A non-obtrusive Antivirus for a saavy user

[AndrewZorn]

microsoft security essentials found... NOTHING!  not some alert about a game crack, etc... NOTHING

common sense 2010 reigns supreme

[itlnstln]

Hmmm. I ran a full scan while away from my PC, and MS Security Essentials found a ton of viruses in my email attachment folder (not a problem, as I get a lot of spam and assume all attachments are viruses.)
 
BUT ... MSE didn't bother telling me about them! I had to go into History to find out!
 
Excuse me, Microsoft, but don't you think users need to be alerted that they had an infection?
 
What's the point of cleaning the system if you allow the user to remain ignorant and keep doing the things that cause infection?
 
Bloody MS have to dumb down everything.

Symantec AV Corporate didn't alert me if an attachment had a virus, either.  Like Symantec Corporate, I think you have to actually open/act on the attachment before it will send up an alert.

[Rajagra]

I was using it to clean a friend's PC and it notified me everytime it found something.

Did the notification stay visible? As I said, I ran the full scan while I wasn't watching the screen. When I came back to check it had completed there was no summary screen, no indication of any kind.

The PC had gone into S3 standby in the meantime, but that shouldn't be relevant.

I've never in the last 20+ years had a virus or spyware checker fail to give a summary once it had completed.

[CX23882]

Seems to work fine here with the EICAR test file (created with MSE real-time off, then re-enabled it and did a Quick scan).

First of all, a notification window popped up in the bottom-right corner, which I ignored.

Next, a warning message appeared in the MSE window.

Finally, once the scan had finished, the notification window disappeared but the MSE window has turned red (At risk) with a big red "Clean computer" button in it and the system tray icon has also turned red with a cross in it.

Maybe for certain types of virus it cleans/quaranteens automatically but EICAR certainly seems to give the desired behaviour. Red = something needs attending to, Green = all ok.