Back in the day, we used Carmel Turbo Anti-Virus..

Not sure how it compares to the other's, but it was better than that Microsoft/Symantec toy.

Edit: It seems it was the full version for those stripped-down anti-virus programs.
The Central Point version was a full version, too.

Edit: I remember another, sophisticated anti-virus program with a virus database.
It had detailed information how a particular virus/trojan worked and how it reacted. Very cool.
Too bad I forgot its name.

Edit: Some pictures, too.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-15, 18:12:

[...] Edit: I remember another, sophisticated anti-virus program with a virus database. It had detailed information how a partic […]
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[...]
Edit: I remember another, sophisticated anti-virus program with a virus database.
It had detailed information how a particular virus/trojan worked and how it reacted. Very cool.
Too bad I forgot its name.

AVP VIRUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
New: Antiviral Toolkit Pro Virus
Encyclopedia. Contains detailed
description of a great number
of viruses as well as virus effects
demos.

this database? I also had it, great fun!

keropi wrote on 2023-01-15, 18:40:

this database? I also had it, great fun!

Hi! Yes, it looks very much like it! Thank you very much! 😃

The only difference to my memory is the colour. I remember the window being blue, rather than green.

But maybe that's just because the colour of my old monitor was a bit off (a blurry little IBM PS/2 VGA monitor).

Or because I used another version number of same program.

Edit: Here's a screenshot of AVP. It's very small, so I hope it's okay to add.

Blue text windows, was probably VSUM. it was blue and a virus encyclopedia.

Riikcakirds wrote on 2023-01-09, 17:44:

It seems modern AV can miss some old dos viruses. I scanned a collection from archive.org (virus dates ranged from 1987 to 1998) […]
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radiounix wrote on 2020-12-13, 23:30:

Yes! […]
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chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-12-09, 14:26:

Will modern antivirus software be able to detect old DOS era viruses?

Yes!

I downloaded an archive of live DOS viruses and Windows Defender went ape when I ran a manual scan. I don't know if it caught most or all, this was a huge library of them, but it certainly was aware of DOS viruses and wasn't just using heuristics because it had names for them.

There's still reason to keep the definitions in, even in 2020. Some embedded machines, like in industrial controls and scientific instrumentation, is still running DOS or Windows 9x on a SBC. A mishap with an ancient virus on similarly aging industrial equipment could cost many thousands in repairs and workstoppage.

It seems modern AV can miss some old dos viruses. I scanned a collection from archive.org (virus dates ranged from 1987 to 1998) using modern Mcafee command line scanner(v7.0.2) on an attached offline Dos drive.
Using the latest definitions available, 9th January 2023 , Mcafee shows: "Scanning for 596816 viruses, trojans and variants".
It missed 15 out of 48 viruses.
I am going to compare it the latest F-Prot for DOS, 3.16f. The last update definitions I can find for it are dated February 2009.

The last database version for F-Prot 3.16F was February or March 2009 , then the dos version was scrapped..

Though my antivirus can detect just a handful about 90% of the most common file and boot sector viruses of that era, the main advantage of it was portability and the ability to remove/disable the virus even if it's active in memory. most of those antiviruses require you to boot from clean floppy, McAfee for example will choke and refuse to run if altered or if it detected the presence of virus in memory

What about IBM AntiVirus ? Just got a copy of IBM PC-DOS 6.30 and found it.
Could it be that the virus definitions were still updated by big blue past the year 2000 ?

I'm asking, because I vaguely remember there were PC-DOS 2000 and PC-DOS 7.x,
so lifetime was quite a few years longer than MS-DOS, which died in 1994..

Here's a screenshot of the application.
It even has a virus list/database, although it's missing classics like "Herbstlaub". 😉

BloodyCactus wrote on 2023-01-16, 19:43:

Blue text windows, was probably VSUM. it was blue and a virus encyclopedia.

Thank you! I've found a copy of it in this cool archive:
http://annex.retroarchive.org/cdrom/pier-09/046/index.html

And it really comes close to my memories.
However, the version I remember was more Turbo Pascal style or IBM SAA / CUA style:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

You know, the look of those Turbo products on DOS..
The background consisted of these gray/beige ASCII patterns, if memory serves.
As it was common with Turbo Pascal programs of the time.

The windows with the virus information were all blue, with white or cyan text colour, maybe a bit of yellow, too.
The index window was blue, too, if memories serve me well.
It also had those close/maximize icons from Turbo Pascal, which resembled those of Windows 2/3 at the time.

Edit: In simple words, it looked like a cross of VSUM and the IBM AntiVirus program..
If my memories are correct, it was on those shareware CD-ROMs I had in the 90s.
So no commercial product, at least.

Edit: And it also differed from AVP in one way: AVP had no pull-down menu.
The database I remember that multiple menu items, like VSUM had..

Edit: I don't mean to be ungrateful, please excuse if it looks that way.
It's rather the contrary. I'm really happy to learn about all those different databases! 😁
That's the primary reason why I attached some screen shots here, too. (They're tiny in size.)