PCTBSCAN.RVW 910612
Comparison Review
Company and product:
Frans Veldman
ESaSS B.V.
P.o. box 1380
6501 BJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Tel: 31 - 80 - 787 771
Fax: 31 - 80 - 777 327
Data: 31 - 85 - 212 395
(2:280/200 @fidonet)
c/o Jeroen W. Pluimers/Smulders
P.O. Box 266
2170 AG Sassenheim
The Netherlands
work: +31-71-274245 9.00-17.00 CET
home: +31-2522-11809 19:00-23:00 CET
email: 2:281/521 or 2:281/515.3
email: PLUIMERS@HLERUL5.BITNET
FTHSMULD@rulgl.LeidenUniv.nl
ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!rulgl.LeidenUniv.nl!FTHSMULD
Thunderbyte Scan promotional programs
Summary:
Resident and non-resident scanner and boot sector repair programs
Cost free of charge
Rating (1-4, 1 = poor, 4 = very good)
"Friendliness"
Installation 2
Ease of use 3
Help systems 3
Compatibility 2
Company
Stability 3
Support 2
Documentation 2
Hardware required 3
Performance 2
Availability 2
Local Support 1
General Description:
The programs tested are TBSCAN 2.2 dated 910314, TBRESCUE 1.2 dated 910211, and
TBSCANX 2.6 dated 910419. These are "freeware" (no charge but copyright)
programs distributed to promote the Thunderbyte security card (product not
available for testing.) The scanners use IBM's VIRSCAN signature file format,
and are very fast, but provide no disinfection.
Comparison of features and specifications
User Friendliness
Installation
Installation is a matter of copying the programs to disk and deciding how to
run them. The documentation, while clear enough as to use, does not supply
much in the way of direction as to the invocation of, say, the resident
scanner, TBSCANX.
In another sense, the "use" of TBRESCUE is also its "installation", in the
production of a repair file, while it could be used, in its "compare" mode, to
check the system areas at boot time.
While an experienced user will be able to determine how best to use these
programs fairly easily, novice or intermediate users may not have sufficient
information to use them effectively.
Ease of use
The programs are fairly easy to use. The command line switches should not be
strictly necessary for effective use, but can provide significant extra
information or use for the expert.
Help systems
If invoked incorrectly, the program displays a brief summary of the command
line switches.
Compatibility
During testing significant problems were encountered. The documentation does
warn against the use of resident or pop-up programs, and this may have
contributed to the problem. At this time, the problems remain unresolved.
On one machine, TBSCAN would fail to check any files after a memory checking
program had been run. No error message was displayed.
Company Stability
Unknown, but one report indicates that the company has recently made a
significant sale to Phillips.
Company Support
Contacts with the company have been sketchy so far.
Documentation
The English documentation is definitely written for the intermediate or
experienced user, and contains numerous grammatical errors. It does, however,
provide some helpful and realistic discussion of the limitations of these types
of programs. (This is to be expected, since the programs are used for the
promotion of the hardware card.)
Hardware Requirements
None stated. Difficulty was encountered in running the program on an old IBM
compact/portable, but may have been related to programs run before TBSCAN.
Performance
TBRESCUE will not work on a "floppy only" system.
TBSCAN and TBSCANX fail to identify the "Stoned" virus in memory, although
TBSCAN will identify it on disk. TBSCANX will not alert you to a boot sector
infection when accessing (DIR or other) an infected disk.
TBSCANX 2.2 failed to identify the Jerusalem virus in infected files, although
TBSCAN would identify them on disk. TBSCANX 2.6 has fixed this, but no longer
permits you to run the files. It still does not, however, prevent Jerusalem
from "going resident" and infecting other files. (Subsequently infected files,
for some reason, will run, although TBSCAN will terminate with no error
message. It will do this when infected with a virus as well.)
Local Support
None provided.
Support Requirements
On a "scan only" basis, the program is simple to use. Installation, and
disinfection will require expert assistance.
General Notes
The speed of the scanner, and its ability to use IBM's VIRSCAN signatures (and
have the user extend the signature file) make this a handy tool for "first
line" defense. It does not, in its present state, seem advisable to depend
upon this product alone.
Also note - although the documentation states that the program is free of
charge, occasionally when invoking the TBSCANX program a message appeared
urging the user to register this "evaluation copy".
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1991 PCTBSCAN.RVW 910612
======================
roberts@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca aa046@freenet.victoria.bc.ca
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)