Test your antivirus

This is old now but it still works:
You installed an antivirus, commercial or not, and you would like to know if it is well configured, that it is active, and that you are well protected.
It is not recommended to go playing with fire and visiting dangerous websites to check if your antivirus will detect a virus. You would indeed be likely to expose your system to a threat that could compromise your computer and you could loose all of your data.

To test your antivirus for full safety, you can use the Eicar test. This file is detected as a virus by all decent antivirus programs, but it is not one, it does not contain any viral code.
If the false virus is detected, it shows that your antivirus is active and protecting you.

1. To create this false virus, you only need to open Windows Notepad.
2. Then copy the following character string into Notepad:

Code:

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

3. Then click on the “Save as" then choose the option "All files."
4. Add the name of file eicar.com for File name. Choose the location where you want to save it (on Desktop) and then click on Save button.
5. If your antivirus is correctly activated, it will then alert you instantaneously presence of the false Eicar virus.
6. Then get your antivirus to remove the file. In my case I have NOD32 and the file was recognize and removed before I could save it.
If your antivirus does not see anything, than you have a problem. It could be because of two reasons: permanent protection is badly configured or there were some problems during antivirus installation. Then you may have to read documentation of your software to correct this problem, or reinstall it.
If your antivirus does not detect this file just delete it and it will be gone.