Patent ID: 8327446

Claim:
An antivirus Internet appliance comprising: an interface connecting said Internet appliance to a terminal; a network connection connecting said Internet appliance to a network selected from the group consisting of a wide area network (WAN) and the Internet wherein data in said network are operable with a corresponding network protocol; a memory; protocol-level programs stored in said memory for receiving data being transmitted from said network to said terminal through said Internet appliance wherein said protocol-level programs are compatibly operable with said network protocol; application-level antivirus programs stored in said memory for detecting computer viruses in said received data wherein said antivirus programs serve as a firewall against said detected computer viruses for said terminal; a processor and an operating system stored in said memory for implementing said protocol-level programs and said antivirus programs a redundancy control software component stored in said memory that controls a pointer switch for switching between an upgraded anti-virus program and a non-upgraded anti-virus program; wherein said antivirus programs are transparent to said terminal; and wherein said anti-virus Internet appliance has four operational modes that include a continuous-service mode, a maintenance mode in which service is terminated, an idle mode, and a service-maintenance mode in which an antivirus service continues with maintenance on the antivirus Internet appliance being performed in the background, and wherein transitions between modes include: 1) continuous-service mode to maintenance mode, 2) maintenance mode to continuous-service mode, 3) maintenance mode to idle mode, 4) continuous-service mode to idle mode, 5) idle mode to continuous-service mode, 6) continuous-service mode to service-maintenance mode, 7) and service-maintenance mode to continuous-service mode.