Maybe harder to answer...

How effective is Antivirus on HTTP traffic? Assuimng you use z100g with antivirus and additional desktop antivirus software, how many viruses your desktop antivirus catches? Any HTTP pass through antivirus has to be less effective than antivirus which scans full files all at once

thank you

That is an excellent question. In testing regular ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE a simple test is to go to http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm

It contains variations of a (SAFE) virus.

When I a clicked on one version - the zonealarm did not pick it up but my PC software did.

A couple of years ago I asked why that happened and CS said that the zone alarm picks up the newer viruses NOT ALL viruses. The philosophy I guess is the zone alarm will hold the defense until PC software is updated. Needless to say I did not go to a site that I could test a real virus.

My personal habits is this -
1) Hope Z100G picks up viruses as it should.
2) Have the Z100G block certain web categories especially Malicious sites.
3) Force anyone behind the router to use OPENDNS and block categories there too.
4) Have an antivirus running on the PC.
5) Use a host file to further restrict malicious sites. http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Thank you for very detail response.

This is very interesting. I'm wondering why it would pick only new viruses - there can be two possible explanations.

1. the processor cannot really handle large signature volume

2. there is not enough memory in the router to load all the signatures



I was looking at $400 range antivirus appliances, the real problem for me is much higher antivirus subscription cost, which I don't think I want to spend (I want it for my house).

If you have an old dual+ NIC machine sitting around - you could try astaro

http://www.astaro.com/our_prod...es/free_home_edition

The TWIT guys (Steve Gibson Security Now podcast) like it. A friend of mine uses it.