Free AV, another comparison needed!

[aigle]

In this thread, I want to discuss one special aspect of free AVs available( i mean AVG. AvstTt and Antivir). When any AV finds an infected or suspected file on your system, different AV perform different actions( repair,delete, or quarantine etc). AV can give you options or it can do one on these acts without asking you and then it will inform you. Personally for any AV i like it to do these actions in following sequences,

1- repair if known malware
2- quarantine if repair unsuccessful/ or malware in not known just suspected.
3- delete, if all fails
4- option to deposit the file to the publisher of software, so that it can be analyzed( i like this feature too much).
5- if all fails, .....?( i don,t know really)

Lets speak which /one of these 3 AV you have used or experienced? what is there way of handling the infected/ suspected files and what sort of behaviour you like from your AV? Also does anyone of these give any option to deposit the file for analysisor not? Hope i could clear my point.

I am just curious as I have very little experience with these 3 AVs, of course I am not talking of big commercial names that you have to pay every year.

[RejZoR]

You won't see anything like this in free programs. avast! probably offers the most with additional Silent mode which automatically moves infected objects to Quarantine without user interaction. But it also offers interactive mode if you want it (i do). AntiVir and AVG offer only interactive mode (user selects what to do).
avast! Pro and AntiVir Premium also offer more advanced controls like Repair, if fails, Move to Quarantine or Repair, if fails, Delete, if fails, use Interactive. But these aren't free anymore...

Malware submission is offered by both, avast! (all 4.x versions and later) and AntiVir (only version 7 and later). Can't 100% confirm for AVG7 but as far as i remember, there was no such feature. I've tried all 3 AVs mentioned above.

[aigle]

thanks RejZoR, a lot of information. Does avast notify after doing quarantine?

[Happy Bytes]

{QUOTE->
1- repair if known malware
<-QUOTE}

more than 90 percent of the actual malware can only be deleted and NOT REPAIRED due to the fact that the complete file itself is the malware. (Worm, Trojan, Backdoor etc) there is nothing to repair - repairing applies only for example to parasitic fileinfector viruses.

{QUOTE->
2- quarantine if repair unsuccessful/ or malware in not known just suspected.
<-QUOTE}

Basic function, should be supported from everybody.

{QUOTE->
3- delete, if all fails
<-QUOTE}

If it cannot be quarantined how should it be deleted? ::)
If something blocks the access (read/write lock) you cannot quarantine (or delete) it until all involved processes are terminated. So if quarantine fails most likely deleting fails too.

{QUOTE->
4- option to deposit the file to the publisher of software, so that it can be analyzed( i like this feature too much).
<-QUOTE}

You mean here not the malware author aren't you? :o

{QUOTE->
5- if all fails, .....?( i don,t know really)
<-QUOTE}

I would make a cup of coffee in your case and relax ;D

[RejZoR]

{QUOTE-> thanks RejZoR, a lot of information. Does avast notify after doing quarantine? <-QUOTE}

Yes, it shows a yellow and red warning bar above taskbar whenever ANY file is detected. This also includes Silent Mode in all providers (imo this is the best notification method i've seen to date and it's used only by avast!).
Some AVs just auto¸matically delete and don't notify you (KAV5 was doing like this and well to be honest basically all others too) and then you wonder why the heck some file keeps on dissapearing when you download it...

[aigle]

{QUOTE-> You mean here not the malware author aren't you? <-QUOTE}

I mean to the publisher of AV for analysis.

[Labrie]

{QUOTE-> You won't see anything like this in free programs. avast! probably offers the most with additional Silent mode which automatically moves infected objects to Quarantine without user interaction. But it also offers interactive mode if you want it (i do). AntiVir and AVG offer only interactive mode (user selects what to do).
avast! Pro and AntiVir Premium also offer more advanced controls like Repair, if fails, Move to Quarantine or Repair, if fails, Delete, if fails, use Interactive. But these aren't free anymore...

Malware submission is offered by both, avast! (all 4.x versions and later) and AntiVir (only version 7 and later). Can't 100% confirm for AVG7 but as far as i remember, there was no such feature. I've tried all 3 AVs mentioned above. <-QUOTE}

The new version of antivir offers those possibilities, not ony interactive.

[RejZoR]

Trust me, i've tried. Free edition of AntiVir 7 offers only Interactive mode.