Why stinger?

[webfork]

Can someone help me figure this software out? Its from McAfee and updated frequently, so it should be great, but it doesn't appear to have any advantages over ClamAV except speed. Our description says:

not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system

I've downloaded it but can't figure out how its for sysadmins or virus recovery.

Stinger utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations.

So a high-speed USB-drive tool that has an incomplete virus library? Why would anyone use this? Unless it was a drive sitting on a shelf for a few months waiting for a troubleshoot, you'd scan the drive and then still wonder if you had viruses.

Should I scan with ClamAV and then try to delete problems with Stinger?

[joby_toss]

I always thought that tools like Stinger are meant for only the newest and vicious viruses (few, no heuristics) and that's why it's not a full AV solution.

[-.-]

i thought it was like that too
only meant for the things that it says it works against...

and if I know what virus I had to begin with and needed a tool to remove it, it probably wont be a mcaffee product lol

[guinness]

Stinger is less clunky than ClamAV if you want to quickly scan. OK so Stinger doesn't have a database with obscure viruses back in the 20th Century, but how many of you see these viruses nowadays. Thats why Stinger is great its small, natively Portable and when I've used it in the past, the Virus has been detected and deleted. But obvioulsy use a full antuvirus as a second check.

It's a great tool for a sysadmin and designed by McAfee!

Command Line Parameters.

/ADL - Scan all local drives.
/GO - Start scanning immediately.
/LOG - Save the log file after scans.
/SILENT - Do not display graphical interface.

[guinness]

I just re-tested Stinger and noticed the registry entries aren't created anymore, but it does create two empty folders located at C:\Program Files\stinger and C:\Stinger_Quarantine.

The application has changed quite a bit since it was reviewed in this thread 3 years ago.

[guinness]

GetSusp is more like the old Stinger we are used to.

Tested: Portable
Download: http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free ... tsusp.aspx

[I am Baas]

GetSusp is more like the old Stinger we are used to.

Tested: Portable
Download: http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free ... tsusp.aspx

Requires admin rights. Crashed Sandboxie. Does GetSusp remove the system driver on exit?

[guinness]

Yes it does.

[I am Baas]

Yes it does.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[webfork]

A new version came out (changelog) so I wanted to take another crack at this:

McAfee Stinger is a standalone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but a specialized tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with infected system. Details on new or enhanced signatures added with each Stinger build are listed in the Readme details.

Stinger now includes Real Protect - a real-time behavior detection technology that monitors suspicious activity on an endpoint. Real Protect leverages machine learning and automated behavioral based classification in the cloud to detect zero-day malware in real-time.

This is a little clearer than before but not by much; is the program for infected computers or for system monitoring? It could certainly be both but where would you use this detection tool over standard antivirus (like the non-free McAfee Antivirus). Is it a lightweight, feature-limited version for low resource systems?

I know it sounds like I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth here but I'm just trying to get some idea of where this ship is going.

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Edit: this monitoring function was in some sense covered on the main thread, but I didn't realize exactly what the Raptor BS was about.