GIANT AntiSpyware 1.0.242[12-9-04] NEW

Thank you richrf for your reply.
It seems a bit strange that this false positive still appears because "They have updated their program so that there will be additional file and registry confirmation before flagging this as a threat" BUT i have the latest , 3 Oct 2004, def.

 

Hi Ronny,

According to the email that I received, this particular update will be available with 24 -36 hours. I received the email this morning. I will run Giant again in a couple of days to verify that the problem has been fixed.

Rich

 

@ richrf: oops


I found another false positive ( i think):
D:\driver\sis_agp1.13\layout.bin
D:\driver\sis-agp1.15\layout.bin
D:\driver\sis_ide_udma\layout.bin

when i open the file with notepad it read: c  @ a

 

A rescan of my system confirmed that Giant had updated their software to eliminate the FP that I was receiving. I consider this very good service. Turnaround was within a few hours.

Rich

 

I tried GiantAS for about 48 hours. It found 1 item it considered malware, ssubtmr6.dll in w2k \system32. Seems like that was a false+ as best info I have at the moment is that dll is a valid component of MS Visual Basic 6 Runtime files. Apparently other componet(s) of malware (not on my system) can use ssubtmr6, as I read info posted at Symantec, and Sym made it clear to fix the real problem (if you have it) AND not to delete ssubtmr6, whereas Giant said it was high risk and needed to be removed. I also wanted to use Giant soley as one-shot manual scanner but it autoloads features that are difficult to undo. leaves files on hdd and registry after it is uninstalled. I was ready to be impressed and was not! Also, Giant support did NOT respond to my email question re this issue. IMO, reponding to possible false+ should be the top priority, which was NOT my experience.

 

Hi poogimmal,

I certainly share your concerns. The FP that I received was also labeled as "High Risk". Given the very simple user interface that Giant employs, it would seem like Giant is targetting novice as well as experienced users. Novice users, upon seeing a program labeled as "High Risk" would probably immediately delete the program, potentially causing havoc on the system. Something, I have learned not to do, since I know how prevalent FPs are among these type of programs. BTW, I was shocked that Consumer Reports recommend Pest Patrol to its readers without any warning regarding FPs. I wonder how much damage that recommendation caused Consumer Reports' readers.

While I received very fast response, you obviously did not. This is good information to be aware of. New companies normally have very uneven service, so hopefully Giant is able to address the issues that you have with the product. I completely understand your concerns and I agree with them 100%.

Rich

 

I like it a lot so far.
The spyware tests make me like it even more
(I'm really surprised how bad Spybot SD did).

Thinking about buying this....
and I really hate buying software ;-)

 

I have been using Spy Sweeper and some of the free ones.
Trying the trial of Giant AntiSpyware I find it very impressive overall.

 

I too received FP (2)....running 1.0.272....interesting program...i also think this program will find it's way up the pyramid....we shall see

 

New defs came out today (Defintions 5663).

 

Very good stuff this Giant Antispyware!

It found a keylogger.

KAV, F-Prot, Spy Sweeper, Ad-Aware... none of them found it. I thought it was a false postive, until I started some trials of specialised anti-keyloggers like privacykeyboard and security task manager.
Both warned about a keylogger when I started the file. And the file was just an unwise.exe file (uninstall), something that shouldn't hook to a keyboard at all.

I must say I'm I'm very impressed!

This is not one of many anti spyware products. This is a serious product with a serious and professional company behind it. Just check their site, the managment behind it or give them a call and you'll get good impresson. I'm pretty sure that this is not the last time we hear of this product, because I suspect to take over this market segement like a storm. It's also a very all-round program, you have to test it to see what I mean.

It's not perfect yet, but let's not forget; it's also an early version, but the way they respond to their customers is very promising indeed.

 

i throughly agree wings
rita

 

Maybe we will soon start seeing updates posted in the Updates section

 

hope that too Rainwalker, maybe a true competitor for the forums....

 

Yep.....me thinks so

 

I tried Giant as well. I got three false positives and no real threats:

1) HOSTS file was identified as being malware

2) wininit.ini (it can be a legal windows xp start up file, which it was in my case) was identified as trojan or keylogger (can't remember which)

3) a third file was identified as trojan (can't remember which, I'm not on my main machine now). That was also a false positive.

I'm sure it will impress a lot of newbies, by claiming it has found keyloggers and trojans, when in fact it has found empty text files or perfectly legitimate windows files.

The scanner may be good on real detections/cleaning (I have no experience yet), but the false positives are way too common with it and it also mislabels in a misleading manner.

I think the program needs some serious re-thinking in its detection and classification routines.

Otherwise, I'm happy that there is a new and semi-serious looking contender in the anti-spyware business. Let's hope they improve more with their product.

 

it was using 30mb in mem. that is like a fully bloated antivirus. I uninstalled it only because of that...for the rest it was looking promising for giant.

 

Hello INFINITY...I see that i'm using 22,804k

 

The memory usage, naturally depends on the specific settings employed by all of us.

On my system, when just the service is running (not the GUI), memory is at ~ 11-12 MB. Bring up the GUI, and it bumps to ~ 20 MB total. Now this is what I saw with none of the realtime security agents activated. Activating them brings total memory consumption (with the GUI active) to ~ 30 MB. Close the GUI and it's back to ~ 20.5 MB Shut down the realtime services and things drop to ~ 14.2 MB.

There's a little asymmetry in RAM consumption here, and if you do a series of activate/disable of the realtime security agents, you see that RAM consumption continues to grow - I guess that the program doesn't deallocate resources quite as gracefully as it should, at least in connection to these modules, but that should be a non-issue in routine usage. Users shouldn't constantly activate/deactivate these features. Furthermore, a simple shut down and restart clears the resources and you're back to ~ 20 MB (this is with all features including the RT security agents enabled).

Overall, I'm impressed with this product so far. I have experienced one false positive and sent it off to Giant. The tracks eraser feature now appears to work as it should. Scan speed is good. Stability is fine.

Blue

 

I think the fact that it identifies some files as trojans/keyloggers based on filename alone, is just completely ridiculous.

Has no provision for actual signatures?

Detecting by filenames alone, especially if those files are sometimes legitimate windows files, is really shortsighted not to mention dangerous in the hands of a beginner...

I think the whole detection routine needs to be re-thought.

 

I think it looks like it is already way ahead of the leading spyware programs in its detection and with some fine tuning will make an excellent option. I can think of at least 2 or 3 other top anti spyware software that excells in a few false positives of late. Including one which has over 9 million downloads and a false positive that must be causing millions to wreck havoc on their systems as they may not have the luxury of lurking in forums such as we do and hearing that it is such, yet this has lingered on in its detection for over 4 months . I think that any feed back on these issues could be sent to Giant and , as they are rapid in there response and correction, we may see an excellent anti spyware security application emerge in the near future.

 

hi Solarpowered candle
i really think too it's already way ahead of some of the leading spyware progs.and know what you mean about the false positive that has lingered on for so long.I think this prog in the future will be a top security application too.
Rita
also another feature I like in giant is when you get a new program it checks it out automaticaly and will tell you if there is any spware included in the prog

 

Yes i agree, and they will be informed by a lot of users that automatic. upload their found or suspected malware.
This is near my opinion one of the major diff. with the others.

As i said before the few FP's don't bother me, and i would not recommend
it to a novice yet.

But if you see the diff. in how this prog ' grows' in just a few weeks ...

The only real problem that i have seen was also regarding the usage of RAM,
It looks as if in some situations their is a memory-leak.
(claimed memory that is not given back to the OS).
It doesn't use that much memory normally, but suddenly it runs out of M.

But i can't reproduce this, so i am not sure what is causing this precisely.

BTW sorry for the late response, just back from holiday..

 

I have noticed a similarity between the spyware information given by Giant and that given by PestPatrol. An example is "Doubleclick". Information given by PestPatrol http://pestpatrol.com/PestInfo/d/doubleclick.asp Information given by Giant http://www.giantcompany.com/antispyware/research/spyware/spyware-DoubleClick.aspx

Even down to the "Giant/PestPatrol detects this" and "Giant/PestPatrol removes this".

Just an observation but do not really know what to make of it.

 

Hello,

I was just at the Spyware Warrior Forums and found a nice thread regarding Giant.

http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=6498