eScan Professional Edition

The eScan Professional 2.5.181 for Windows 95/98/Me is a content-security and anti-virus program that scans your hard disks, floppies, and e-mail for harmful viruses and malicious content. It also includes an eScan Content administrator, which lets you filter unwanted content, such as certain phrases or abusive words.

The program stops viruses and other malicious content before it reaches the application. The software does this by creating its own layer called the MWL (MicroWorld WinSock Layer) that sits between the WinSock 2 layer and your applications. All data passes through this layer, instead of WinSock Layer, before reaching the applications. So, even if someone sends you an e-mail attachment containing a virus, eScan scans and deletes it before it reaches your inbox. Most other anti-virus programs, detect a virus after it has entered your application and alerts you only when you click on the e-mail to open it.

eScan detects and deletes mail having abusive content eScan Professional Edition Price: Rs 1,875  Meant for: Home/office users Features: Virus scanning, content filtering, compression-decompression of e-mail attachments Pros: Easy to use, detects viruses before it reaches the application Cons: None Contact: MicroWorld Software Services. Tel: 022-8265701 Fax: 8304750. Plot No 80, Road No 15, MIDC, Marol, Andheri (E), Mumbai 400093. www.mspl.net E-mail: sales@mspl.net

eScan is pretty easy-to-install and use. It has a neat interface with the tabs neatly arranged on the left-hand panel. Its anti-virus part has all the features of a standard anti-virus program. You can scan files, folders, drives, and specify the actions you wish to perform when a virus is detected. There is also an anti-virus wizard that lets you schedule virus scans at a specific time of the day, and specify the drives or files you wish to scan and the action you wish to perform if a virus is found. The software, like other anti-virus programs, has an update utility that runs in the background and updates your virus definitions.

To test the virus-scanning capabilities of the software, we sent a few viruses through e-mail, and even compressed the infected file. eScan was able to detect them and sent us an alert before we tried opening the e-mail. It was also able to detect infected files, which we tried copying from floppies and hard drives. The software was also able to detect Trojans on the hard drives.

Coming to its content-filtering capabilities, the software lets you specify words you wish to block. Thus, for example, if you don’t wish to download mail containing certain phrases or offensive words, you can specify and add them under content control. The next time you get an e-mail containing any of the specified word, the software will delete the e-mail and send you a notification saying that the e-mail contains objectionable material and has been deleted. You can also compress outgoing e-mail attachments and save precious network bandwidth. To test this, we entered certain restricted words deep inside an e-mail. eScan was able to detect it and sent a notification saying that the e-mail contains objectionable content and has been deleted. It was also able to compress a large e-mail attachment.

Overall, it’s a useful software that has the added advantage of filtering unwanted content.

Neelima Vaid at PCQ Labs