Four Months Free A-Squared Anti-Malware Personal Edition

http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=22

 

Sounds good. Anyone know how light or heavy it runs on the system?

 

Issues with AV's? Have to uninstall free version? (i guess so on the last)

 

Found the FAQ, no and yes. It does look for worms, but should not conflict with AV.

 

I have last months copy of PC world and they had a free 6 month subscription to A Squared in it.

 

A-squared is anti-malware with great detection rate, far better than Superantispyware, Spywareterminator, Ad-aware or Spybot for example. Unfortunately A-squared has two annoying problems:

1. A lot of false positives, especially in spyware traces category, so you must be very careful with removing.

2. If you install BETA updates it is very likely that you will have problems with uninstalling A-squared becouse a2service.exe stay active even if you uninstall A-squared.

If you can handle these problems A-squared could be great overall anti-malware protection but in my opinion becouse of rather false positives it is not for novice.

 

I have been using the 30-day trial. In task manager mem usage is around 60,000K for the one and only process . I think I remember reading that the newer version is suppose to lighter. I'm using it with Avast Home, CPF and Winpatrol free. I like it so far. I also have a license for it, but I wanted to test drive it first.

The background guard includes options for using heuristics, Active Malware-IDS, Cookie monitoring, and Host file monitoring.

 

It has issues with Chinese winxp or probably all East Asian language winxp

 

3. You can't install A-squared without internet connection, just like Windows Defender and that makes a CLEAN installation impossible. I ditched both.

 

Looks like i'll be taking Major Geeks up on that offer. Nothing i like better than to turn loose my malware collections on these (in-power-shadow-mode LoL) and see what they come up with and also how good they are in pulling them out.

This bodes really good for comparisons since you can build a fairly reasonable local database from which program finds what in those collections then make note of it.

It's always A2 Squared to me. LoL

 

Talk about special offers, I went to the Emsisoft website today and saw an offer giving a 50% discount for all products for users from India.

I am wondering why this offer is limited only to Indian users?

 

I saw that 50% discount too.

I guess it's 50% for all.

 

Not for me: "10% off for users from Norway".

 

That's only half the truth:

You can't login at the update server to validate the license for a-squared Anti-Malware without a web connection, that's right.

But if you are in need just to clean the system, you can use a-squared Free or our freeware a-squared Commandline Scanner. Both programs will work without internet. But you have to be careful when scanning with outdated malware signature files. You are always advised to run an online update before scanning. So you are always in need for an internet connection, not only for the register process, but for updating the software.

 

No, we have a special pricing for lower income countries such as Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, South and Middle America.

It is a special time limited marketing campaign to make the product more affordable for people from those countries.

 

Ok but y do the netherlands get 10 percent discount? How about if one's on welfare, can he then aply for larger discount?

The way i see it is there's tons of people in africa with more money then me, how's that fair when looking at your campaign? It's not like if u live in a cabbin youd be hooked on the internet. In poor countries the rich have acces to luxury such as internet/pc and many more.

Cheers i think it's a good idea.

 

Interesting observation, but how would they check that? Tap in your government for tax information?

 

Different pricings in different countries are never really fair to be honest.

But it is just logical that we can't enter the Chinese market with a price of $39.95 at all because that's about half the money they usually earn a month.

In all countries are richt people who would be able to pay the full amount - no question.

Btw. the origin is checked by the IP.

From time to time we offer special discounts for all countries. Or 3-6 months full versions on download pages or magazines. Like the majorgeeks offer that currently runs.

 

Hi Christian,

It is not a matter of whether A-Squared is expensive or not, but simply people in China is already used to use cracked software and cracks can be found easily. They think it is stupid to buy when it can be found somewhere free of charge. They simply didn't realized that they need to pay for what they want. I live in Hong Kong and the situation is the same. Education would be a better solution than a discount.

 

No, the ideal solution is education *and* discounts. In countries like India (and other low income countries), people are somewhat daunted by the high prices of software and hence turn to piracy. Should things actually get cheaper, there WILL be higher sales in that lower income market, even if piracy remains largely unaffected.

At least from what I've asked around to people, they pirate software because they cannot pay such high prices. The moment there is a discount, at least a select few are willing to go ahead and buy the application now that it has become affordable to them.

In retrospect, offering such discounts is a very good thing for these developing economies, and it will also help spread awareness about the product in that region. Remember that the developing countries are also more populous - More affordable software creates more potential customers.

 

This is what every software writer wishes. But the reality is: several of my friends who are earning over US$6,000 per month in Hong Kong are asking me to share my license key for a software that cost only US$30!!! Of course, I say NO!! They simply say that buying a license is stupid and I was selfish if I don't share my license key. I just don't know what to say.

But I agree that some PC enthusiasts like me are willing to pay more if discounts are given, but these are only a small group of people.

 

The only thing you can do is repeat that there is freeware for those who won't pay, and payware for those who are willing to pay.
Just like using pirated Windows to surf the web, it makes no sense if people actually think.
Don't want to pay Windows? GNU/Linux.
Prefer Windows? Pay.
(lol, can't pay? GNU/Linux)