general question

[C.S.J]

ok,

simple question,

i have the choice to do (on demand scans):

1. scan all files
2. scan by format
3. selected file types
4. by file name mask

would No.2 really be alot less secure than No.1 ?

[DaveD]

Scan by format usually refers to the antivirus determining the file content/type instead of basing on file extension and so on. I would assume this means that you could rename a 7z archive, for example, to a .txt extension and the antivirus would still determine that it is an archive and still scan it.

This is thought to be just as secure as scanning all files, but should essentially save a bit of time. There are some types of files that would just be a waste of time scanning because they could not become infected anyways, and with this option the antivirus would determine the content/type anyways regardless of extension. Time wasted, is time wasted. And most often time is a valuable thing.

If, of course, you are just going to run a scan while you are doing other things like eating dinner or something, then scanning all files wouldn't be a waste of time in this case.