Test your anti-malware/anti-virus protection with EICAR

Ever heard of the line "Prevention is better than a cure."? In I.T. security terms, removing un-needed software reduces the available attack surface for hacker(s) / drive-by(s.) In my case, my daily browsing does not require Flash, SilverLight or Java, so I removed all of those as well as disabling additional plugins that are of no use to me (EX: Itunes / QuickTime plugins.)

Joules said:

Also the thing about A2 is that you can configure it to be very sensitive, hell sometimes too sensitive, it has 4.5 million signatures in it's database and will catch more malware out there if heuristics is on and the paranoid setting is triggered. It has won countless awards for it's well designed interface and other features that come with the professional which I use like Hijackfree, surf protection, file protection, and any other that you could possible think of, but I do feel you have to have a couple of antimalware programs to keep yourself well protected, and I like malawarebytes and or MSE....

In baseball terms, the Eicar test file is a ball sitting on a tee compared to most 'real' malware that is a 100mph fastball in comparison. While it's nice to see how your AV reacts, users shouldn't put too much emphasis on whether or not their AV detects Eicar..........Malwarebytes and Hitman Pro for example will not detect the file, and we all know how respected they are.

Comodo internet security premium free detects it also and blocks it if you open it.