[OT] Anti-virus updates?

[Peter Ostlund]

I was wondering how anti-virus updates work.
Say AVG updates their definitions every Saturday.
What happens if I update only every other Saturday?

Do I miss out on whatever happens in between[i.e. are they "patches"?],
or am I downloading the entire definition file, or is it a combination of
both?

 

[Christopher Jahn]

I was wondering how anti-virus updates work.
Say AVG updates their definitions every Saturday.
What happens if I update only every other Saturday?

Do I miss out on whatever happens in between[i.e. are they
"patches"?], or am I downloading the entire definition
file, or is it a combination of both?

Mostly, it's definition files. If you update less frequently,
you run the risk of missing an update but catching the virus
the update would have prevented.

 

[Paul Bowlay]

Do I miss out on whatever happens in between

Depends on the virus software. I use EZ AntiVirus and they offer two types
of updates: full, and incremental. The full ones always contain their entire
virus definitions. That's the one I usually get, just to be sure.