NO ONE'S GOING TO GROUND YOU OR WITHHOLD YOUR allowance for not cleaning up your PC. But if you don't, the day will come when a client's report is due and your hard drive refuses to cough up weeks of hard-won research.
Utilities can include everything from alternative toolbars to uninstallers, but here are four types of Windows utilities that provide the essential virtual mops and brooms you need to disinfect your files, safely store your data, and straighten up your memory.
To keep your PC spic and span, we've identified the best antivirus, backup, and memory management utilities as well as a couple of all-in-one packages. Once you've done your chores with these tools, you'll be free to go out and play with your data--and your chances of getting grounded will be greatly reduced.
Antivirus Software Even though overblown horror stories about global data-gobbling computer viruses have spread it-can't-happen-here cynicism, the truth is, viruses are fairly common. Just because you're the only who ever touches your system's keyboard doesn't mean you're immune. If you use the Internet or an electronic bulletin board service, you'll discover that computer virus outbreaks often spread infections to hundreds of users. And there's no better way to destroy repeat business than by infecting your clients' computers.
The thousands of computer viruses out there range from humorous to destructive. And as antivirus programmers become better sleuths, virus authors become more devious criminals, creating encrypted strains that hide their own codes and polymorphic infections that mutate as they reproduce to avoid leaving any clues.
Antivirus programs have to perform a variety of tasks, from scanning files and boot sectors of disk drives to combing system memory for any potential intruders. Most antivirus programs today can also stand guard within your PC's memory, watching for suspicious activity and preventing infections before they can spread.
To give you some idea of how insidious these viruses can be, we found one lurking uninvited on our computer when we first began our testing. After cleaning it out, we took a big leap of faith and purposely infected our testbed computer with both common and rare viruses to put these programs through their paces. You'll be happy to know that using a variety of the products here, we found and exterminated them all, although a few files were sacrificed in the line of duty. (Unless otherwise noted, list prices are given.)
McAfee VirusScan 2.2
Rating: * * * 1/2
McAfee's $65 VirusScan scans for and cleans out viruses with a single mouse click. Like the other antivirus programs here, it catches encrypted and polymorphic strains by using such arcane sleuthing techniques as disassembly and simulated execution, signature checking, and file validation. In our tests it caught all but the rarest of viruses. After it found them, however, it wasn't able to clean and repair some of the infected files as well as we would have liked. Unfortunately, when certain viruses are detected, your only choice is to toss the infected file.
To prevent new viruses from being introduced into your system, VirusScan includes VShield, a memory-resident program that checks every program before allowing it to run. A big advantage of VShield is that it works while sitting in extended memory (above the first megabyte), thus saving valuable lower memory for more important tasks.
VirusScan provides all the basics, including a scheduler for automatic scanning and settings that scan only particular directories or drives. It even includes a communications program for downloading updates directly from McAfee. VirusScan's only significant short-coming is that it doesn't include detailed descriptions of how certain viruses attack your computer, helpful information if anything pierces your defenses. $65; McAfee Associates, 408-988-3832, 800-332-9966.
CIRCLE 118 ON READER SERVICE CARD
Norton AntiVirus 3.0
Rating: ****
Norton AntiVirus makes protecting your PC a snap. The program includes a full virusscanner and cleaner along with a memory-resident antivirus program to prevent new infections. The Auto-Protect feature looks for virus-like activity by taking a snapshot of your files during installation, then comparing files with the snapshot before allowing them to run. There were a few false alarms in our tests (better to be too careful than not careful enough), but generally Auto-Protect proved to be an effective guard against nefarious polymorphic viruses. To further buttress your system's defenses, AntiVirus can inoculate specific files, which prevents any change from being made to those items.
The AntiVirus interface is easier to use than VirusScan's but takes up more space (5MB for a full installation versus VirusScan's less than 2MB). We also found that AntiVirus was able to clean or repair more files than VirusScan. Furthermore, AntiVirus was faster than VirusScan when it came to scanning hard disks, and its library of viruses has more complete descriptions (so you know what you're facing should your system become infected). $129.
Tags: Spyware Doctor, Spyware Removers, downloads, software, trial, free, free Spyware Doctor download, computer doctor, secure pc, spyware protection
