Is a-squared Free 4.0 good?

[tonyseeking]

Anyone using a-squared Free 4.0? Feedback?

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

[raven211]

Not using it because adding a useless service. Otherwise it seems like a great addition to a list of On-Demand scanners.

[TrojanHunter]

I use it for occasional scans, but the scans are slow.

[andyman35]

Detection wise it's outstanding,but any thing flagged up needs to be checked since it does generate a few FPs.

[TheKid7]

I use it occasionally for another opinion. If it finds something, I upload the suspect file to virustotal to check it out. There are some false positives.

[Dark_Hanzo]

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but does a-squared still flag yahoo cookies as tracking cookies?

[blacknight]

Excellent program, I use it for regular on demand scan.

[vijayind]

Pros:
Great detection, good BB (same as Mamutu), free on-demand version available, makes a great bundle with OA.

Cons:
A bit of a memory hog, lot of FPs and it does have trouble cleaning malware when they are running in background.

[Saraceno]

Free is good. Try it and make your own mind up.

The full version, if you test it for a short period, such as the remove-malware review, you'll find it uses up around the 100MB mark.

But if you run it for longer than a few days, or about a week, the program stays around 30-40MB.

Running for a couple of weeks now, and it's very light. Must have needed awhile to settle in and 'monitor' all the background processes. :thumb:

[aniku]

Very good detection but it shows too many FP's while i scan online.
But i would give it a try the new version 4.

[softtouch]

Too many Fp's for me. Uninstalled it.
For what is a high detection rate good when many of the detected threats are FP's and you have to check each detected file one-by-one?

[Saraceno]

Which programs is it reporting as FPs?

I have a lot of unknown portable programs, tons actually, and only one was highlighted as 'riskware' only yesterday, for the obvious reason, it highlights all the files running on your system (and doesn't like to shutdown). So I removed it.

Here are some portable programs a-squared reported as all clean. I have heaps more on USB and external hard drive, which a-squared reports as all clean as well.
208226

[ypestis]

I don't know how many run with a administrator account,but if you do, the a2free.exe that runs in the background, can be disabled in services with no problems. (Maybe a slight slow up on opening the program.)
Since the ikarus engine was added updates can be very large.
No problem as long as you update daily

[vijayind]

Saraceno, take a look at PcMag review or Matt's remove-malware.com video review of A-Squared 4.0. In both cases, A2 removed explorer.exe as malware !! Now that a BIG fp ...

The same has happened to me also, but thankfully stuff is quarantined not deleted. But for an average user, it would be disaster....

[NoIos]

I have read and replied on various threads about a-squared in this forum. Actually I will repeat. It's my opinion that a-squared is an excellent program as an on demand scanner. Ikarus signatures are an additional value. A-squared detects almost everything that others do and sometimes even something more. About FPs...well I'm sure there are, but personally I see innocent files flagged as malware rarely. I love the Ikarus behaviour that tries, when possible, to flag keygens and patches as riskware (not-a-virus) and does not lie to you by throwing a generic.trojan like others do. I don't support warez but I don't like the way other security software treat code contained in keygens most of the times.

I run a-squared scan about twice a week on all my PCs. Deep scan is slow...I think same time or a bit more, of the full scan time of SAS and MBAM.

[Saraceno]

-{ Quote: "Saraceno, take a look at PcMag review or Matt's remove-malware.com video review of A-Squared 4.0. In both cases, A2 removed explorer.exe as malware !! Now that a BIG fp ...

The same has happened to me also, but thankfully stuff is quarantined not deleted. But for an average user, it would be disaster...." }-

vijayind, I completely agree with you. I tried a-squared back in late 2008, and noticed the 'mamutu' behaviour part threw up explorer.exe, but after 10 seconds on so of not doing anything, it took the community rating, and allowed it to continue.

Emsisoft must have fixed this however, as since installing it in the past couple of months, explorer.exe has never popped up.

So hopefully, this is one for the past just like ThreatFire with its keyboard issue.

For those interested, see latest memory use:
208229

[raven211]

-{ Quote: "
So hopefully, this is one for the past just like ThreatFire with its keyboard issue." }-

Are there any "specific" systems getting this problem? I for one have never got it, and there've been many versions - both final and beta. :blink:

[Saraceno]

Raven, I've never had a problem with ThreatFire. Personally, I give it 10/10 for a free program. But a few users have had a problem - not sure which systems, you might have to do a search on the pctools forum.

I fully respect a problem is a problem, even if it affects a handful of users. And that the inconvenience will upset some users. But hopefully, if you look at the a-squared or ThreatFire issue, hopefully it was a rare instance.

And this isn't a stab at experienced users on here who have had problems, but to the general population, sometimes a complaint like a lock-up will be published on every forum, but that program saving the same user's backside several times from harm, that won't be mentioned at all. You know? :P

[progress]

-{ Quote: "Saraceno, take a look at PcMag review or Matt's remove-malware.com video review of A-Squared 4.0. In both cases, A2 removed explorer.exe as malware !! Now that a BIG fp ...
" }-

Here (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2334637,00.asp) is it! :)

[Saraceno]

That was from six months ago and from memory, it was just released with the combined AV/AS engine and upgrade to 4.0. I would think with program updates, the bugs would be fixed by now.

I searched through the forum posts to see if it was a common problem, but if it was, there'd be a lot of posts on it (couldn't seem to find any).

Anyway, each to their own, we all like different programs. I can say though, their forum support is active and addresses user and malware issues. For example, a user complains 'iexplore' is using resources here (http://forum.emsisoft.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=3892).

[vijayind]

Ikarus engine is known for its FP folies. Thats why it keeps failing VB100 due too many FP.
Atleast the explorer.exe fp is solved, but still Ikarus is not meant for newbies.

[Saraceno]

Agree. :thumb: In time, hope to see it improve.

[Fly]

I'm not referring to the free version, but not long ago I trialed the paid-for version with Ikarus. No problems, except that I could not connect (through my browser, IE 7) to the internet. I tried tweaking stuff, but it didn't work.
The wireless connection (WPA-PSK AES, firmware, not some Windows XP wizard) seemed to be working fine, but I could not connect to any website. No other security software was installed.

Does anyone have an idea why ? The software seems attractive, but if I can't use it to connect to the internet it's obviously useless.

[the Tester]

-{ Quote: "I'm not referring to the free version, but not long ago I trialed the paid-for version with Ikarus. No problems, except that I could not connect (through my browser, IE 7) to the internet. I tried tweaking stuff, but it didn't work.
The wireless connection (WPA-PSK AES, firmware, not some Windows XP wizard) seemed to be working fine, but I could not connect to any website. No other security software was installed.

Does anyone have an idea why ? The software seems attractive, but if I can't use it to connect to the internet it's obviously useless." }-

I would ask at the A-Squared support forum.

http://forum.emsisoft.com/

[aniku]

it has a fast online-scan, and detection is good except the FP's as i mention in my previous post :)

[tonyseeking]

-{ Quote: "it has a fast online-scan..." }-

Where?:doubt:

[Az7]

-{ Quote: "Where?:doubt:" }-

This one ? (http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/ax/)

[Saraceno]

For those interested in the full version - still running light after several hours of using opera. No other AV installed, just sandboxie, and vista firewall control.

208365

[Rickster100]

-{ Quote: "Not using it because adding a useless service. Otherwise it seems like a great addition to a list of On-Demand scanners." }-

I use it as an on-demand scanner. I also noticed the a2service.exe and a2free.exe running when I first installed it. I didnt like the a2service.exe running all the time either and have since disabled the service and everything (updates, scanning) goes through a2free.exe when the application runs. No problem with no ill effects that I have seen, and this is after 4 months. Works for XP, not tried on Vista though.

[blacknight]

-{ Quote: "I use it as an on-demand scanner. I also noticed the a2service.exe and a2free.exe running when I first installed it. I didnt like the a2service.exe running all the time either and have since disabled the service and everything (updates, scanning) goes through a2free.exe when the application runs. No problem with no ill effects that I have seen, and this is after 4 months. Works for XP, not tried on Vista though." }-

I do the same, no problems.

[Dark_Hanzo]

-{ Quote: "Sorry for hijacking this thread, but does a-squared still flag yahoo cookies as tracking cookies?" }-

I guess the answer is no ;D I asked that because two years ago I was using a2 and it kept detecting and deleting yahoo cookies which was kinda pain especially if you use yahoo mail and try to save your username on pc. Yahoo mail client also used to flag any emails from emsisoft as a spam. You can actually read that on emsisoft webpage when you request a trial key ;D It seems yahoo and emsisoft sorted it out, I am glad they did :)

[Saraceno]

If you find any threats using the free or paid version, the database has detailed descriptions and screenshots of malware.

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/support/malware/

[Bubba]

In order to keep the discussion localized, a post concerning a recent a-squared\Emsisoft malware test, was merged into that ongoing thread.

merged here---> Interesting Emsisoft Tests (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=240856)

Bubba