Do you trust your anti virus application and have complete faith that it wont cheat on you. Well no need to trust it completely now you can create your own dummy virus file and see how your anti virus application reacts to it.

The dummy virus file is known as EICAR Standard Anti-Virus Test File & was developed by European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research. It was developed to allow people, companies and AV programmers to test their software without having a real computer virus that could damage the computer. (more info at Wikepedia)

How to Create a EICAR Standard Anti-Virus Test File
Creating a file is quite easy just open Notepad, write X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
and save the file as either as a .com file. As soon as you save it your anti virus should react and inform and try to remove the file immediately, if it does then yes you anti virus is running and keeping the viruses away if not then i guess you should think about getting some other anti virus.

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