                                    
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                    
                    ANTIVIRUS SCANNERS RECOMMENDED BY
                         THE VIRUS RESEARCH UNIT
                                    
                             Marko Helenius
                                    
   Virus Research Unit, University of Tampere, Department of Computer
  Science, P.O.BOX 607, 33101 TAMPERE, FINLAND, Tel: +358 31 215 7139,
              Fax: +358 31 215 6070, E-mail: cshema@uta.fi,
     http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/virus, ftp://ftp.cs.uta.fi /pub/vru


This  document  has been prepared to help computer users  for  selecting
safe computer antivirus scanners for computer virus prevention.

INTRODUCTION

All  scanners detecting more than 95 percent of viruses in the test  set
have  been  picked  up from the Virus Research Unit's antivirus  scanner
analysis 1997. However it should be noted that if a product has detected
less  than  95 percent it does not necessarily mean that the product  is
not safe. Also if a product has detected more than 95 percent of viruses
in  the list it does not necessarily mean that the product is absolutely
safe. In addition the recommendations concern only scanner parts of  the
products. These recommendations are only rough estimates, but I hope the
lists are still of value.

RECOMMENDED DOS SCANNERS FOR BOOT SECTOR VIRUS AND FILE VIRUS DETECTION
(Alphabetical order)

AVP
Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit
Dr.Web
F-PROT Shareware and Professional
H+BEDV Antivirus
IBM Antivirus
Integrity Master
Iris Antivirus
McAfee Scan
Norman Virus Control
Norton Antivirus
Sophos Sweep
Thunderbyte Antivirus
Virusafe
RECOMMENDED DOS SCANNERS FOR MACRO VIRUS DETECTION

Avast
AVP
Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit
Dr.Web
F-PROT Professional and Shareware (F-MACRO / F-MACROW)
IBM Antivirus
McAfee Scan
Norman Virus Control
Norton Antivirus
Sophos Sweep
Thunderbyte Antivirus

RECOMMENDED DOS MEMORY RESIDENT SCANNERS FOR BOOT SECTOR VIRUS AND FILE
VIRUS DETECTION

Intercheck (Sophos Sweep)
Rguard (Avast)
Virus Guard (Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit)
VS (Virusafe) assuming that full virus tables are loaded

RECOMMENDED DOS MEMORY RESIDENT SCANNERS FOR MACRO VIRUS DETECTION

NONE

RECOMMENDED WINDOWS 95 SCANNERS FOR BOOT SECTOR VIRUS AND FILE VIRUS
DETECTION

Avast
AVP
Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit
F-PROT Professional
H+BEDV Antivirus
IBM Antivirus
Iris Antivirus
McAfee Scan
Norman Virus Control
Norton Antivirus
Sophos Sweep
Thunderbyte Antivirus
Virusafe
RECOMMENDED WINDOWS 95 SCANNERS FOR MACRO VIRUS DETECTION

AVP
Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit
F-PROT Professional
IBM Antivirus
McAfee Scan
Norman Virus Control
Norton Antivirus
Sophos Sweep
Thunderbyte Antivirus

RECOMMENDED WINDOWS MEMORY RESIDENT SCANNERS FOR BOOT SECTOR VIRUS AND
FILE VIRUS DETECTION

Autoprotect (Norton Antivirus)
Gatekeeper (F-PROT Professional)
Intercheck (Sophos Sweep)
McAfee Scan
Rguard (Avast 32)
Thunderbyte Antivirus
Virusafe
WinGuard (Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit)

NOTE: Most memory resident scanners for DOS do work also in Windows.

RECOMMENDED WINDOWS MEMORY RESIDENT SCANNERS FOR MACRO VIRUS DETECTION

Autoprotect (Norton Antivirus)
Intercheck (Sophos Sweep)
McAfee Scan
Thunderbyte Antivirus
WinGuard (Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit)

NOTE: Most memory resident scanners for DOS do work also in Windows.
