Recommendation Needed

[meggsie04]

I would like to take advantage of an ''Online Scanner'' as a back up to the "Spywaredoctor with Anti virus, and Spyware Detector. I am running on my XP Home. However Im wary of doing so, without information.

Has anyone studied these programs, and can perhaps recommend one and any points that I may need to be aware of. I would really appreciate your imput. Thanking you, in advance.

[SvenFixPc]

Why do you want a addition "online" antivirus / antimalware scanner?

[meggsie04]

Why do you want a addition "online" antivirus / antimalware scanner?

I recently had my system crash, due to a bug, my virus protection wasnt picking up. After $200 dollars, hours of reading and help from you great blokes here in the 'forums'' I finally traced it to the system restore. Problem finally solved. I guess, its a question of security, to run an additional scan just to make sure nothing is lurking. Providing the program is good, I cant see it would hurt.

[SvenFixPc]

Why do you want a addition "online" antivirus / antimalware scanner?

I recently had my system crash, due to a bug, my virus protection wasnt picking up. After $200 dollars, hours of reading and help from you great blokes here in the 'forums'' I finally traced it to the system restore. Problem finally solved. I guess, its a question of security, to run an additional scan just to make sure nothing is lurking. Providing the program is good, I cant see it would hurt.

Run a mcaffee stinger can never hurt, visit http://vil.nai.com/VIL/stinger/ for the latest version and run it on your machine. It is an standalone executable so you can take it anywhere on a usb stick

[Ponch]

Housecall Trend Micro is the most popular. In my own little head at least. I've used it few years ago on a machine that had no other AV and it did of course pick up and delete some viruses.

[JedMeister]

Why do you want a addition "online" antivirus / antimalware scanner?

Personally I think its a great idea to get a second or third opinion on these things. No matter how good a AV is none of them are perfect. I've had experience with Panda Active Scan and I think it works well. I have had really good experience with one by BitDefender but for some reason I have been unable to get it to work for some time. Not sure why.

Another possibility is the open source ClamAV, I think the original is made for Linux but there is a Windows port called ClamWin. It doesn't have a real-time scanner so you can install it alongside your regular AV.

Edited August 29, 2008 by JedMeister

[meggsie04]

Hey Thanks guys, much appreciate your advice...... will check them all out over time.