Suggestions for a secondary virus scanner?

NOD32 is an incredible piece of software, and it has shown me the light. I previously used Norton Systemworks which was expensive and was a serious resource hog! I've recently uninstalled systemworks (never gonna deal with symantec again) and I was wondering what a good choice for a secondary On-Demand scanner would be.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

 

I have been useing bitdefender free for quite a while and it seems to do a good job as an on demand scanner it has no resident scanner. you can get it here here is a history of bitdefenders detection history here

 

Hi kohryu6

Since you're topic is finding a secondary scanner to NOD, i moved you're thread over to the Other Antivirus Software Forum for better attention.



snowbound

 

ah, sorry about that! Im new to these forums, so I'll try not to let that happen again.

 

Not to worry, happens all the time.


snowbound

 

You have a number of choices;

1. Use a FREE backup scanner, and good ones include;

BitDefender, as suggested above;

eScan Antivirus Toolkit, which uses a Kaspersky engine;

http://www.mwti.net/antivirus/free_utilities.asp

It does not update itself, but there is a way around this; http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=1349

F-Prot AntiVirus for DOS;

http://www.f-prot.com/products/home_use/dos/

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=14858&highlight=F-Prot

which is an excellent scanner.

2. If you are still considering spending some money, for a COMMERCIAL backup scanner I would recommend Kaspersky (and it's clones) which has probably the best malware coverage, updates frequently, has a great unpacking engine and will cover NOD's weakness in trojan detection.

The key factor though in choosing any backup scanner is whether it will be compatible with NOD, your hardware and other installed software. Whatever suggestions are put forward in this thread you must trial some and see which ones fit YOUR machine, making sure that ALL remnants of Norton have been uninstalled.

However, you could also consider NOT installing a second AV, but either;

3. Install an Anti-trojan program to sit alongside NOD, so the two together form part of a layered defense;

http://www.wilders.org/anti_trojans.htm and there are some free ones available including;

a2 - url]http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/[/url]

Ewido - http://www.ewido.net/en/?section=ess

OR

4. Simply use a FREE on-line AV scanner to supplement NOD, then there are no possible compatibility problems and no money 'lost'; http://www.wilders.org/free_services.htm

 

G'day All,
I just used a method, that I think Blackspear pointed me to in another forum, and that is to use Barts PE Boot Disk as a way of independantly scanning a file system for Spyware an Viruses.
It is, in a word, brilliant.
Take a look at it at www.nu2.nu, and it has the ability to use Adaware, Nod32, Mcafee, Fprot and probably more. From download to a fully booting "live cd" took about 15 Minutes.
This way you don't have to worry about incompatibilities. The only negative is it can't scan the host machines registry, so products like Adaware can't find registry hacks. But, that aside, it is a very good product.
Just boot from CD once every so often, and scan away.

Cheers Ben.

 

Some great advice here Blackcat, I personally use Nod32 and include your 3rd suggestion of Ewido, together with a few other tools; Spyware Guard, Spyware Blaster, Spybot Search & Destroy, Adaware, System Safety Monitor and File Checker.

For virus removal we use various methods, including Barts PE boot disk.

Hope this helps...

Cheers

 

Easiest way to have secondary scanner is to use web based scanners.
You can find majority(best ones) of them on www.security-ops.tk.
Kaspersky and RAV are very reliable and great for checking single files up to 1MB.
Otherwise Command on Demand,F-Secure and HouseCall are very powerful online scanners.
Biggest bonus of such AVs is that they don't have any process running in background (BitDefender Free has some services in background even if On-Access is not available at all),they are not affected by viruses/worms and they are always up-to-date.

 

I downloaded this a few days ago and installed today, and it came with "kavupd.exe", which updated both the definition files and the engine. Put that in Task Scheduler, and you've got your automatic updates!

There is a 3rd-party utility for F-Prot for DOS, that does the same, called FP-Check: http://www.niksoft.at/fp-check/

 

Thanks for the info, Notok

 

F-Prot for DOS does not scan all files in a NT DOS-Box; that misbehaviour has something to do with LFN (if I'm remembering right).
You can use Bitdefender free as a backup scanner, but it requires to load some resident processes to work correctly; these processes do not seem to interfere with other AVs, but they consume some memory.
You can also use Antivir PE; another option would be McAfee ("Superdat-Trick"), but it is limited to command-line.

regards, Joerg