As in peer to peer downloads. Any guaranteed methods for making sure a program has no virus or spyware before installing. Will the scan even pick it up before install. McAfee hasn't really done me any good in preventing viruses and spyware from getting on my computer. Is there any safe way to use peer to peer downloading?
2006-12-20 16:56:29 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Security
Should a peer to peer downloaded program be scaned then by several different anti-virus and anti-spyware software to determine if it's safe or not? Because I know they don't all catch everything.
Is it safe in general to do peer to peer downloading or are there just to many new viruses attached to these files to make it worth it?
Can malware infect your computer just by downloading them or do you always have to run them before they can do any damage?
2006-12-21 10:26:00 · update #1
right click on the file you downloaded and click scan with (your anti virus), that will give it a virus scan
2006-12-20 16:59:21 · answer #1 · answered by D McC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, it is not - not for sure, at least.
Using up-to-date virus scanners will tell you if the program contains a *known* (to them) virus. While this greatly reduces the chances of an infection, a new, unknown virus can easily slip by them.
Using generic virus protections like heuristic analyzers, behavior blockers, firewall, etc. adds additional protection from new (unknown) viruses - but a well-written virus can bypass them too.
In general, it is impossible to guarantee that a program you have downloaded is virus-free - although the chances that it is not can be made very small. In fact, it is even possible to prove mathematically that the problem whether a program is a virus or not is algorithmically undecidable. That is, it is impossible to create an algorithm that would correctly determine this for any possible program and any possible virus in a finite amount of time. The proof is even a constructive one - i.e., if somebody claims to have constructed such an algorithm, the proof shows how to make a virus that would evade it.
2006-12-21 07:51:13 · answer #2 · answered by Vesselin Bontchev 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A good anti virus software is what you need. If you dont have one there is an awesome free one on the net called AVAST on access scanner. It will scan incoming e-mail, downloads, websites etc. It does an outstanding real time scan on peer to peer. check it out
http://www.avast.com/
good luck
doc
2006-12-20 17:02:44 · answer #3 · answered by Doc 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I suggest you save the program before installation in hard disc or removable drive and scn it for virus before installation. I can give a few links that offer free virus and spyware removers...! Norton, AVG , Avast are free antivirus software. Ad-aware, Ewido are free spyware removers. You can download free softwares at
http://fixit.in/antivirus.html and http://fixit.in/spywareremover.html
2006-12-23 13:27:52 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would recommend getting the programs Ad-Aware by Lavasoft, and Spybot S&D (search and destroy) - then I'm pretty sure you can just scan whatever executable you just downloaded to see if any virus(es) are detected. Good luck!
2006-12-20 16:59:27 · answer #5 · answered by rtneontek 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i use symantec client security and when i doubt, if a file is clear, i do a right click on a file and choose "scan for viruses".
other good feature of this antivirus is email scan, when you check email message symantec scans it and shows a warning if messages contains smth malicious.
2006-12-20 20:57:27 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
yes avast home edition from avast.com is really ver good..
2006-12-20 19:43:29 · answer #7 · answered by Neo 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
try WindowsDefender from microsoft.com
2006-12-20 17:17:55 · answer #8 · answered by Dav83&8d 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋