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Cleaning up after Anti-Viruses

Nikhil Rastogi, Jun 01, 2008 1220 hrs IST

Anti-Virus programs do catch the culprits and remove them -- but what happens in the aftermath?

EXPERT REVIEW

Change -- it's ever so constant! It itself never changes but manifests change in everything else. That's a law of the universe. This law itself never changes. It's almost always surprising to see something breaking this universal law itself. What am I blabbering about? Anti-Virus programs.

After computing for so many years, one thing certainly has changed much, the way Anti-Virus programs work. No, I'm not talking about the better level of detection or heuristic scanning which has gotten better over time or the additional scanning methods employed by Anti-Virus vendors; I'm talking about "After-Virus Blues."

What I mean by "After-Virus Blues" is Anti-Virus programs do catch the culprits and remove them -- but what happens in the aftermath? Often virus being caught means the source "exe" is removed/quarantined but what about the associated damage that the virus leaves behind such as numerous registry entries, startup entries, the additional dll's/inf files which don't just sit there twiddling their thumbs but quickly become a pain in the wrong place with an error message or two saying some inane exe is missing or hard-drives when double-clicked keep popping up with "Open files with" dialog which shouldn't be there.

Don't get me wrong, Anti-Virus vendors are doing a phenomenal job, but there are two main things that Anti-Virus programs ought to be doing.

a. Excellent virus detection and removal -- which I've no complain about,
b. Cleaning up after the virus has already run havoc -- which is the weak point of these programs.

It is very disconcerting to know that in spite of Anti-Viruses catching the latest and the greatest threat and boasting about its own robustness, never do a good job at cleaning up after the virus has run havoc. All that is left up to the user is to run up an additional cost to call the technician (or your friendly neighbourhood computer geek) to do the final cleanup job themselves that Anti-Viruses ought to have prevented in the first place. Even if you cannot prevent a virus at least have a good solid way to cleanup the mess and not keep users hanging loose in the middle.

Yes, I know many Anti-Virus companies do release specialised virus cleaning utilities; it's a hit- and miss-situation! Sometimes, the software works, sometimes it doesn't. Not only that, the user has no way of identifying this specialised utility unless he himself searches for a removal utility. Anti-Virus programs aren't even built to be capable of informing the user to download the specialised utility directly through their site. This kind of knowledge only a fairly capable computer adept would have which essentially leaves out hundreds-thousands of computer users. This boils down to Anti-Virus vendors failing to do their job or let's be fair -- failing to complete their job.

Though unfortunately this is the state of affairs today, I do hope it changes for the better later on. But as of now dear users, we are left to our own ingenuity to solve our own virus blues. With that, I come to various common practices that ought to help you out of a sticky situation.

USER COMMENTS

very good

by Ratnakar, Mumbai, on Jan 06, 2009 03:18 PM, Report abuse Reply

Help me is it a free service ?

by Supriya Gupta, Kolkatta, on Dec 20, 2008 09:38 PM, Report abuse Reply

Thanx for the cool info.But how do I set 'boot time scan' in other antivirus programs like Bitdefender?

by Sauvik Roy, Dhaka-Bangladesh, on Jun 15, 2008 10:25 AM, Report abuse Reply

Excellent

by Anand Reddy, Bangalore, on Jun 10, 2008 03:38 PM, Report abuse Reply

good

by Viswanathan, chennai, on Jun 07, 2008 08:16 PM, Report abuse Reply

this is excellent software which you are giving thank you very much

by ankush2334, Kalyan, on Jun 03, 2008 06:59 PM, Report abuse Reply

Very informative and usefull

by Mangesh Wagle, Mumbai,India, on Jun 03, 2008 06:46 PM, Report abuse Reply

Pl. read this

by K.S.Rao, Hyd, on Jun 03, 2008 02:04 PM, Report abuse Reply

There are many virus softwares that do a good job - amongst them I prefer Symantec Corporate, NOD32, Kaspersky. In Antispyware I prefer PC Tools spyware doctor. I change them from time to time. All virus softwares give false alarms - false detection as well. You cannot help it. The development is a on going process. After virus clean up I usually scan my computer with registry mechanic or registry first aid - two very efficient softwares to find orphaned entries in your database. This almost removes all of your problems. But sometimes may remove essential files which again you cannot help as most of the computer users are novice and do not have in-depth knowledge of programming. In case of computer not running well - you have ultimate option of Formatting and re-installing your OS. AkBagaria

by Ashok Kumar Bag, Birganj (Nepal), on Jun 03, 2008 01:28 PM, Report abuse Reply

Good Article that helps

by Naresh B Jumani, Bangalore, on Jun 03, 2008 11:52 AM, Report abuse Reply

Very Good

by Chinmay, Kolkata, on Jun 03, 2008 12:00 AM, Report abuse Reply

Please reply

by S K G RAO, BANGALORE - INDIA, on Jun 02, 2008 11:57 PM, Report abuse Reply

Hello, Kindly let us know what to do? The best anti virus is it AVG 8.0

by S K G RAO, BANGALORE - INDIA, on Jun 02, 2008 11:55 PM, Report abuse Reply

wow..cool, coba yach, tapi trial gak...

by arief, tangerang, on Jun 02, 2008 05:33 PM, Report abuse Reply

Thank you. very informative