Tip of the Week: Quick Scan vs Full Scan

Perhaps you never thought of it, but a virus scan resembles a biathlon in some ways. In a biathlon, you can hit all the targets and not be the first to cross the finish line, or you can come in first with a shooting performance that is far from excellent. To win, you can be either the fastest or the most accurate. The same goes for a virus scan. What option should you select for the best protection of your computer: Quick Scan or Full Scan? We will explain the difference between these options in this week’s tip.

Kaspersky Internet Security features several types of scans. Open the main application menu and select Scan. Select the scan type on the right side of the window.

1) Full Scan performs a thorough check of the whole system. By default, the following objects are scanned:

– system memory;

– programs loaded at startup;

– system backup;

– email databases;

– hard drives, removable storage media and network drives.

2) Quick Scan checks the objects loaded at the operating system startup, the system memory and boot sectors.

Quick scan may not detect some malware, but it can still inform you about a virus if your computer is infected.

Full Scan requires much more time and OS resources but it detects all known viruses. We recommend performing a Full Scan every week. It can be scheduled in advance for a convenient time in your day, for example, at night. Do not forget to update the antivirus databases regularly as antivirus requires the most recent data to detect all malware on your computer.

3) Custom Scan is an option that checks any file system object selected by the user. The details of this option are described here.

4) Removable Drives Scan protects your machine against malware that infects computers via removable storage media.