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