Anti-Virus for desktop linux & win

[Tom]

Since viruses are in the news alot, friends keep asking me to recommend anti-virus software to them.  So, I did an analysis.  It seems that Kaspersky (US$50) is the highest rated for virus-protection.  FProt is free for Linux. 

My final recommendation is that you get 1 copy of Kaspersky and then put Fprot (Linux) or Avast (Win) on all your other machines.  If someone asks you for a recommendation for Windows tell them to get Avast (or maybe AntiVir) for free rather than giving more money to Symantec.

Here are the details:

According to the VTC's tests in April 2003 for WinXP
ftp://agn-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/pub/texts/tests/pc-av/2003-04/0xecsum.txt
These are the best:
SCN = NAI (McAfee) VirusScan 4.16.0 
AVP = Kaspersky AntiVirus 3.0 (135)  
FSE = FSecure AntiVirus 1.00.1251 (win only)

According to www.hackfix.org, these are the best:
antidote
kaspersky
mcafee (NAI)
norman
pc-cillin (Trend Micro)

And these are the worst:
AVG
EZ-antivirus (CA)

Some Products
--------------

Kaspersky (AVP)
http://www.kasperskylabs.com/
Top rated but expensive.

FProt (free on Linux)
http://www.f-prot.com/

Pc-cillin by Trend Micro (also a firewall)
http://www.trendmicro.com/en/products/desktop/pc-cillin/evaluate/overview.htm
(It is also sold for Linux by IBM, for win by VCOM in SystemSuite)
Top marks at hackfix, not listed at the VTC

Avast (free, but Win only)
http://www.asw.cz/i_idt_153.html
Fairly Light.  I tried it, and it seemed fine.

AntiVir (free, but Win only)
http://www.hbedv.com/produkte/work/work.htm
Slow updates are reported.

Tom.

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