Antivirus software: Stop the rot

Imagine a final-year student losing important essays days before they have to be handed in. Or a businessman whose Powerpoint presentation becomes irretrievable after a virus hits his computer.

The fear of every computer user is that their PC could be attacked by a virus and important data lost within minutes. As the I Love You and Anna Kournikova viruses proved, this is a very real threat.

There are, of course, ways to protect your data and your hardware from being afflicted but with so many products on the market, it is difficult to choose one. We've come to the rescue and rounded up some of the most common antivirus packages to find the best.

What is a virus?
A virus is a small program created with malicious intent. Some viruses attach themselves to other programs, hiding their presence; others hide themselves on parts of a disk that aren't normally used.

The threat of viruses has now been eclipsed by that of 'worms' - malicious programs that spread over the internet, usually by email, without the recipient's knowledge or consent.

The final member of the ugly trio is the Trojan Horse - a program that appears to be harmless or even beneficial but is in fact malicious. All three are referred to as 'viruses' for the sake of convenience.

Malicious viruses can overwrite files on your PC causing Windows and your applications to become faulty. Although there is no such thing as a virus that can cause actual physical damage to your PC, a virus can render a PC useless.

Remember that a virus is software, so it can carry out any command that the writer chooses. A virus could run the format command to wipe your hard disk, for example.

Most virus writers are annoying rather than criminals, but that's no excuse. There is no positive to having an infected PC, so you need protect it.

A virus has to get into your PC somehow. The likeliest source is a file you download from the internet or that an unsuspecting friend sends you.

There are also occasional hoaxes where you are warned that your PC is under threat. If you know it is protected, you will sleep easier.

There are plenty of antivirus packages on sale that claim to offer you protection against everything short of a nuclear attack.

The main things to look out for are ease of use, ease of update so it can protect against new viruses as they are identified, and effectiveness in dealing with infections.

These are the criteria used to judge the following products.

Testing times
We had intended to test the software with some real, live viruses. We decided against this partly because the software houses are very wary of handing out viruses but also because we felt that detecting existing ones would prove very little.

We were confident that all the software would detect known viruses. We wanted to see how easy the software is to use and what functions it has.

That led us to download test software from www.eicar.org that consists of harmless text in a Microsoft Word file, a.com file, a zipped file and a double-zipped file. These files behave like viruses and as such, should be picked up by the virus scanning software when it detects them.

We installed each software package to see how they dealt with the perceived threat.

AVG 6 AND AVG 6 PROFESSIONAL
Grisoft is a Czech company that offers a completely free software package called AVG 6. The software has no limitations and Grisoft offers updates for the lifetime of the product. AVG Professional costs £28, but the only benefit of note is email technical support. We doubt that this is worth the upgrade price.

In the AVG Control Centre there are two buttons to allow scans to be run manually. The button labelled Complete Check in fact only checks the hard disk. The second button scans removable media. Both buttons have clear notes although we feel that a complete check really should be completed to avoid a false sense of security.

AVG is good software and it detected the viruses fairly well. It ignored the double-zipped file until it was unzipped and then leapt upon the new-found virus.

We found the user interface a little awkward to use and, although manually configuring software is the best way to get it working exactly as you please, it does complicate matters. Despite this, the free version of AVG 6 is flexible, powerful and superb value. Even when judged against paid-for rivals, it still rates highly.

AVG 6: Free
Rating: ****

AVG Professional: £28
Rating: ***

www.grisoft.com

MCAFEE VIRUSSCAN 6 AND MCAFEE VIRUSSCAN PROFESSIONAL 6
At first we were a little worried that McAfee VirusScan 6 seemed to be missing some of our test viruses when it scanned the PC. Then we realised that it was ignoring them while they were inactive and posed no threat.

Despite its minimalist user interface, VirusScan has extensive settings options and is supplied with the onus on the PC user to decide what action to take. By switching on all the settings, it behaved much like Trend PC-cillin 2002.

If you spend a couple of minutes with the comprehensive yet clear manual you will find this software is excellent. But if you're scared by the words 'manual' and 'settings' you should walk away.

The Professional version of McAfee adds protection for a handheld PC but this isn't that important for the majority of people. Both versions of McAfee support the option to send suspect files to Avert for further investigation, but the cheaper version is our choice.

McAfee VirusScan 6: £29
Rating: ****

McAfee VirusScan Professional 6: £42
Rating: ***

www.mcafee-at-home

NORTON ANTIVIRUS 2002
Norton by Symantec is one of the major players. Norton AntiVirus 2002 is available on its own for £40 and also as part of Norton Internet Security for £50. The software has an update console that handles updates for all your Norton products and the update process is a doddle.

Scanning for viruses is an automatic process on a daily basis and can also be done manually. You can scan the complete PC, a drive or a specified directory. This is powerful, effective software that works well out of the box.

It traps viruses and 'quarantines' suspect email but there are also plenty of options to allow detailed configuration with minimal hassle.

If only it was £5 or £10 cheaper, it would be a standout product. As is, we reckon it may be worth spending the extra to get Internet Security as well but at £50, it is an expensive package.

Norton Antivirus 2002: £40
Rating: ****

www.symantec.com

PANDA ANTIVIRUS TITANIUM AND PANDA ANTIVIRUS PLATINUM
The strength of Titanium is the way it installs simply and requires no configuration to protect your PC. It runs PC-cillin 2002 very close for ease of use but is cheaper as it is just a virus scanner.

If you want the ability to change settings you would be better off with Norton or McAfee but we love the install-and-forget nature of this product.

We were also sent Panda Antivirus Platinum, a version with extra features which has a fairly high price of £38. The extra provides a year of round-the-clock technical support and virus updates for the lifetime of the product. If that appeals, it's worth consideration.

Panda Antivirus Titanium: £20
Rating: ****

Panda Antivirus Platinum: £38
Rating: ****

www.pandasoftware.com

SOPHOS ANTIVIRUS
We included Sophos as a curiosity, as some of you may have it installed on a PC at work. Sophos is a commercial application, designed to make life easy for a network administrator. Although it is priced at £95 for a single licence, it is usually sold to companies with hundreds of users.

Antivirus is a pain to configure and updating the virus identities is hard too, but in use it works wonderfully well. There is no good reason to consider this software for home use though, so we'd steer clear if it is offered.

Sophos Antivirus: £95
Rating: **

www.sophos.com

TREND PC-CILLIN 2002
PC-cillin 2002 performs a virus scan as the software is being installed to ensure your PC has a clean bill of health. This initial look didn't snare all our potential viruses though. However, the scan we performed immediately after that detected them all.

The software is configured to automatically delete any file it decides is a virus and it behaved impeccably on our test PC. There was no possibility of a virus sneaking past the email check either, either going out or coming in.

The fact that it does all the hard work makes this a first-class choice for the novice PC user. If you are prepared to trust the software to look after viruses rather than doing manual scans and deciding whether to quarantine a suspected virus or not, PC-cillin 2002 is a top choice.

The price tag of £35 is fair too, as it is a complete online security solution rather than just an antivirus application.

Trend PC-cillin 2002: £35
Rating: ****

www.trendmicro.co.uk

MCAFEE VIRUSSCAN ONLINE
VirusScan Online at £22 is not the same as McAfee VirusScan. The two companies are separate as Computer Associates sold off the online company some while ago, so there are two companies selling software called McAfee.

VirusScan Online is only available as a download rather than as a boxed product, so it has been written to keep it down to less than 10MB in size.

The software runs a small utility to check your PC is able to run the software. It then downloads and installs.

As ever, the first job is to update the virus identities but as the software is online rather than a boxed CD it should be bang up-to-date when you buy it.

You can opt to indicate your location to help track the spread of viruses and can also look at a detailed online map to see if there's something nasty going on in your area.

Virus Scan Online had no problem detecting our test files when we tried to copy them to the test PC and also when we ran a scan. On the downside, there was no security in Outlook Express and we both sent and received infected email.

It's very easy to install and set up, and effective too. However, we consider email security to be essential so we cannot recommend Virus Scan Online, despite its low price and up-to-date virus signatures.

McAfee Virus Scan Online: £22
Rating: ***

uk.mcafee.com

Protection is vital
If you're in the market for some new virus software, there is no shortage of options. The only one to discount is Sophos which, despite being a first-class virus scanner, is too tough to use and too expensive for home users.

Other than that, the others were all pretty good. We liked McAfee VirusScan Online but the lack of email protection is a flaw.

In all cases, the more expensive Professional or Titanium versions of the software are not worth the price premium, but AVG 6, McAfee VirusScan 6 and Norton AntiVirus 2002 are all worthy of consideration and offer excellent protection from the virus threat.

For our purposes though, two products stand out from the crowd. Panda Antivirus Platinum and Trend PC-cillin 2002 are both excellent products.

Although PC-cillin is £15 more expensive, it offers a firewall and is child's play to set up and use.

If you just want virus protection though, Panda Antivirus Platinum is hard to top. At £20, it is good value, and the fact it is super-simple to use makes it an easy product to recommend as a Buy It, especially if you already have a firewall program such as ZoneAlarm installed on your PC.

Spot the rot
The single most important factor in antivirus software is its ability to spot new viruses. This is usually done by regularly downloading new virus signatures from the software writer's website. These signatures are the fingerprint of the virus and are key to keeping your PC uninfected and safe.

No great programming skills are required to write a new virus or to modify an existing one. The real trick is to fool the public into distributing the virus.

Virus software is churned out at a furious rate by geeks who should get out of their bedrooms a little more frequently and mingle with humanity.

Back in 1994, there were some 3,000 viruses, which increased to 9,000 in 1996. Today there are some 60,000 viruses but only 5 per cent of those are actually out there in the wild rather than in a laboratory.

As new viruses are written and released, the spread is tracked. Typically, three viruses will account for 50 per cent of the incidents at any one time.

Every antivirus software house has a research team working to identify weaknesses in Windows and email applications. McAfee's Avert unit is comprised of three integrated teams who work together to provide Antivirus Services and Support, Virus Analysis, and Advanced Virus Research.

At the core are research staff who carry more than 50 years of combined antivirus research experience. Indeed, they even have a slogan: "Avert's goal is to advise and alert, not alarm."

That statement sums up the whole antivirus situation very neatly. So long as you install and maintain a decent piece of antivirus software on your PC, and you use common sense when it comes to installing software and opening email attachments, you should have no virus problems.

Think of it as insurance and you'll keep your PC safe and sound.