User`s guide

VIRUS BULLETIN ©1991 Virus Bulletin Ltd, 21 The Quadrant, Abingdon Science Park, Oxon, OX14 3YS, England. Tel [phone].
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Page 25
VIRUS BULLETINAugust 1991
In Conclusion
This product would be enhanced if the user could augment its
detection capabilities with additional search patterns, such as
those published by Virus Bulletin. IBM, Bates Associates and
S&S (to name but a few) provide this facility - why can’t
McAfee Associates?
ProScan is easy to configure, easy to use and eminently
suitable for non-technical end-users. However, its detection
capabilities are low in comparison to the current market
leaders (which include McAfee’s SCAN) and its disinfection
capabilities are of dubious value - there should be an option to
disable ProScan’s virus removal capability to stop uninformed
end-users compounding any viral damage. ProScan lags
behind McAfee’s shareware products in terms of both
programming and currency. If the developer overcomes the
various shortcomings highlighted in this review, ProScan
might conceivably earn its place in the corporate environment.
PROSCAN
Product ProScan v2.24
Manufacturer McAfee Associates, 4423 Cheeney
Street, Santa Clara, California 95054-0253, USA.
Tel [phone], Fax [phone]
Price On Application
Memory Check No
Network Aware Yes
Single File Check Yes
Definition Format Proprietary
Virus Removal Disinfection
Access To VB Test Set No
User Upgradeable No
Resident Scanner/Monitor No
Scanning Speeds
Hard Disk ‘Secure’ 6 mins 56 secs
‘Turbo’ 3 mins 04 secs
Floppy ‘Secure’ 1 min 26 secs
‘Turbo’ 0 mins 54 secs
Scanner Accuracy
Parasitic 270 out of 365
Boot Sector 6 out of 8
Accuracy
73.99%
For an explanation of the entries in this table refer to the
evaluation protocol published in VB, April 1991, pp. 6-8.
Postscript
London based company International Data Security has
recently been appointed UK distributor for McAfee’s
shareware products. IDS does not currently market ProScan.
Users who register their programs with IDS have access to a
24-hour Bulletin Board Service from which they can
download the latest versions. IDS do not offer technical
support. For information telephone [phone].
REVIEW 2
Dr. Solomon’s Virus Guard
More and more anti-virus software companies are offering
memory-resident components as part of their product range.
The very first of these was Ross Greenberg’s FluShot + which
first appeared as shareware some three years ago and became
the basis for his Virex-PC commercial product. Now the list of
companies offering virus-specific memory-resident programs
includes Central Point Anti-Virus, Norton Anti-Virus, Dr.
Solomon’s Anti-Virus Toolkit, Fridrik Skulason’s F-Prot and
Bates Associates’ VIS Anti-Virus Utilities.
Essential Criteria
From the user’s point of view, the essential criteria which
apply to these programs are:
➤ Is the utility offered both as a device driver and as a TSR?
A device driver offers a greater level of security than a TSR
but at the expense of not being compatible with most
network shells.
➤ Does it make the best possible use of available system
resources? For example, if expanded memory is available,
does the utility use it to store code and/or data?
➤ Is its conventional memory footprint small?
➤ Is its presence unobtrusive under normal, clean conditions?
➤ Is it compatible with other memory-resident software?
➤ Is it secure and effective under all conditions?
It is against this background that I looked at Virus Guard
which is a recent addition to Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus Toolkit.
Principal Components
Virus Guard (version 1.3 released June 3rd 1991) consists of
four files: AUTHOR.COM, which ‘stamps’ diskettes with an
authorisation code which can be checked by Virus Guard;
GUARD.COM, the conventional memory version of Virus
Guard; GUARDEMS.COM, a version which uses EMS; and,
GUARD.DRV, which contains the recognition patterns used
by either of the Virus Guard programs.