                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                ANTIVIRUS SCANNERS RECOMMENDED BY
                     THE VIRUS RESEARCH UNIT
                                
                         Marko Helenius
                                
 Virus Research Unit, University of Tampere, Department of Computer
Science, P.O.BOX 607, 33101 TAMPERE, FINLAND, Tel: +358 31 215 7139,
            Fax: +358 31 215 6070, E-mail: cshema@uta.fi,
WWW: http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/virus, ftp: ftp.cs.uta.fi /pub/vru


This document has been prepared to help computer users select safe
antivirus scanners for virus prevention.

INTRODUCTION

All scanners detecting more than 95 percent of viruses in the test
set  have  been picked up from the Virus Research Unit's antivirus
scanner  analysis  1996. However it should  be  noted  that  if  a
product  has detected less than 95 percent it does not necessarily
mean  that the product is not safe. Also if a product has detected
more  than  95  percent  of  viruses  in  the  list  it  does  not
necessarily mean that the product is absolutely safe. In  addition
the  recommendations concern only scanner parts of  the  products.
These  recommendations are only rough estimates, but  I  hope  the
lists are still of value.

RECOMMENDED DOS SCANNERS (Alphabetical order)

Avast
AVP
Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit
F-PROT Professional
IBM Antivirus
McAfee Scan
Norton Antivirus
Thunderbyte antivirus
Sweep
Virus Alert
Virusafe

RECOMMENDED MEMORY RESIDENT SCANNERS

Intercheck (Sweep)
Onguard (Virus Alert)
Rguard (Avast)
Virus Guard (Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit)

RECOMMENDED WINDOWS 3.1 SCANNERS

Avast
Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit
F-PROT Professional
IBM Antivirus
Norton Antivirus
Thunderbyte Antivirus

NOTE: Also Virusafe has Windows 3.1 scanner, but it was not
analysed

RECOMMENDED WINDOWS 95 SCANNERS

Avast
Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit
F-PROT Professional
IBM Antivirus
Norton Antivirus
McAfee Scan
Sweep

NOTE: Also Virusafe has Windows 95 scanner, but it was not
analysed

RECOMMENDED MEMORY RESIDENT SCANNERS FOR WINDOWS

Autoprotect (Norton Antivirus)
Gatekeeper (F-PROT Professional)
WinGuard (Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit)

NOTE: Most memory resident scanners for DOS do work also in
Windows.
