PCAVP.RVW 950921
Comparison Review
Company and product:
Company: KAMI Ltd.
Address: 109052 Nizhegorodskaya st. 29, Moscow, Russia (until Jan, 1996)
Address: 123364 Geroev Panfilovtcev str., 10, Moscow, Russia
Phone: +7 (095) 262-1294, 923-0261
Fax: +7 (095) 278-9418, +7 (501) 882-8628
Sales: ALEX International Inc.&Co., Credit Suisse, ch-8070 Zurich,
Paradeplatz, 8, Postfach 590G134; MC3162@mclink.it; Central Command
Inc., P.O. Box 856 Brunswick, Ohio 44212, +1-216-273-2820,
sales@command-hq.com; pierrev@ibm.net; roger@sydney.dialix.oz.au;
vac@uucp.polbox.com.pl; mannig@world-net.sct.fr; prokon@gtc11.gtc.net;
avp-support@metro-net.ch; 100120.503@compuserve.com
Contact: Eugene Kaspersky
Email: eugene@kamis.msk.su, avp-support@icomm.rnd.su, natalya@kamis.msk.su
Other: BBS: +7 (095) 278-9949, FidoNet: 2:5020/156, http://www.icomm.rnd.su/,
ftp://ftp.command-hq.com/pub/command/avp, ftp://ftp.icomm.rnd.su,
http://www.command-hq.com/command
Product: Antiviral Toolkit Pro (AVP)
Summary: resident and non-resident scanner and utilities
Cost U$59.95 to U$200 for single copy, site licensing available
Rating (1-4, 1 = poor, 4 = very good)
"Friendliness"
Installation 2
Ease of use 3
Help systems 3
Compatibility 3
Company
Stability 3
Support 2
Documentation 1
System required 4
Performance 4
Availability 2
Local Support 2
General Description:
AVP is a non-resident virus scanner with significant strength in dealing with
polymorphic and other viral programs using advanced techniques. The package
also features a resident portion, heuristic scanning and utilities.
Please note that reactions from agents to the original review indicate that
versions of the programs vary greatly in price, features and documentation.
Comparison of features and specifications
User Friendliness
Installation
AVP now has a commercial system of distribution through agents. I received a
copy of the US version from Central Command on two 1.44M disks. Unfortunately,
although there is a installation program, there is no manual. There are, in
fact, two setup programs, one to install an original version of the package,
and another to update it. The installation process consists of copying and
decompressing of files, although the system startup files, CONFIG.SYS and
AUTOEXEC.BAT are analysed and can be amended during the procedure, and the
update process can find the original directory.
Ease of use
The programs are easy to run with a not quite standard CUA interface. For some
reason the program attempts to use as a swap file a directory which is not
likely to exist on most systems, but the error message dialogue box allows
users to specify another. The /TMP command line switch can be used to
circumvent this, but the explanation in the English documentation is in error
at this point.
Help systems
Context sensitive help is available. An interesting feature is the
demonstration of sound or video effects of various viruses.
Compatibility
The program is particularly strong in detecting polymorphic viruses.
Company Stability
AVP is a stable product.
Company Support
The author is an active participant in the VIRUS-L discussion list. Some sites
may have difficulty in sending messages to his Internet address. Response,
however, is very good. Distribution through national agents is significant.
Agents may not support or supply all components of the full package.
Documentation
The lack of a printed manual, especially after more than a year has passed, is
disappointing. Even a card listing the installation steps would be an
improvement. After installation a USERGUID.DOC file appears. This contains a
lot of technical detail on the program, especially the virus database
structure, but no general discussion of the virus problem.
System Requirements
DOS 3.3 or higher, 580K free memory, and 16 file handles are stated to be the
minimum requirements in the documentation. In testing, the program ran on a
machine with as little as 498K free memory.
Performance
AVP scores very highly in comparisons of variants detected, but is particularly
strong in detecting viral programs with polymorphic or other advanced features.
The program also has special functions for detecting infections in compressed
files or archives.
Both installation and operation are very slow, particularly on older machines.
On one XT it took over two hours to check 157 programs, 6 megabytes of a 20
megabyte hard drive. On a turbo XT it took 13 minutes to check a floppy disk.
A 486 with a 350M hard drive took 19 minutes to scan. The same machine took 36
seconds with TBScan and 99 seconds with F-PROT. The cost in speed is a result
of the extremely thorough scanning. No option for a reduced scan is available.
Local Support
None provided, but Internet response from various agents is good.
Support Requirements
Once installed, AVP is accessible to any level of user. Intermediate users
should be able to handle installation. The program has features which require
advanced knowledge in order to obtain full benefit.
General Notes
AVP is, unfortunately, still not widely known or available despite increased
distribution. The recent commercial distribution has restricted the
availability of the shareware version, but both older releases and a newer
"AVPLite" can be found at various sites. For those serious about virus
protection, the package is worth the trouble taken to find it.
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994, 1995 PCAVP.RVW 950921
======================
roberts@decus.ca rslade@cln.etc.bc.ca Rob.Slade@f733.n153.z1.fidonet.org
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94311-0/3-540-94311-0