Disinfectant and F-PROT Still Available

Macintosh Antivirus Software Update (Disinfectant) (27Mar96)

Note that Disinfectant is completely unaware of Macro viruses, which are the most prevalent virus problem on the Mac today. While for years Disinfectant was excellent for controlling viruses on Macintoshes, it is now essentially worthless, except perhaps as a backup procedure for dealing with binary (non-Macro) viruses.

NEWS FLASH: Disinfectant support has been discontinued by its author; this is subsequent to the appearance of the AutoStart Worm. Hence it is fair to say that Disinfectant is no longer suitable for most Macintosh users; nonetheless we'll maintain it for a while. Still, we strongly recommend buying and using a quality commercial antivirus product for Macintosh.

• Download a BinHexed copy of Disinfectant 3.7.1 (~208K) now.

DOS/Windows Antivirus Software Update (F-PROT) (24Feb97)

F-PROT is a Shareware program that is free for individual use -- quoting from the ORDER.TXT file:

The English-language shareware version of the F-PROT anti-virus program is free of charge for private use (that is, free for any individual or family using it on a personally owned computer).

For ALL other users -- commercial and organizations, including educational institutions -- there is a very modest licensing fee to use F-PROT shareware ($1 or less per machine; $20 minimum). If you use F-PROT for more than a brief evaluation, you are obligated to register it. Details are contained in the ORDER.TXT file. Those who are interested in a more complete antivirus solution may wish to consider F-PROT Professional; details are in the PRO.TXT document.

F-PROT Shareware is an excellent package; please register it if you use it but aren't an "individual user" as defined above.

NOTE to University of Michigan members:

As of October 1997, we no longer have a site license for F-PROT Shareware; therefore, the conditions on registering F-PROT pertain to all U-M users as well (except, of course, on personal machines as defined above). Because of the excellence of F-PROT, and because many non-U-M people access our web site, Virus Busters will continue to provide F-PROT here as long as we have both permission and the space to do so.

Although we no longer support it, F-PROT (Shareware version) remains an excellent product; what it does, it does extremely well. For example, its Macro virus detector and remover, FMACROW, is state-of-the-art. For those who do not have access to DSAV through the University, those who don't use GUIs (and to a degree, even for those who do), or those on a tight budget, F-PROT is an excellent alternative. University of Michigan members may find F-PROT useful when they think they may have a virus, but the current version of DSAV does not report one.

In version 3.x of F-PROT, there is a virtual device driver (VxD) that will should resolve the problems with F-PROT 2.x (Shareware version) in the area of prevention, as discussed below. You can download F-PROT 3.12c (~1.6MB) here. [First available at U-M on 04 December, 2002]

Other Stuff

It's important to keep current in the fight against viruses; below are two files that are updated to keep F-PROT "state-of-the-art". It's a good idea to check frequently that you have the most recent version of these files:

• Download a ZIPped copy of the newest definitions for F-MACROW (updated hourly, as necessary), the part of F-PROT that finds and removes WordMacro viruses (leaving our site).

• Download a ZIPped copy of the newest F-PROT.EXE definitions (that's the part that handles non-macro viruses), updated as necessary (leaving our site).

To "unzip" your copy of F-PROT, you need the PKUNZIP program.

• If you don't have it already, download a copy of PKUNZIP.EXE (~29K) now.

• To get the complete PKWare package including documentation, download a copy of PKZ204G.EXE (~198K) now.

We are also maintaining the final F-PROT from the 2.x series; it's very outdated now (January 98, but in case someone wants it, it is available below.

Although F-PROT (Shareware version) 2.x series was excellent at detecting and removing viruses, it was not well suited to preventing viruses in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) environment that many PC users encounter today. Therefore, we recommend Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit (DSAV) or F-PROT Professional as a first line of defense, since both of these products are excellent at preventing viruses as well as detecting and removing them. I can't think of a good reason for using v.2.x now that v.3.x is here, except perhaps for folks with very low RAM or those using old versions of DOS only, but here it is nonetheless:

• Download a ZIPped copy of F-PROT 2.28b (~1100K) now.

Some Instructions for Installing and Using Disinfectant and F-PROT

This is excerpted from our old documentation, which has now been substituted with the new DSAV Toolkit software. We'll keep it here for now because it has instructions for detecting and eradicating viruses using Disinfectant and F-PROT.

F-PROT Frequently Asked Questions Document

What to do if macro viruses are detected by one F-PROT program but not another, how to use F-PROT for DOS under Windows 95 and Windows NT, and other details.

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