antivirus question

[Chris Yuzik]

On October 30, 2003 11:39 am, you wrote:
> Of the free antivirus software out there, which do people have the most
> success with?

I use ClamAV and couldn't be happier. Thus far, I haven't had anyone complain
of false-positives.

> Hoping to find a free one to work with for a little while. We rarely get
> any virus-based Emails lately since MailScanner drops .pif and .exe files,
> but I'd prefer to use a virusscanner to look at .exe files to let them
> through if they're clean.

Mailscanner updates ClamAV definitions hourly, and prevents most potentially
vicious attachments from making it through anyways. I wouldn't suggest
letting .exe files through, scanned or not.

Regardless of the antivirus product used, a clean scan only means the file is
"likely clean". If you or I write a new virus today and unleash it on the
world, it might take a day or two before the antivirus companies catch up and
add it to their "mug shot book". Until then, the virus can spread like
wildfire. I cannot think of any reasons why someone would need to email an
exe file to someone, vs. simply emailing a link to a website to download said
file.

Just my $0.02.

Chris