Quick Review: Infected Or Not


Did you realise that half of the protected computers and almost 70% of the non protected computers are infected with some kind of malware? No? Me neither, but apparently a few virulent viruses and Trojans are able to defeat even the most hardy of antivirus software. Panda Software's Infected Or Not is a handy little site that allows you to scan your PC for viruses lurking on your hard drive. It's aimed at detecting little troublemakers that have penetrated chinks in your antivirus armour.

The site offers two quick tools for scanning your hard drive for potential problems - Panda NanoScan, which detects 813,653 different active viruses, spyware, Trojans and malware and Panda TotalScan, which detects 886,915 of the little critters. Being a busy sort of chap I checked out the NanoScan version which can sift your drive in only one minute. Despite my initial FireFox compatibility problems and having to revert to the inferior browser that is Internet Explorer, I quickly managed to install the ActiveX plugin and run the scan. I was distinctly impressed at the speed of the progress bar as NanoScan whirred into action. Thankfully my online empire isn't going to grind to a halt just yet because, completely as expected, my machine got a clean bill of health. I guess I buck the 70% trend, but as a rule I am very switched on when it comes to antivirus. The scan stats collected are displayed on the Infected Or Not site on a daily basis, so you can see how well you fair in the virus sweepstakes.

The Infected Or Not campaign really does provide a quick, informative and useful assessment of the integrity of your machine and I recommend you try it yourself if you have any doubts about the cleanliness of your drives. An important point to note is that NanoScan and TotalScan are tools for detecting viruses - they are not a substitute for your own antivirus program.

UPDATE: Panda Software have now developed a version of their software that is compatible with the Mozilla Firefox browser. If you're on FF you might like to try scanning your PC now.

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