Trend Micro House Call
Trend Micro House Call is an online virus and spy ware scan that reports and cleans your computer for free. It is easy and catches many things that other scans miss. I use this weekly to scan for gray ware that my virus scan sometimes misses in its weekly scan.
House Call is web based so there is always an updated scanner available. They provide a link so that you can download any missing security patches you may be looking for. They also offer detailed descriptions of the latest and most malicious viruses out there. The newest version of House Call, version 6.5, has two core engines to choose from; an ActiveX control and a Java VM control. You can decide which of the two engines you would like to use. I typically use the Java control, but cannot tell much difference, if any, between the two. I know some people do not like ActiveX controls, so the Java VM core engine gives them a choice not to use the ActiveX control.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Trend Micro House Call System Requirements:
Trend Micro’s House Call requires the following minimum system components:
Hardware:
133MHz Intel� Pentium� processor or equivalent
64MB of RAM
At least 30MB of available disk space
Operating System:
Microsoft Windows 98SE/NT4.0,SP6a/2000,SP2/XP,SP1/2003 and Windows MCE 2005
Linux Distributions that supports libc6
Solaris 2.6 and above
Software:
Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 6.0 or later
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5, 1.0.6, 1.0.7, 1.5
Mozilla 1.7.12
Display: Monitor that supports 800 x 600 resolution at 256 colors or higher
Trend Micro House Call maps the viruses to show you where the viruses are hitting. They have a wide library of viruses mapped out, with cleaning instructions if the virus scan is unable to clean it. Most of the time House Call is able to clean and remove the virus, gray ware, spy ware, malware, or other warez that they have found. On occasion, though, they are not able to clean and remove it and if this is the case they will give you detailed manual instructions on how to remove it. This was instrumental in getting a vicious trojan off my older computer, as nothing else seemed to work.
Trend Micro House Call also has a CWShredder program, free of charge and web based, so that if the Cool Web bug has hit your computer you can remove it.
I highly recommend any of Trend Micro’s products, particularly this free web based House Call virus scanner. It is fast and the price can’t be beat.
