Monday, December 22, 2008

Security Tip - F-Prot Antivirus

Hi. Long time no see. I just wanted to fill you in on a good product. F-prot Antivirus (http://www.f-prot.com/) is a very good and simple antivirus product I have been using for a few months now. I used to use it back in the early-mid 90s (ancient computer history) and I have recently run across it again. I'm glad I did. It is $5 per PC per year. It that price, I am able to run antivirus on all my public stations now.

I get the corporate edition which provides 10 licenses for $50. There are two installation options. First, you can install a version that will check the Internet to upgrade signature files. Or you can install a version that will check a local shared drive for the signature file. There are a set of fairly easy instructions to setup the shared folder and keep it populated with the current signature file.

I installed the Internet checking version on a server, created a shared folder on that server, arranged for F-prot to put the signature file in that folder, and then all the other stations have the "LAN update" version on them and they check that shared folder to upgrade their signature file.

The reason you would want to do this is so that you don't have every station downloading from the F-prot Internet site when an upgraded signature file becomes available. You would just have one station downloading the file and then sharing it with all its associates on the LAN. This makes for a more efficient use of your WAN connection.

I hope you're all staying nice and warm these days. I'll be back in touch next year.

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