On line virus scanners.

[Anthony A]

I have been looking at some of these and recently tried the one from Trend Micro called House Call. Now the attraction of these scanners is that they are free and apparently no down load is required. So I run the House Call scanner and I used the Java version of it for Firefox. Came up clean except for some tracking cookies. After I was done I was surprised to find a 33 MB file on C/ Documents and Settings on my hard drive. So much for no download.

Anybody use these scanners and if so what ones and how do you like them? Do they all leave these files even though they are supposed to be on line scanners?

 

[detailz]

I use Trend Micro also. I also use AVG 7.1, both of which were recommended to me from my uncle who is a computer repair/problem solver by trade. If you can't trust your family, who can you trust? right?

 

[MrRogue]

The problem with the free virus ones you do online like the one you mention is that Its usally already to late. Its already on your computer, where if you buy or download or whatever, it "usally" stops it before even getting on your computer. I run a virus software called Kaspersky.

 

[mongo]

You don't need two virus scanners running at the same time they will comnflict with eash other.
You can have two anti-spyware apps running at same time.

mongo

 

[MrRogue]

Trend micro is just an online thing, it does not offer real time protection, so it shouldn't conflict, since he only has one installed on his computer.

But back on subject, I have tried trend micro, and It picks up everything, the only downside is no real time protection. The thing they installed im guessing is just somthing so it can seach your computer, or maybe just a place to store all the bad files in? Not sure on that one.

 

[Anthony A]

You don't need two virus scanners running at the same time they will comnflict with eash other.
You can have two anti-spyware apps running at same time.

mongo

You shouldn't have more than one real time virus scanner running but as mentioned this is a on line detection and removal scanner not real time active virus blocking. You can run as many as you want of these online scans.

 

[Anthony A]

The problem with the free virus ones you do online like the one you mention is that Its usally already to late. Its already on your computer, where if you buy or download or whatever, it "usally" stops it before even getting on your computer. I run a virus software called Kaspersky.

Yeah these on line scanners will be too late but thats the nature of a scanner that detects and removes viruses but doesn't offer real time protection. I am just looking at a scanner or two or three to compliment the real time protection I already have.

 

[Anthony A]

The thing they installed im guessing is just somthing so it can seach your computer, or maybe just a place to store all the bad files in? Not sure on that one.

Well if you look on your C drive under Documents and Settings and then under your user name you will see a folder called Housecall. Open that folder and there is 30+ sub folders in there for the Housecall scanner. Total of 33MB. This is very misleading to me considering that I thought it was a non down load product. Consider that my entire Maxthon browser is about 2 MB and that Housecall folder is huge in comparison.

 

[MrRogue]

Yeah these on line scanners will be too late but thats the nature of a scanner that detects and removes viruses but doesn't offer real time protection. I am just looking at a scanner or two or three to compliment the real time protection I already have.

Then this is probally one of the best to use.

As for the file, yea im not sure on that one, But here are the system requirements for it.

System Requirements:

Trend Micro’s HouseCall requires the following minimum system components:

Hardware:

* 133MHz Intel™ Pentium™ processor or equivalent
* 64MB of RAM
* At least 30MB of available disk space

What information is collected?

The following information is sent back to the Virus Map server from your computer: country of origin and number of files scanned. If any viruses are found during the scan, HouseCall will also send the name of the virus, the number of infected files found and the number of files cleaned by HouseCall.

Thats probally whats in the files. I read through all the links and they actually don't say specificly, this is as close as I can find, just data for them to make maps and statistics out of.