Review Sunday:Kaspersky Anti Virus 7.0

Welcome to Review Sunday. This week we have the internet security software Kaspersky 7.0. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0 provides all the traditional anti-virus protection. The software is designed based on the latest protection technology which helps you to work, communicate, surf the internet and play online games on your computer safely, smoothly and easily.

Features

The software comes with three protection technologies against new and unknown threats: 1) Automated database updates every hour, 2) Preliminary behavior analysis and 3) On-going behavior analysis.
Total protection from viruses, Trojans and worms.
Automatic database updates.
Real-time scanning for email, Internet traffic and files.
Complete protection from spyware and adware.
Detects all types of rootkits.
Safe from all types of keyloggers.
Round the clock protection from viruses when using ICQ and other IM clients.
Recognizes unauthorized system activity.
Blocks pop-up ads and unwanted banners if you find disturbing.

Additional Features

Can rollback unwanted changes made on the computer.
Self-defense of the antivirus program from being disabled or stopped.
Free technical support.
Tools for creating a Rescue Disk.

Simple and easy to use
The software comes with very clean and easy-to-use interface that can be handled by any person whether it is a knowledgeable or a newbie. The program is mainly divided with three tabs- settings, protection and support. Within each of the tabs, you can select other functions.

Kaspersky is a perfect tool for both home as well as advanced users. There are recommended settings for home users who do not want to go complicated. This provides an easy to find scan button that can scan the computer based on these settings. For advanced users, they can customize the settings tab and take the ride as they want.

Scanning levels are of 3 types. Maximum, Normal and High speed.

Maximum: This type scans all the files, start up objects, disk boot sectors, system memory, email format files etc.

Normal: covers everything except email format files.

High Speed: This type scans everything except email format files, start up objects and archives.

The software scans only new and changed files in real-time; scanning gets paused if other activities require additional resources; default settings for real-time monitoring ensure maximum performance.

The software also checks for updates regularly. The checks can get more frequent if virus outbreaks. The updates are done automatically. If your internet connection gets interrupted, the updates will resume. The software comes with a special technology so the program will use already existing anti-virus database for an increasing update.

You can simply right click on a file and choose to scan. You can even select a number of files to scan or just scan your entire computer.

In case the software detects a virus then there are a number of ways you can let the software handle the work. It can just delete the file, notify you that it has found an infected file or log the information for later use. During each scan, there is an estimated time to finish so that you can plan accordingly.

Security
Trojans and keyloggers try to send your data to third parties without your knowledge. Kaspersky detects and destroys such programs, making sure that your data is safe and protected. It monitors the system for suspicious behavior. When a harmful behavior is detected, the process gets blocked and all the changes will be rolled back thereby making no changes to your data.

File Anti-Virus
This scanner scans the files on hard drives, CD’s, DVD’s and flash drives when they are accessed. Every file on your computer should first take a scan with this scanner before it can proceed. By default the heuristic analyzer of the File Anti-Virus is turned off. The software analyses new threats immediately and also methods for disinfecting them. Therefore if you update Kaspersky Internet Security on a regular basis on your computer, you will not need to use the heuristic method regularly. The heuristic analyzer detects malicious behavior, even if the specific threat is not present in the anti-virus database. It is a handy tool which analyzes suspicious files, but the tool must be used with caution. The heuristic analyzer should therefore be used by advanced users only.

Mail Anti-Virus
This scanner scans the e-mails for malicious threats within the attachments. It scans for malware on POP, SMTP, IMAP, NNTP protocols etc. It comes with a special support from Microsoft Office and The Bat.

Web Anti-Virus
While browsing the Internet This scanner can be a handy tool. This scanner protects against malware attacks from websites when browsing. It scans HTTP traffic for malicious code and blocks dangerous scripts in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Firewall
The Kaspersky Internet Security Firewall intrusion detection system is very efficient. By default, it allows network activity of all applications. It can be a good setting for beginners, where they enjoy firewall protection. Advanced users can move the security level of the firewall up by one degree thereby enabling the Training Mode. This mode is where you can train the firewall by telling it which applications should be trusted as you use them on the system. This needs extra knowledge about the applications installed on the computer. Only then it would be a wise decision to switch to this mode.

Proactive Defence
The Proactive Defence mode is an impressive feature of Kaspersky Internet Security and undoubtedly the best. This feature consists of three components 1)Application Activity Analyser, which analyzes the actions performed by every application that runs on the computer; 2)Application Integrity Control, which tracks the integrity of the programs by the composition of the program modules; 3)Registry Guard, which analyzes all attempts made to change keys in the Windows Registry. New users should not feel daunted by these strange terms. The Proactive Defence module is mainly a tool for advanced users, but can be optimized for normal use.

Parental Control
This feature is for parents who concern about what their children can access on the Internet. This feature is basic and easy to configure. Kaspersky Internet Security blocks websites containing content related to pornography, drugs, violence, explicit language and other kinds of explicit content. Parents can also restrict access to chat and Internet Mail if they find harmful. A white list and black list can be used to allow or block specific URL’s or specific phrases/words found in an URL.

Privacy Control
This feature comes with Anti-Dialer protection. The Anti-Dialer protection informs of telephone numbers that are dialed from the computer without knowledge of the user. Kaspersky Internet Security protects confidential data. It prompts whenever an unauthorized transmission of confidential data has occurred over the Internet.

Anti Spam Filter
The Kaspersky Internet Security Anti-Spam filter can process traffic from POP, SMTP and IMAP protocols. The Kaspersky Internet Security Anti-Spam filter acts as a proxy between the e-mail server and e-mail client. This saves downloading time and cuts down bandwidth costs. You can run the Anti Spam Wizard in order to do some initial training. The filter has a white and black list of e-mail addresses and key phrases. E-mails from that contain the key phrases on the key phrases white list; will not be regarded as spam. When coming to black list, it has the exact opposite effect. Three different spam recognition filters are used for spam filtering here namely the self-training iBayes algorithm, for text recognition; the GSG technology for image recognition and the PDB technology for header recognition. The spam ratings can be assigned to fine-tune the filter in order to meet the specific needs.

Support
The company has a dedicated support team who can answer your querries. There is an online forum, email address, phone support and FAQ.

Summary
Kaspersky is an easy-to-use program for an average person with lots of customizable options for an advanced user. Just install and set up the software and you’ll love the product.

Conclusion
If you’re looking for an antivirus application that’s good, fast, reliable, simple and easy to use, then I would suggest Kaspersky is the one to go. This antivirus application is easy and perfect for beginners, with customization features that can please more-advanced users, as well.

Pros: Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7 has an intuitive and fresh interface that offers excellent technical support, and removes viruses, spyware, rootkits and other types of Trojans. The product is excellent at keeping malware out of a clean system and also very effective at cleaning up malware-infected areas.

Cons: Spam protection is not so impressive. Parental-control feature is rough-edged. Firewall’s program control is turned off by default.

Overall a perfect application that can please novice to advanced users and can get the desired results.

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February 10, 2008 | Filed Under Review Sunday, Software