Hello. Thank you for recommending the Clam Sentinel program. I did download and install it and it does seem to be doing a real time scan as I selected that feature during installation and I am able to view some kind of scan results via Notepad. However, I can't actually open the program itself. Whenever I click on either the desktop or toolbar icon, nothing happens. I am also unclear as to whether it has found any viruses during a scan and, if so, whether it is able to quarantine them.

ClamWin must be installed before you install Sentinel. If Sentinel is installed correctly, Sentinel menu options are accessable from the system tray. The Sentinel default options are best for most users. If Sentinel doesn't appear to work correctly, try a reinstall. It probably works best on XP and newer isystems.

Regards,

Clam Sentinel doesn't have a GUI, so that is why nothing opens. As Bob said, you can only access it by the system tray menu. If you right click on the system tray icon (located next to the Windows clock), you will see all of sentinels settings from there. Sentinel comes default with 120 extensions, but you can change them to how you prefer.

Please note though, Sentinel is not a true real-time protection. If anything, it's more just a download scanner. Bob and I are working on improving Sentinel and will hopefully have it updated and combined with ClamWin by the time 1.0 is ready.

Sentinel does work best as a download protector but it scans any file with those 120 extensions as it is added, modified or copied on your computer.

Regards,

Thank you for the responses. I believe I found what you were referring to. It seems to be constantly scanning whenever the computer boots up. I am able to open a real time log of sorts in Notepad but I'm not clear when, if ever, the scan is finished; and what the results are. (Were there any viruses found? Were they quarantined?) Can't tell.

I will definitely look forward to and keep my eyes open for the new, combined version. Do you have any target dates set?

There are no dates set to when it will be finished. If you know anyone who can help us, we would take all the help we can get.

You mentioned that Sentinel is constantly scanning files? Is it the same file over and over again or are they different? I notice every time I browser the web, Sentinel scans the same .js file over and over again. I usually just make a exclusion for the file, if that is the case.

No, what I meant by that is I think the program is constantly scanning the entire system but the only part I can see is the Real Time log in Notepad which I can't make much sense of. And I don't see any conclusions, i.e. # of infected files found, etc.
The only time I have been able to see a full scan in action from start to finish with results, is when it scanned my flash drive after it prompted me to do so.

Sentinel is designed to scan any file that moves on the system. There are always system files being used, so this could be why. I suggested to Bob, at one time, to add some kind of anti-loop scan, to prevent Sentinel from re-scanning the same file over and over again, as long as nothing was changed with the file, I see no reason to re-scan the same file again.

If you feel there is something more to it, then please, in your next post, copy and paste a large part of your real-time log and I can inspect it and see if there is anything our of the ordinary.

Only started to use both these programs recently, and I have to ask, when I download something for instance a zip file, and what stage does the sentinel check the file? I downloaded a .rar file recently and I didn't see anything happen, perhaps it tested it in the background, can you help?

Also is it safe to just use five extensions for extensions scanned under advanced settings .exe, .sys, .dll, .scr and .msi, I ask as I found it to be very long in scanning if I used all the extensions.

Where exactly do you see this happening in sentinel?

When I go to Logs in sentinel Real-Time scan is greyed out, is this something I must have not done when I installed sentinel?

If you are only using the 5 extensions, .exe, .sys, .dll, .scr and .msi, then Sentinel won't scan .zip files because you did not specify it to. If you want Sentinel to scan .zip files, you will need to add .zip to the extension list.

As for the .js issue I have, I get that because Firefox uses that file to load pages in it's web browser, so it is repeatedly scanned over and over again every time I flip through pages through Firefox. If you notice this happening on your system, I would advice that you exclude that file so Sentinel doesn't not keep loop scanning that file.

Does that refer to zip files being downloaded or only when you open the zip file?

Also what is this link referring to?

https://forums.clamwin.com/viewtopic.php?t=4178

I added .zip and .rar on sentinel, will that reflect in ClamWin too?

You can use whatever extensions to scan that you want with Clam Sentinel. The configurable extensions are for the ClamWin scan that Sentinel does after its own heuristics scan, which uses an internal set of extensions that you can not configure. We had to do the heuristics scan first because ClamWin is so slow. The heuristics scan is very fast, and it uses a set of extensions that are commonly used by malware. The heuristics do not scan archived files, which are usually safe until they are unzipped and executed.

Make sure the extensions used in your ClamWin Scan with Clam Sentinel include: .bat .cpl .exe .dll .doc .docx .js ocx .pdf .rtf. .scr .swf .tmp .vbs and .zip. 15-30 extensions should be eough. When you use ClamWin to do its own scan outside of Sentinel, the extensions you have configured in the ClamWin menu rule--the ClamWin extensions to scan with Clam Sentinel are ignored.

Regards,

I opened a .rar file that I already had on my computer and I didn't see ClamWin or Sentinel respond in any way, I thought I would have as I have just added both these extensions to sentinel for scanning, am I missing something here? or do I need to manually scan, I thought that it tested these right away when opened you see.