Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!hsdndev!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Are viruses prevalent on the GS?
Message-ID: <16584@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 29 Jun 91 05:32:13 GMT
References: <1991Jun29.012721.9395@risky.ecs.umass.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 20

In article <1991Jun29.012721.9395@risky.ecs.umass.edu> giovin@medr0.ecs.umass.edu (Rocky J Giovinazzo) writes:
>The only virus problems I've encountered have been on Macs.  Should
>I worry about getting an anti-virus program or CDEV (if available)
>for my harddrive?  Any recommendations?

GS-specific viruses seem to be rare, by comparison with IBM PCs for
example.  There have been a few epidemics of 8-bit Apple software
viruses, however.  Glen Bredon has a shareware program called
something like Apple.Rx that not only checks for known viruses, but
also maintains a database of checksums for your files, so it can
warn you if the contents of any of the files have changed.

Unless you're really into BBS hacking and software piracy, I think
your biggest worry ought to be how to back up the data on your disk;
it can crash or, more likely, become corrupted for reasons other than
viral attacks.  Vitesse and others sell backup/restore utilities.  In
my case I copy the partitions onto Syquest removable cartridges, using
device-image copy which goes very fast.  The RAMfast reportedly supports
background backup to some sort of SCSI tape unit, but I don't know the
details.