Labs

NOD 32 2.5 is essentially the same product we reviewed in our last anti-virus round-up in Shopper February 2005. The interface pulls together the different modules, which each address a different type of virus scanning. The Resident Module (AMON) is a real-time scanner that keeps an eye on virus activity, while others check incoming and outgoing email, web pages and other downloads and Office

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documents.

The scanner can be set to scan on a regular basis using a flexible, wizard-driven scheduler. There are more settings than most users are going to need. The unusual interface and wealth of settings mean that the program takes an effort to get to grips with fully.

Experts used to handling infected code, or dealing with different types of threat, will appreciate Profiles, which let you configure the program's settings and save them into reloadable sets. These can also be recalled by scheduled scans and the scanner in the Windows context menu.

NOD 32 2 detected nearly every file we threw at it, missing only one password-stealing Trojan. This makes it more accurate than most of the programs tested here, with the exceptions of F-Secure Anti-Virus, Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Steganos Antivirus. This is a competent product that provides good security, though with an old-fashioned interface. But it's more expensive to buy and renew than Steganos AntiVirus.