All decent AV programs today update databases at least once a day. IIRC AVAST! updates every 4 hours if you are broadband user. Toomas ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gillett" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> > On 23 Dec 2005 at 12:18, Sybilgal wrote: > >> Can anyone tell me if scanning your system daily does any harm to the HD? >> Is there a frequency limit that one should have? > > > Does your antivirus do "real-time protection"? (This means that every > time anything writes a file to your drive, the A/V scans it.) > > If it does, then there's no point in scanning more often than your virus > definitions get updated -- every scan will be seeing files that have already > been scanned, and without new definitions the things that will be found > can't change. > > But I *do* recommend checking for updates daily.... > > The additional "wear" on your drive is negligible -- sectors in your > swapfile will get read and rewritten far more often than anything a daily > scan will do. > > David Gillett > > The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering > our special coffee mugs and mouse pads > with the PCBUILD logo... at a great price!!! > http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml > The NOSPIN Group has added a new feature on our website, web based bulletinboard for questions and answers: Visit our sister website at http://nospin.com