AntiVir supports the so-called incremental update of the virus definition files (IVDF Update). The incremental update means, that instead of updating the VDF by downloading a single very large file every day (mono VDF), AntiVir updates a small VDF file, of only some kilobytes in size (named antivir3.vdf), which contains the newly detected virus patterns.
This daily VDF file completes the weekly VDF (named antivir2.vdf), the monthly VDF (named antivir1.vdf) and the so-called basic VDF (named antivir0.vdf), which are normally installed with every AntiVir Desktop program. When one of the VDF files reaches a certain size, its contents are transferred into the higher level VDF, which will also be downloaded at the next update.
The advantage of the incremental process is, that the download volume is kept extremely low. It leads to very short download time and low costs, even via Internet modem connection.
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