Review on MKS-Vir Antivirus Software

I would like to share with our members my independent review on MKS-Vir antivirus Software. This is a relatively new antivirus software which has drawn interest on different forums..
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OS98Se
184Rams
476mghz
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Installation - Went smoothed with no problems. Registration process clear and quick to activate.

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Resources: After Reboot my resources wer at 90% which pretty good for a older pc like mine. Now the only downside was the process in memory was 37,000kb......which caused my pc to bog down. For the newer pc out this would not be a problem at all.
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Update Module - Updates were quck and quite in detailed and clear what was being downloaded and installed.
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Main GUI - The main inteface was easy and clear to understand . Easy for the novice and a snap for the advanced user.
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Scan Engine - Performed a complete scan of my C drive which took 48min and 30 seconds which scanned 414 archives and 41,934 files. Now this I find is a bit long to say the least compared to other antivirus software.
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Detection of Virus's - In my opinion the jury is still out on this matter. I subjected about 20 of the most recent nasty's against their software and it caught and deleted them all. I also had 10 sent via email to my pc in attachment's and their email scanner caught them all.
Now as far as detection in the wild that remains at this stage to be seen. But all in all this seems to be a very good antivirus software. And I understand they are working on a new version.
For th ose of you that would like to test drive it here is the home page
http://www.stormbyte.com/

 

Thanks, musicman for your personal observations. These can be added to the previous main thread;

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=37083

At the present time the jury is still out but the consensus I think is that;

1. Running mks_vir as a primary scanner may slow down older machines.

2. Until more large scale testing of its malware detection abilities are known, for now it may be better considered as a secondary, backup scanner.

 

Why do you mention slow computers every time? I realy don't know lot of people who still have slow computer but they have very good machines. There are not so many old computers.

 

Your comment is unfriendly!

My computer is slow -- 233 Mhz. You don't know me. In fact, out of Wilders forum's nearly 21,000 members, I doubt that you even know 1% of them.

Who anointed you to decide that the needs and interests of folks with slower computers than yours should be ignored?

 

These 'old' computers are 'slow' compared to a relatively 'new' computer which has a faster processer and more memory.

With new computers, which not everyone can afford, the selection of AV programs can be judged mainly on detection abilities. Whereas those with 'older' computers, like musicman, have to strike a balance between protection AND performance/stability. No use liking an AV if it slows down your system to a crawl.

He stated, for example, that mks-vir has slowed down his 'older' computer which is therefore a relevant observation to those people considering this as a primary AV on their similar- spec computers.

Therefore, a number of us here always give some indication of the effects of a particular AV on new and older computers. For example I would not suggest running F-secure or AVK Pro as primary scanners in general as this presumes everyone has a 'newish' computer to install either of these 2 AV's on. AVK Pro for example runs with both engines scanning in real time without a hitch on my top of the range laptop. Place the same AV on one of my desktops, a Pentium II, and the system slows down to a crawl.

You can happily run F-secure on your computer as the RTM only because of your high computer-spec.

Overall, there are a lot more 'older' computers around than you think and I would hope that in Wilders we can offer advice both to those people who have the more 'mature' computer system as well as to those who have the latest-spec computer

 

Might want to check out my last 2 posts

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=37083&page=4

Nature of the update....

Email SSL scan support, Full Ad-ware/Spyware engine/module implanted into the update, Optimization fixes for stability and less system resource/ram
consumption, Better English Support

 

@bellgamin,

My mother has p233 160mb/ram. I've installed F-secure for Workstation 5.41 on it. Computer is not much slower now. Mother is contented that she can use computer which support internet, email and Microsoft Office.

Maybe there is no such difference between installed or not installed F-secure on her computer, because it is slow if it is installed or not.

Maybe just I live in that country, which has rich people and they can afford new, fast computers. (joke)

 

Well, I am not rich but I could afford to buy a new & faster computer. However, I cannot justify doing that because my present computer still can do everything I ask of it EXCEPT run antivirus programs that are resource intensive.

Fact is, in addition to my ancient Packard Bell PC, my Atari 800, TRS-80, and Apple //e are still up and running. I also own an excellent soroban from Japan that still works quite well.

My Commodore finally died, however. R.I.P.

I appreciate Musicman's comments on mks_vir. It is an interesting new antivirus program, & gives every evidence that it might become one of *The Best* in the near future. Perhaps you might discover a way to add your helpful comments about mks_vir without being critical of other people.

 

I have a question. I use KAV as my monitor but use MKS as my on demand. Since there is an online MKS scanner, is there any benefit having MKS installed as just an on demand? (besides the obvious - running offline, etc)Thank you.

 

Probably not, if you have KAV as your main scanner.

Initially the on-line scanner takes time to download the ActiveX controls and signatures needed for the scan. But once installed, you can select individual files/directories or your whole drive to scan.

Only disadvantage may be your views on using ActiveX and the main use of Polish throughout the scanner (there is some English for choice of what to scan ).

In addition, it would be of interest to know whether the on-line scanner has the same scan engine and cleaning abilities as the ‘boxed’ version once malware has been detected.

 

What OS and browser are you using? Skaner should detect your language version automaticaly and either set it to polish or english.

Mariusz


ps. if you click on "opcje" in the right top corner you should be able to change from polish to english

 

If you click the little hammer you can choose your language. I can now say I finally found another use for IE other than just windows update - My home page is set to skanner

**edit - opps sorry -

- I guess that would be my question -

 

I tried Firefox, then Opera. Both failed to load the relevant page. Loaded with IE but scanner stayed in Polish.

Have found the hammer, thanks

 

I have mks_vir loaded onto one of my systems. In that single case, it came up with the already set default language of English. On an identical PC without mks_vir installed, it's the same behavior as reported. Doesn't seem to like the current version of Netscape either.

Seems like a VERY nice on-line scanner though.

Blue

 

Question about MKS installed. Is there an auto update?

Online skaner uses ActiveX (as most online scanners do) to install - only IE will work

 

Yes - it uses the native Windows task scheduler for all scheduled duties including update - which yields a lot of flexibility.

It does generally require a passworded account - it can be any one, including a dummy one you create with a password for mks_vir to use if you prefer not to password enable your logon account. I haven't tried it, but I suppose you could skip the password if you edit the local security policy such that "Limit local account use of blank password to console logon only" is disabled - not exactly a recommended secure state, but doable if you're password averse.

Blue

 

I just do not see dialog to set auto updates. Perhaps because I am using only as an on demand scanner and do not see update programming?

 

Are you still on a trial? Initially, you couldn't update on a trial - I believe that's been changed. Not sure about automation, whether that is now included

Blue

 

I downloaded from both sites, trial and otherwise (I think). I have no clue which one is installed now as I have installed it a few times All I know is it is asking for a password to update - I don't think it did before but that may have been the trial. At any rate, it has not been 30 days yet. I'm an idiot for not keeping track of which is which. I have 3 exe on my desk. I'm just going to cough up the $ anyway, though it's not 30 days, so I won't be confused but I want to know about auto updates first.

 

FYI you can't update the trial (which is pretty stupid considering every other AV offers a fully functional trial for the trial period). Definitions are up to date to the day you downloaded the trial.

 

So you can use it for 30 days with old definitions! You're right -
I like the test results i've been seeing but....
I don't know about buying this thing when I have never even seen a screenshot of how the auto update works. The website mentions nothing about it and I see no dialog to schedule updates - I mean, if it's not available then grey it out or something. At least I would know it's there.

 

It's an auto-updater for an AV, pretty straightforward, not like you're buying a car sight unseen.

Blue already mentioned how it works and plenty of us have licensed versions. It just works a bit differently than other AVs because you need to login via a windows user account because its integrated into Windows Scheduled Tasks.

Some of us have put in a request asking MKS to mimic what everyone else on the market is doing.

 

I've never used Scheduled Tasks so.....yeah, good request. hehe, I actually prefer to manually update. I do everything else including windows update. But I could not find update scheduling, I only saw scan scheduling

 

Update:
a. mks_vir 2004 does not use windows task scheduler to do autoupdates.. not since 10:00 am today
Just make sure that your firewall has mks_menu.exe and mks_update.exe as trusted apps.
(UDP Port 2000)
b. trial version with update module enabled is coming soon.. very soon.
c. mks will now detect and remove both spyware and adware. Of course
db with those programs is still small but it will grow very fast.
d. outgoing email scanning was added.
e. new, better, much better site for stormbyte.com is coming.. Just two more weeks
f. official info: if you buy mks_vir 2004 you will get a free update to 2005 when its out. No need to pay for the new version. Isn't that nice?
g. WinXP SP2 full support added.

Mariusz
www.stormbyte.com

 

Thanks for the update Mariusz. How do your licensed users get a hold of the update?


EDIT downloaded latest update from MKS, still asks for user account and password, seems to look and operate in the same way. Maybe the update hasn't been propagated, but I'm not seeing any real different in the app.