Re: Virus experience

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Michael Edwards wrote:

>   If not Norton, can you recommend a couple of other good ones? I thought
> Norton was considered one of the best, actually.

A knowledgeable source I respect tells me that Norton currently has the best AV
scanner "engine." (The component that detects & zaps viruses, etc.) It may have
some drawbacks, though, such as difficulty of removing the product if you ever need
to. The other major player in the field (domestically) is McAfee / Symantec, the
one I've been using for a few years. There is one called Sophos that is pretty big
in Europe. I have links for several others, but am on my way out of town, so can't
dig them out for you just now. Almost none of these are free products these days,
though there is one from Germany that still is.

> I'm not running any anti-virus program at all, and am just paranoid about opening
> attachments (including some which have appeared on this list, which might, for all
> I now, be perfectly
> legitimate files relating to XyWrite). But people have warned me I shouldn't
> continue like this.
>   It sounds, from comments on this list, that some members also see no need
> to run anti-virus programs. So is this practice (not using ani-virus programs)
> just being set in one's ways, or are there really good reasons in favour of not
> using one?

Well, it depends . . . and this shouldn't be taken out of context. I primarily run
OS/2, or its successor, ECS. Although I have seen a few viruses from time to time,
they've all been pretty impotent in the OS/2 environment, because key things they
look for or depend upon (Windoze components, Active-X, VBS scripting) don't exist
there. There's a very good chance I could do without AV altogether, but then there
would still be the possibility of passing an infection on to others.

Jordan