[nfbcs] Accessible virus protection

[Deborah Armstrong]

I really like Microsoft's security essentials. It never gets scores as high as some of the more commercial virus checkers, but gets reasonable ones. It is easy to read and interact with using JAWS, NVDA or WindowEyes. 

In addition I also run MalwareBytes anti-malware which works well with JAWS and is updatable with ninite.

If you don't know about ninite.com go there and learn about it; highly recommended for automatically updating open-source and other freeware.

Let me also suggest the corporate version of Norton's anti-virus. The consumer version is awful, slow, bloated and inaccessible. But the corporate version which is a client server model is wonderful for the end user. Most of the processor intensive stuff is done elsewhere so a light and screen-reader friendly client known as "Symantec Endpoint Protection" runs on the client machines and seems to catch everything. Our IT guys swear by it.

If you get lots of flash drives from customers or clients, consider virustotal.com. It's just a shortcut to a web page that installs in your context menu. You right-click on it or press the context menu key and choose "scan with virustotal. The website checks your single file against I believe 22 different virus scanning engines -- the free online ones the various vendors offer. This is great for checking a single file from an untrusted source, but you can't run it on your entire machine.

Be aware you can run multiple malware checkers, the kind that don't scan in the background, but not multiple virus scanners.

I have friends who swear by the free AVG and Antivir virus scanners as well who use NVDA. I have not used them since Windows XP and don't know if they are still accessible. 

Be aware too that a slow machine is not necessarily a virus or malware-ridden one. Ordinary software, which insists on installing background tasks can over time make a machine nearly unusable. My favorite accessible solution for solving this problem is the AutoRuns tool from Sysinternals. They used to be independent but got bought by Microsoft. You simply arrow through a list of background tasks and press space on the ones you don't want running. Read the help screen though; the interface could have changed. Microsoft also has great videos on how to use it; you should watch them because the screen layout and steps are explained. It's important to understand how these tools work and what they do, even if you aren't going to read the entire screen daily repeatedly. 

I also like Revo uninstaller, which works with the JAWS cursor, a maximized window and a bit of patience. It's also free; use it to uninstall stuff you no longer want. It first runs the uninstall routine that the program built in to Windows when it first installed. After that it takes progressively deeper steps to clean out all traces of the offending program. You can stop at any step.

The jury is out when registry cleaners are concerned and I haven't found any particularly accessible ones anyway. Some believe you no longer need them after XP, and others swear by them. You can read differing opinions in PC Magazine and PC World.


--Debee




-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Stevens via nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 6:35 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Cc: Ryan Stevens
Subject: [nfbcs] Accessible virus protection

Hello,

 

What are some good, high-quality virus protection programs that are accessible with JAWS 15 on a Windows 7 64-bit machine?

 

Thanks,

Ryan Stevens

 

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