EZ Antivirus has a Security Hole
EZ antivirus has a security flaw examining zip files. It can fail to find viruses within those files. You need to patch it. You can patch it by downloading their Archive reading library and copying it into the EZ Antivirus program folder. The patch file is here: ftp.ca.com⁄pub⁄myeTrust⁄test⁄Arclib.dll. I recommend that you find the current arclib.dll and rename it to arclib.olddll just in case your download is flawed. Then copy the new file into the EZ Antivirus program folder.
EZ Antivirus has long been one of my preferred Anti-virus programs. When Microsoft made a deal with them to distribute a 1 year free subscription along with their security update CD, I was pleased and installed it on many of your computers. It was particularly good for those of you with older systems and with dialup connections. Norton is just too big and klutzy for use on older Windows 98 systems or for those of you with dial-up connections. Furthermore, there are lots of problems upgrading Norton after your subscription expires. Nod32, my first choice in desktop antivirus programs, which I have purchased for both my desktop and my notebook computers (two separate licenses), is $39. It didn't seem necessary for many of you, since you could get a full year of EZ-Antivirus for free.
Sadly, I'm turning away from EZ-Antivirus. They recommended that instead of just patching the hole, you upgrade to their latest program. However, their installation program doesn't run right in Windows 98! A week or so after telling people to upgrade, and about five days after I pointed out the incompatibility to them, they figured out the problem and posted a knowledge base article explaining that the Windows 98 installation requires a newer version of Windows Installer. It requires the Windows Installer that comes with Windows 2000 or above. The article has a link to download the newer Windows Installer file. Now, that in itself isn't horrible, but I would have wished they had tested their program on Windows 98 to determine whether it would install. They didn't.
Nearly a week after I reported the problem to them, they emailed me the solution and I downloaded and installed the newer installer and installed the new version 7 of their antivirus. I recommend that you do not do this if you are running Windows 98 or Windows ME. Do not update to version 7 if you are using an older operating system. I could not get it to run on my Windows 98 box. One possible problem is that because it was due to expire in a couple of days, they would not enable the virus checking until after I paid for the future renewal. The other possibility is that it just doesn't work in Windows 98. I uninstalled the program. It is probably just fine with Windows 2000 or XP.
For businesses I recommend NOD32. For home use, the free Avast! Home should be fine if you do not want to spend the $39 on Antivirus. AVG from Grisoft also has a free version for home use.