Antivirus | Technology Blog

Kaspersky Anti-Virus KAVRemover

November 8th, 2008

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Is it a good or a bad sign if a company starts to create specific uninstallers for their software programs to remove them complete from computer systems they had been installed on? A joke comes to mind that is saying that the Norton Removal Tool is the best product of all Norton applications. Kaspersky apparently has their own removal tool called KAVRemover (via Megaleecher) which can remove specific Kaspersky products from a computer system.

The removal tool is compatible with Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.07.02009, Kaspersky Internet Security 6.07.02009, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Servers. If the removal tool is run on a 64-bit operating system it can only remove Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2009.

KAVRemover can be executed right after the download has finished. It opens up a captcha that has to be identified correctly before the removal starts. A reboot of the computer is required after the removal process has ended.

Online Virus Scan

November 1st, 2008

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No Virus Thanks is another web service that provides options to scan files with multiple anti-virus detection engines. It pretty much works like other web services of its kind like Virus Total by providing an upload form on the website which can be used by the user to upload a file to the service. The file will be analyzed on the web server using multiple anti-virus engines and a report generated in the end that displays information about the scan.

The file upload limit of No Virus Thanks is 20 Megabytes which means that it is not possible to upload files larger than that. The site has a rather low queue of 30 items and displays the current queue number in the upload form. It usually does not take long to process an upload though. The status is shown after uploading the file to the online virus scanner.

The report contains a detailed analysis of the uploaded file including results of each antivirus engine that has been used to scan the file. One interesting option of the online virus scanner is the option to paste a MD5 hash into a form on the website. This can reduce the time before a result will be displayed if the file has already been uploaded and analyzed by another user of the service.

Run Multiple Anti-Spyware Tools With Hitman Pro

September 17th, 2008

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Virustotal is a great online service that provides access to more than 30 antivirus engines that can scan a file uploaded by the user. This gives the user a much deeper understanding if a file is malicious or not. Hitman Pro is a similar application with the difference that it is a local software program that makes use of various anti-spyware programs which it downloads automatically to scan a computer.

Hitman Pro is making use of eight spyware scanning engines. It’s a mixture of free and trial versions. Among the software programs are popular spyware cleaners like Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-aware and Webroot Spysweeper. Each application can be selected to be included in the system scan or excluded from it. Besides those eight engines can include the commercial antivirus applications TrendMicro Sysclean and McAfee Virusscan if the user has a license for those applications.

The options contain several additional interesting features that require some explanation. The user can select to use the Browser security plugins that is offered by some of the anti-spyware applications, install security updates and configure least user access levels for his web browser.

Another Antivir free premium promotion

May 12th, 2008

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Polymath send in the tip that another Antivir promotion is available that gives users access to Antivir premium for 180 days free of charge. The promotion form is available in English and German this time because two magazines are currently running the promotion. Computer Active is responsible for the English promotion while German magazine PC Welt for the German one.

It should not be a problem to use the license code in Antivir Premium versions that use a different language. It did work the last time I tried it. The online registration form asks for name, email and country. The information send to the email address is also directly available at the website after registration.

Basically an account at the Avira website is created with a six month license for Antivir Premium. The download link for the premium version and the required HBEDV.KEY is directly available in that account center. If you already have Antivir installed uninstall it before making the installation of Antivir Premium.

Bitdefender Promotion

May 3rd, 2008

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Bitdefender is currently running a promotion that provides interested users with a 180 day license of one of the following products: BitDefender Antivirus 2008, Internet security 2008 and Total security 2008. A user who fills out the form on the promotional website may choose one of the products and will receive a valid license key for it. This license key gives full access to the features of the software for 180 days.

It is apparently an Italian promotion, at least the website of it is in Italian. It’s however not that hard to fill out. Simply enter your first name, last name, email and verification code and select the product that you want to test for 180 days. BitDefender Antivirus 2008 is included in Internet security 2008 which again is part of Bitdefender Total security 2008.

If you want to test it all get the Total Security 2008 product. A comparison of the different products is available at the Bitdefender homepage. You can basically say that BitDefender Antivirus 2008 protects the computer from viruses, trojans, rootkits and the like. Bitdefender Internet security 2008 adds a Firewall, Phishing protection, access limits and network protections.

Avira AntiVir Personal 8

April 15th, 2008

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Avira AntiVir Personal 8 was released today and I thought it would be nice to write about this new release since AntiVir is one of the most popular free antivirus applications available. The most important question is of course about the new features in this new release of AntiVir. The homepage of the developer Avira is unfortunately not very informative when it comes to those information, the table that displays the features of the free version and the two commercial versions of AntiVir is showing several entries that are new.

The personal free edition of AntiVir 8 has two new features or improvements listed on that page. The first is a raised scan speed which is always nice obviously and the second a redesigned visual appearance. The other versions of AntiVir contain a new system to create Rescue-CDs and the Security Suite a new option to backup data.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is supported now as well and there is an option to choose between software updates and updates of the virus definition lists. The size of the download is roughly 22 Megabytes and it is still possible to perform a software update right after installation which I would recommend.