  Ŀ
                     The Kollywabbles' Virus Newsletter                   
  

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        Number 2, Volume 1                          January 10, 1996
        

Here it is again folks!  My twice weekly virus newsletter, bringing you the
truth in the virus world.


Todays Topic, The Shortcomings and Advantages of Some A/V products.
        Well, here I am to tell you the REAL truth about those anti-virus
products.  I will review most of the popular anti-virus programs out there
and give a rating from 1-10 in three categories.

                                 ABILITY TO 
PRODUCT                         FIND A VIRUS     UTILITIES       OVERALL  
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Microsoft Anti-Virus                 3               2             2.5

Notes:  Microsoft Anti-Virus (MSAV) is the sorriest excuse for an anti-virus
        product that I have ever seen.  This product, when used with a virus
        in memory will not only NOT find it in memory, but MSAV will infect
        any and all files it scans with the virus that is in memory.
        This product will do WAY more damage than good.  It also won't be
        able to find encrypted versions of most viruses.
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Central Point Anti-Virus             3               2             2.5

Notes:  Central Point Anti-Virus (CPAV), is the same program as MSAV.  
        Central Point are the people that made MSAV.
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McAfee's Vshield & Scan              8               6              7

Notes:  The only problems that this package really has, are, the fact that
        vshield takes too much memory, and the fact that they both sometimes
        incorrectly identify a virus.  It is an good package though, but 
        there are A LOT of viruses out there made especially to out-maneuver
        McAfee's products.
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F-Protect                            8               7              8

Notes:  Fridrick Skulason's F-Prot is a pretty good all around anti-virus
        package, and he doesn't need you to pay money for it (freeware).
        It's funny how the worse the product, the more you have to pay to 
        register it.  Well, this package seems to identify viruses pretty
        well, with few exceptions.  The virus it seems to have the most
        problems with is Chill.  It seems like any new virus that it doesn't
        know about, will come up as Chill.
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Norton Anti-Virus                    8               9              8

Notes:  This program is pretty good at identifying viruses, unlike it's
        older versions.  Typically (as with all of Peter Norton's programs),
        it comes with a myriad of utilities.
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Thunderbyte Anti-Virus               9               9              9

Notes:  Well, you can tell that this must be the program that I use, because
        no matter what virus i scan with it (with very few exceptions), it
        will identify correctly, or will at least identify that the scanned
        file IS a virus.  The only viruses it seems to have problems with
        are anti-hueristic unknown viruses.
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InVircible                           7               7              7

Notes:  Perhaps the best feature of this program is it's "anti-piggyback"
        feature.  If the a/v software is infected in any way, or if there
        is a virus in memory, it won't go ahead and scan and infect every file
        in it's path-like MSAV or CPAV.  It will instead extract the virus
        from itself, and save it to the disk (you get a working copy of the
        virus!).
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Well, that's it.  Those are just some of the anti-virus products out there,
but they are certainly the most well-known.

DISCLAIMER: I claim that this is the end of this file.













