Good Free AV

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

kurt wismer skrev:

and the avast message claims the email is clean which it can't possibly
know... there's a big difference between 'no viruses found' and 'clean'...

What is different from other virus-scanners, and if you think the
message is not good, then change it (it's fully editable you know)

 

[Alan Pollock]

kurt wismer skrev:

What is different from other virus-scanners, and if you think the
message is not good, then change it (it's fully editable you know)

Exactly, Moreover the default is off. The slider for Mail set to 'normal'
inserts no messages. Nex

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

kurt wismer skrev:


What is different from other virus-scanners, and if you think the
message is not good, then change it (it's fully editable you know)

Avast!/AVG/Other has scanned this outbound message
and didn't find a dang thing it knows about, but there
could very possibly be a virus still attached, so beware.
Database version: 1.2.3 Last updated: 1 Jul 2002

 

[kurt wismer]

kurt wismer skrev:


What is different from other virus-scanners,

nothing - when they claim something is 'clean' they are also making
false statements... often times, however, they actually say 'no viruses
found' and people just assume it means 'clean'...

and if you think the
message is not good, then change it (it's fully editable you know)

i'm not the one broadcasting avast's false message, i can't change
anything...

avast, on the other hand, can change what their default message says...

 

[kurt wismer]

Exactly, Moreover the default is off. The slider for Mail set to 'normal'
inserts no messages. Nex

the point is not that it inserts messages, the point is that the
messages it inserts are false... i think you'll find that most people
don't edit the message avast inserts so the default message (when the
feature is turned on) is probably the one found in shadowman's post...

 

[What's in a Name?]

Lars-Erik Østerud wrote:
[snip]

Or at least make some short for of message

I use this one:

avast! antivirus (0531-4, 08/05/2005), Outbound message clean

it would be better to leave the false claims out entirely... yours
is shorter but still false...

How about this one:

avast! antivirus (0531-4, 08/05/2005)
This message is virus-free as far as avast! can tell.

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

kurt wismer skrev:

the point is not that it inserts messages, the point is that the
messages it inserts are false... i think you'll find that most people

But then that would be true for all other virus-scanners as well.
Most I know of inserts a similar kind of message (even larger

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

What's in a Name? skrev:

avast! antivirus (0531-4, 08/05/2005)
This message is virus-free as far as avast! can tell.

What avast! could do is change the tags "Outbound" to "outbound".
Then we could change "Outbound message is clean" to "No virus found in
outbound message". In fact that would be a better english as well.

 

[kurt wismer]

kurt wismer skrev:



But then that would be true for all other virus-scanners as well.
Most I know of inserts a similar kind of message (even larger

the only other one i know of that ever did that was avg...

there are most certainly anti-virus products that don't do it...

 

[kurt wismer]

How about this one:

avast! antivirus (0531-4, 08/05/2005)
This message is virus-free as far as avast! can tell.

that one is just fine...

 

[Alan Pollock]

the only other one i know of that ever did that was avg...

there are most certainly anti-virus products that don't do it...

The point concerns the word 'clean' though, correct? Size of message, or the
fact that there is a message is not important. Were Avast to merely state that
an email's been scanned there would be nothing to complain about, especially
since the default is set to 'no message.' Nex

 

[Roger Wilco]

The point concerns the word 'clean' though, correct?

Yes, not making a false claim will reduce the message to a merely
annoying advertisement. Although it may also give the recipient a false
sense of security anyway and make them think it is okay for them to
execute without scanning any active included content. The fact is that
some malware already crafts a message with such a "this is probably
safe" claim. So the message serves no real purpose aside from
advertising the product.

Size of message, or the
fact that there is a message is not important. Were Avast to merely state that
an email's been scanned there would be nothing to complain about, especially
since the default is set to 'no message.' Nex

Actually, I've got to give them credit for this not being on by
default - makes them look less like adware.

 

[kurt wismer]

The point concerns the word 'clean' though, correct? Size of message, or the
fact that there is a message is not important.

the intellectual honesty of the message is my main concern... ideally it
would also abide by rfc1855 guidelines for signatures email and usenet
messages but i can live with a couple extra lines here and there (there
are worse bandwidth violations out there)

 

[Shadowman]

[snip]

it would be better to leave the false claims out entirely... yours
is shorter but still false...

How about this one:

avast! antivirus (0531-4, 08/05/2005) This message is virus-free as
far as avast! can tell.

that one is just fine...

OK, OK, I fixed the tag...

 

[Shadowman]

[snip]

it would be better to leave the false claims out entirely... yours
is shorter but still false...



How about this one:

avast! antivirus (0531-4, 08/05/2005) This message is virus-free as
far as avast! can tell.

that one is just fine...

OK, OK, I fixed the tag...

Just kidding, of course. But holy crap -- did that stupid avast tag
generate one hell of a discussion, or what?

 

[Shadowman]

Shadowman skrev:




I have used avast! together with the free ZoneAlarm for a long time
now. It's a great combination. Right now I wouldn't change at all!

ZoneAlarm w/ AV has been, well, OK... but I'm considering moving on --
I've found that the program control doesn't seem to play well with some
applications; often I've got to do a bit of futzing with it when I
install something. But not all the time.

Of course, I'm not sure that any other PFW will be any better. But in
the meantime, I'm trying a few out on the laptop. I like the free ver.
of Kerio so far.

 

[DaVinci]

From: "DaVinci" <[email protected]>

| David H. Lipman wrote:
| I'm aware of the disclaimer at the bottom of the page. Nonetheless, the
| link for the 12 month free trial is still live and usable. It's
| possible CA is extending the offer and hasn't updated the page yet.

I thought of that. It was extended 6 months after the klast deadline of 2/1/05. However,
the disclaimer was changed on or about 2/2/05 and I would think if the offer was again
extended the page would be updated as quickly as the last time.

FYI, CA has removed an expiration date and replaced it with the
following, "Computer Associates reserves the right to retract this offer
at any time." So, the offer is indefinite until CA decides it's somehow
affecting their bottom line.

 

[David H. Lipman]

| FYI, CA has removed an expiration date and replaced it with the
| following, "Computer Associates reserves the right to retract this offer
| at any time." So, the offer is indefinite until CA decides it's somehow
| affecting their bottom line.

Thanx for that update. It is *good news* indeed !

 

[Tore Lund]

| FYI, CA has removed an expiration date and replaced it with the
| following, "Computer Associates reserves the right to retract this offer
| at any time." So, the offer is indefinite until CA decides it's somehow
| affecting their bottom line.

Thanx for that update. It is *good news* indeed !

Is it? For my own part I have just dumped eTrust. I got increasingly
irritated with the many hickups on their site. So when they doubled the
annual update price, I began to wonder.

And I actually clicked the "Purchase" button in order to check that the
price was actually doubled. This turned out to be the case, so I just
clicked "Cancel". Lo and behold! My eTrust AV had suddenly been
updated. Previously the expiry date was March 25, 2005. Simply by
going into the "Purchase" option, without actually buying anything, it
had been extended to March 25, 2006.

I waited for a while to see what happened. I was able to download
updates, so it looks like CA thought my program now expired on March 25,
2006.

Conclusion: I do not trust a company running such sorry software on
their own site. I have now installed AVG free and configured it as an
on-demand scanner.