In one embodiment, an update file for an antivirus program is disassembled into several source packets. The source packets may be encoded using a forward error correction (FEC) algorithm to generate encoded packets. The encoded packets may include the source packets and redundant packets, the redundant packets including information that allows a client computer that includes the antivirus program to recreate the source packets even if it never receives all of the encoded packets. The FEC algorithm may be selected from several FEC algorithms based on the number of the source packets. The transmission of the encoded packets from a server computer to the client computer may be stopped when the client computer has received enough of the encoded packets to recreate the source packets.