AOL Active Virus Shield (commonly referred to as AVS) was a free antivirus utility made available by AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

. Its engine was based on the one used by Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Kaspersky Anti-Virus is an antivirus program developed by Kaspersky Lab. It is designed to protect users from malware and is primarily designed for computers running Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, though a version for Linux is available for business consumers....

. The program is no longer available.

Features

Active Virus Shield includes numerous features found in Kaspersky Anti-Virus. The software's main feature is malware

Malware

Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...

 scanning, which uses Kaspersky's underlying engine and detects a variety of malware such as viruses

Computer virus

A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...

, spyware

Spyware

Spyware is a type of malware that can be installed on computers, and which collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's...

, and even joke programs. It also offers real-time

Real-time protection

Real-time protection, on-access scanning, background guard, resident shield, autoprotect, and other synonyms refer to the automatic protection provided by most antivirus, antispyware, and other antimalware programs, which is arguably their most important feature...

 file and e-mail scanning and protection.

The latest version of Active Virus Shield (version 6.0.2.621) supports Windows Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

.

Advantages

Active Virus Shield is light compared to other commercial anti-virus products. It also does not consume much memory during startup. The program also benefits from Kaspersky's regular definition updates, typically around every two hours, which enable new viruses to be more effectively detected than programs that update less regularly. In addition, Active Virus Shield has better detection rates than other free programs such as AVG Free and avast! Home Edition

Avast!

Avast! is an antivirus computer program developed by AVAST Software a.s. , a company based in Prague, Czech Republic. It was first released in 1988 although back then it was just a tool to remove the Vienna malware...

.

Criticisms

Active Virus Shield does lack some features of Kaspersky 6.0 (such as proactive protection

Intrusion-prevention system

Intrusion Prevention Systems , also known as Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems , are network security appliances that monitor network and/or system activities for malicious activity. The main functions of intrusion prevention systems are to identify malicious activity, log information...

 and HTTP protection), and the license provided is only valid for one year, although the same email address as used initially can easily be used to renew it up to 10 times. It also does not support mail scanning when using TLS or SSL.

Some users have also reported compatibility problems with certain applications such as McAfee Personal Firewall Plus

McAfee Personal Firewall Plus

McAfee Personal Firewall Plus is internet firewall software created by McAfee. It is available as a standalone product, or through bundles such as VirusScan Plus....

, ZoneAlarm and Logitech

Logitech

Logitech International S.A. is a global provider of personal peripherals for computers and other digital platforms headquartered in Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland. The company develops and markets products like peripheral devices for PCs, including keyboards, mice, microphones, game controllers...

products.

Current status

Active Virus Shield is no longer available for download as of August 1, 2007. It was replaced by McAfee Virus Scan Plus - Special edition from AOL, which is available for free for users with a free AOL account.

Even though Active Virus Shield is no longer available officially, the latest version of the program can still be obtained from the mirror server that it is hosted on. Help is also still offered for those already using the application.

External links

• AOL Active Virus Shield Homepage (defunct)
• AOL Active Virus Shield Mirrorpage (functional)