This is from a swedish blog claiming that AV`s wont remove malware. this it what It says;
To begin with, I would like to dispel the myth that antivirus software can remove viruses. They do not usually.
Antivirus is proactive - they protect your computer from being affected by computer viruses (read: Everything you need to know about computer viruses!). If your computer becomes infected, because the example does not have an updated antivirus and enabled, it is often difficult to solve the problem.
Has the virus infected the system files and deleted data can be the only solution is to reformat the hard disk and reinstall Windows. Forget the files stored on the hard disk, the virus is probably infected. Again a good reason to backup.
I dont think this is true. Of course AV programs can remove malware. What do you think?
Any AV program cannot remove all malware. Some enbeds itself so deeply that it can’t be removed completely.
I believe this is what the blog is probably talking about. Still, an antivirus is not proactive, it’s reactive. It is proactive in the sense that it’s most useful when protecting your system from infection, but it still usually can’t identify a new malware until someone’s already encountered it and submitted it.
There are many cases where reformatting is the only option.
Several virus can be cleaned by wiping the infected files, without the help of any antivirus excepting sometimes the detection stage.
Formatting should become the exception, as in most circumstances, repairing mbr and/or replacing corrupted system files if ny is enough.
But it assumes of course one always has under hand appropriate tools, external booting media and backups.
Globally speaking, an antivirus always fails in virus cleaning because at best, it deletes or quarantine infected files, but is not of course able to replace corrupted system files with the good ones.
Most AV’s do not repair infected files very well although they may be successful with some. Their main job is to prevent things from getting infected in the first place. If something does get through they can detect infections after the fact but as had been said they usually just quarantine or delete the offending files. Programs like Malwarebytes are usually far more effective at removing the bad stuff completely. A reformat should always be the last resort when everything else fails and should rarely be needed.
As I understand it the blogger is saying that antiviruses usually don’t remove infections. But that they will remove an infection every now and then.
How he got to that conclusion IDK. He probably reached this conclusion from his own experience or something like that.
Antiviruses will remove some viruses, thats for sure. But a format is probably one of the safer way for home users and the one to prefer if the system has been infected by virus(es). That way you can be almost sure that the infection is completely removed.
I like the suggestion about having backups as well. CIS as of now would probably fail cleaning the system if it was infected like suggested by the blogger, he is talking about infected system files. Those usually can not just be removed. And if the anti-virus is to remove them the system might crash, cus they could be important. CIS-antivirus as of now hasn’t got the cleaning AFAIK, its remove, remove, remove… But I think “cleaning” of infected systemfiles and such is planned for some future version. I might be wrong tho. =)
