I use windows 2003 and 2008 servers for testing purposes and don't want to invest in commercial anti-virus software. These boxes don't support more than one user (me) and are off most of the time so I can't see spending the kind of money that server antivirus software seems to cost.

I know that ClamWin lacks real time scanning and that's a concern.

A reason that I think ClamWin might be enough is that I've run these servers for a couple of years without any antivirus software at all and I dont think they've ever gotten 'hit'. I had the free version of AVG that used to work on server boxes, and it never reported any viruses. And I just ran ClamWin on the boxes and that reported no viruses also.

I am not at all a security expert. I don't typically download files from strange websites; mostly professional companies. I use gmail for all email at this time. I don't know, do you think ClamWin will be good enough if I run it once a week to check things out, all disks, and memory?

Or do you know of any other free or very low cost solution for anti virus software on servers?

Thanks

I tried the microsoft security essentials mentioned in this post https://forums.clamwin.com/viewtopic.php?t=2510 but windows 2003 is not a supported OS.

I would hope that someone who knows more about anti virus stuff could respond to my query. I really am not sure to make of the factoids that I have in hand - I've heard that any pc that does not have anti virus software would be infected within minutes of getting connected to the net; but my windows 2003 servers are not apparently infected after a couple of years (they are behind a firewall but I wouldn't expect that to be enough); and I don't know for sure they they're not infected because all I've used is clamwin (disk and memory scans), and I don't know how good it is.

It's a strange combination of factiods. Maybe I just don't browse to sites that try to push viruses, and don't get infected emails? I also basically never get any alerts from symantec anti virus, which I use on other boxes (xp), tho I know that is effective for real time scanning, have seen it fire up on occasion.

I will make my own decision re anti virus software but I would appreciate some kind of input on this from more experienced people.

Pretty much all viruses have to be executed before they can do any harm. Whether you need on-access scanning depends on how the machine is used.

You may need on-access scanning if:
* a website might trick you or your browser into accessing it
* you might manually download and access or run an infected file without scanning it
* you might access a file put there by someone else without scanning it
* your machine might have the file put there and be triggered to run the file without your intervention
* somebody else might use the computer unsafely

If you keep your operating system patched, browse only to very trustworthy sites (ibm, microsoft, adobe, sun) and limit access, then you may be sufficiently protected without on-access scanning.

I am comfortable with clamwin doing antivirus protection on about a dozen out of about five dozen machines on our network. The other four dozen are using Kaspersky. Some do hourly scanning of high risk areas, all do nightly scanning of the hard drives.

ClamWin is probably enough if you and the other people using the web know what you are doing and practice safe browsing, as you seem to do. I would feel better about this if you also used some sort of antispyware program. The Clam AV signatures furnished to ClamWin have signatures for the major spyware stuff (fake AVs, etc.), but its spyware signatures aren't complete. I also suggest that you look into some kind of ISP block list for additional protection--Maybe Malware Patrol has something at https://www.malware.com.br/index.shtml that you could use.

Regards,

Thanks to both of you for responding to my questions. Good guidance. From the perspective of someone that does not really know the malware topic in depth, it really is impossible to sort out the risks and options from the generic advice offered by most sites.

You could install Spyware Terminator to compliment ClamWin. It's free and will give you the extra protection you're looking for .

Is there one available that supports win 98?

u should use a real-time av with clamwin until there is a real-time version of clamwin available because it is just an on-demand scanner at present. i used avg for a few years but it is now a resource hog.

my opinion: best protection for most people is free microsoft security essentials av (real-time) with free malwarebytes antimalware (on-demand unless u pay for it). they are both light on resources and will not take up very much of your time. keep them updated, do a daily scan with each, and use clamwin as a backup. if u engage in risky behavior online, use free avira antivir as the av for it's better heuristics, but it is bigger and has more false positives.

regards,

My problem is there ain't many progs now that support and work with windows 98, apart from Avast, but of course this will be dropping support for 98 soon.

You don't happen to know any FREE AV realtime progs for 98 by any chance?

Also if and when ClamWin moves to realtime, you think they will go down the route as most other vendors have done and completely drop 98 and ME?

Many people still use 98 for many reasons, even although it''s more than likely vulnerable.

There is this of course, but it ain't free, and I wonder if anyone knows how good this one is.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Windows 95/98/ME.
https://secure.eset.co.uk/order/category.asp?intCategoryId=24

Star,

NOD32 is a VERY good AV but it does cost. BitDefender Free v 10 Build 247 will protect your 9x/ME PCs by locking suspicious or harmful files before they can run. In a sense, BD 10 Free does and does not protect realtime: I have just tried to access a dangerous test file and BD locked it even though the file could run on its own, but didn't; I recieved no warning when the file was placed by me on my drive, but the file was locked; people can put crapware anywhere on my drives, and BD locks these files, but there is no realtime warning -- simply a message to the effect that I do not have sufficient rights to access this file. BD 10 free is written after update for the NT kernel, not the 9x/ME kernel. This means that NT/2000/XP/2003/2008/Vista/7 users have no protection at all with BD 10 Free. On the other hand, 9x/ME users get a vicarious realtime defence because the BD drivers misinterpret the rundll.exe and the rundll32.exe on 9x/ME systems as to lock dangerous files before they execute.

You can get BD 10 free from filehippo.com and if you install it, you shall be prompted eventually for standard, custom or complete installation. Choosing COMPLETE is the defensive trick!

And AVs are dropping 9x/ME support, but BD 10 shall be support for a very long time.

Dave

By the way, Avast and AVG became famous as on-access only scanners, and they were good. The 9x/ME kernel identifies reading, accessing and executing. I live with 9x/ME and BD Free, even though I have OEM floppies and CDs for DOS, Win 3.x, Win 9x/ME (12, 16 and 32 bit), (The VERY RARE) Win 96, and the unwanted NT/Win 200x/XP/Vista/7.

i didn't realize you were on win 98--forgot it, i guess.

i used nod 32 for a year. it was good then and is still better than most avs if you wany to pay. they rely a little too much on heuristics now and don't concentrate quite enough on signatures. if it says you have a virus though, you can believe it.

a real time clamwin will not include win98, but it will still support on-demand scanning according to the developers. look into clamsentinel at https://sourceforge.net/projects/clamsentinel/ on the web. there are lots of posts about it here in the clamwin forums. the developer is a die-hard win98 user and intends to write a Vx driver for it. it's your best bet and provides some good partial real time protection in its present form.

regards,

Thanks, but I am afraid I don't copy the info correctly on the ini file for clam sentinel.

for path, remove the semicolon friom the win98 section to make it active like below--put a semicolon in the xp/vista line.

;***** on Windows 98/ME
PathClamWin=C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\.clamwin\

for no scan, remove semicolon from win98 section to make it active--put semicolon in xp/vista line.

;***** on Windows 98/ME
NoScan=C:\WINDOWS\Recent\

i believe other options are ok. the semicolon makes an option active for a particular computer's operating sys.

send me a pm if this doesn't help. sentinel is pretty good.

regards,

Thanks, as soon as I start to use it I will be in touch.