P2P system. I forget which AV I
was using at the time, but it caught it and cleaned it (good, since
Chernobyle has the ability to flash your BIOS, which is a
show-stopper). I have not had one single virus alert besides that one
(oh, and AVG always detects a "hacker" tool I downloaded from
Foundstone - it says it's a "trojan" - which it is, I suppose, but a
harmless one since I haven't even unzipped it from its download file
yet.)
At the same time, I've considered that I should have some "second
opinion" and "second line of defense" backup for AVG - especially if
it might not stay free for personal use. So I've downloaded Avast and
DOS F-Prot and at some point I'll get around to setting them up for
on-demand use.
With that and my current low exposure and "safe hex", unless things
change, I will continue not to worry about whether I'm getting the
latest signatures on time or not. Which is why I don't mind when
people post heads up for AVG updates in this newsgroup - that's when I
head off to get it (although recently I decided to try nightly update
checks because some people have had problems getting them to work and
I'm curious to see if they work on my system.)
And finally, in due time, I hope to dump Windows and switch entirely
to Linux, where the virus threat is almost (almost) nonexistent and
the only thing I have to worry about is constant system patching to
prevent worms. Ultimately, Windows is never going to be a secure
system compared to UNIX and Linux, so if you're paranoid enough to
worry about daily virus updates, you need to switch OS's.
Then, not only will you not spend money on antiviruses, you won't even
spend money on the OS!