AntiVir PEC 7 final released today..
http://www.free-av.com/antivirus/allinonen.html

MinaWassef

Been trying it out,still prefer AVG but I"ll give it a week or so.

The last time I tried it, it deleted a ton of my uninstall.exe files without my permission.

A few beta releases ago, tjm4fun and myself noticed that some executables were mysteriously going missing. I haven't seen it happen since though.

It's not normal for that to be happening, because both the real time scanner and the manual scanner prompt for action by default when something is found.

This is pretty good software. It couldn't come at a better time, because I've been having to remove Avast from all the customers' systems I've put it on, as I see those people again. It's just been letting too many people down. Mostly I'm disappointed in Avast's real time protection, but the scanner also doesn't catch everything. The final straw that woke me up that it wasn't a coincidence was a customer of mine who got nailed not once, not twice, but thrice with Avast working and up to date. I was at first blaming it on needing updates but the more I saw of it, the more I started to question it. I really started to scrutinize it after noting the inconsistent behaviour of the real time scanner while we were testing the WMF exploits.

By contrast, when that happens I can install Antivir and have it start finding things during it's memory scan and self test even before it starts scanning during setup. I've switched to Antivir for customers who don't want to pay, and Nod32 for those that do.

AVG is also relatively weak, but it redeems itself by being lightweight and not causing any problems.

Btw... Antivir 7 is still simple enough that it will install and run in Safe Mode with Command Prompt (can do a custom install and deselect the resident guard) and use it as a quick and dirty scanner.

P.S. Today, I was in at a local computer shop in town where I know the owner quite well. We cooperate together a lot. He told me that a customer of mine brought in their PC for him to fix, and it was seriously infected with Avast going round and round doing it's thing, but not protecting very well. He took it off. Rather embarassing... Avast has made me look stupid too many times.

Grogan

Yes, It was the beta I posted about awhile back. It deleted some executables, but mostly uninstall.exe's that were created with Inno Setup. It was really freaking me out! I double-checked all the AntiVir settings, but couldn't find anything on my part. I promptly uninstalled it, which is a pity, because I really liked it alot. I was ready to say goodbye to avast until that happened. If you say it's fixed, Grogan, I will try it again. I just don't want to be reinstalling some of my programs again.
Oh yeah, another one it deleted was mIRC. I know it's not the safest piece of software to be using, but the program itself is clean. AntiVir shouldn't have deleted it without my permission. Not even a warning about it on a manual scan. It was the realtime scanner that did it.

Yep, the mIRC executable was what tjm4fun had go missing. I couldn't duplicate that though, but I had an executable I swear I transfered from one of my other boxes that didn't show up. I can't even remember what it was, but I had copied it with winscp to my desktop in a Windows XP virtual machine and went to get it and it was gone.

P.S. again, Antivir didn't delete it during the normal course of operations. There was no prompting, no report, no quarantine... nothing, just gone.

P.P.S. I *think* it's fixed. All I can say is that I haven't seen it happen again (and I haven't heard Tom complain about anything either and I see him every night on IRC)

Grogan

So, is it safe to use now that it's out of beta? What is the name of the installer? I have antivir_workstation_win7u_en_h.exe and the download page is confusing.

antivir_workstation_win7u_en_h.exe

The one with the "u" in the filename is the Windows NT/2000/XP. The one without the u is for Win9x, they've separated them now.

Well, I've been using the betas since, in my Windows XP VM, upgrading them when available and I haven't noticed any more mysterious executables going missing or any other problems. That's all I can say. That doesn't mean I've seen it in action in the real world for any period of time. I've only given the beta to a few people who understood what that meant and would have no problem uninstalling and downloading the final. (not sure if that was necessary, but I always would do that)

I hope they support version 6 with updates for a while yet... I just installed that for some not so technical people who wouldn't be happy having to call me back so soon

Grogan

Thanks Grogan. So far nothing has disappeared. We'll see how it goes.

tjm4fun just had his mIRC 5.82 executable go missing again after an Antivir scan, so I guess this isn't fixed. I had tested it with the latest mIRC (6.16) at the time and it did nothing.

He had the scanner set for interactive, and heard no bleeps.

Grogan