Official Online Armor ++ roadmap

Sad news
http://support.emsisoft.com/topic/6042-official-online-armor-roadmap/

 

Fast looking

 

BTW, the setups for both programs are merged into one.

 

Thank you for info, very helpful for Online Armor users.

 

I'm sure Emsisoft believe it is the sound commercial decision but it weakens choice a little I think. OA and EAM overlap a little in protection HIPS/Behaviour blocker, OA making decisions on files at the same time as the AV element of EAM etc whereas OA++ was better streamlined with the AV only called upon if the HIPS/Whitelist etc drew a blank.

Too early to speculate I suppose but those, like me, who hold Online Armor in high esteem may start to get a little nervous. It may not be a huge leap from 'why do you need OA++ when you have OA and EAM' to 'why do you need OA HIPS when you have EAM Behaviour Blocker' and so on. Let's hope not.

It's a good offer to move to the package for free though, many would have give a 'discounted' upgrade price. Hats off to Emsisoft for that.

Cheers

 

One of the nice features of OA++, i.e. playing well with other AVs is likely to be given up by this fusion. Lets see...

 

Then you might want to see this:

It has been on their site for a long time.

 

Then excellent news, hope they keep it for the future releases.

 

Who didn't see this one coming?

I played with the EAM/OAP combo a few times. The default install-it/forget-it Standard mode was OK, but toggle into the Advanced mode and start tweaking stuff under the hood and it becomes quite annoying; popups from OA HIPS for AM stuff and AM BB for OA stuff. There is way too much overlap in Mamutu and OA HIPS.

Hopefully they'll continue to support OAP and OA++ with their usually speedy updates of sigs for the two engines (in ++) and the trust, whitelist, etc. databases for both while customers wait for the new product to be released.

Wonder how long it'll take for the two products to appear? The Anti-Malware one and the Internet Security (suite) one?

Then there's always Outpost PSS.

 

You disabled all alert reduction features and then wondered why you've got many alerts?

I'd say it's normal that the products alert each other on a HIPS level since both use techniques to hook into the operating system very deeply. You'll see the same behavior when installing any other security software too.

 

Actually, I never said what I did under the hood. But yes, you're absolutely right about products normally alerting about each other - when they're from different developers! Emsisoft is trying to pass off EISP as an integrated package, as it did with it's previous EAM/OAP "bundle."

If I were to adjust some function in AVG Internet Security's Online Shield I would not expect its Identity Protection to popup with an Allow/Block challenge. Please, you know exactly what I was referring to.

Actually a lot of us are looking forward to a real full blown suite. Emsisoft and Online Armor have a long and endearing history.

BTW, would you please care to give us some timeline on and EISP with Anti-Malware v6? Thanks!

 

Actually some of us users (not me in particular), would indeed like, on a manual mode, to be warned about all activities even if coming directly from the same 'controlling' application or linked components. Auto trust is a dangerous route and can easily generate "call home" or "hidden connections" paranoia by users. This can also damage the image of the company developing the application.

 

Super Obsessive-Compulsive Anti-Everything has detected the User Account right clicking on the Tray Icon and selecting Scan Options from the Pull Down Menu. Is this what should be done?
( ) Sure. Why not?
( ) Probably.
( ) I did what??
( ) No. Wait... No. Uh... Wait! Ok, No.

Super Obsessive-Compulsive Anti-Everything Ulta-HIPZ has detected the User Account is using the mouse and keyboard to add the extension .ods to the Scan List. Is this what should be done?
( ) Sure. Why not?
( ) Probably.
( ) I did what??
( ) No. Wait... No. Uh... Wait! Ok, No.

Super Obsessive-Compulsive Anti-Everything Behavya Blokka has detected Super Obsessive-Compulsive Anti-Everything Ultra-HIPZ is doing something to Super Obsessive-Compulsive Anti-Everything by the User Account using the mouse and keyboard. What up with that?
( ) What?
( ) No way.
( ) Well... DUH!

 

No, seriously. The current version of Anti-Malware should not alert anything from Online Armor and vice versa. If it does, it's a bug and must be fixed. Currently there is only one known issue that OA occassionally shows an alert if the Anti-Malware service binary was replaced by its updater. But this issue will be fixed most likely in the next build.

That implies that if you get too many alerts, you've either found some serious bugs or have manually disabled several alert reduction features, like the new certificate based trust filter that was introduced in version 5.1.

I'm really interested in investigating that further.

 

Emsisoft, now that OnlineArmor is an "end of life" product...

I hope you will consider removing the licensing key "1 year" timeout
so that an Online Armor Premium license will permanently unlock its "advanced firewall settings"

 

inka, please read the announcement once again. We never said that Online Armor has reached the end of its life.

Only the Online Armor++ edition will not be developed any further. That means we'll not implement the new Emsisoft Anti-Malware 6.0 scan engine in the product. The product is still alive and will get signature updates until these require further development. This may be in one year or maybe in 10 years, we don't know.

Online Armor Premium edition is NOT affected by this decision at all.

 

Christian/mr. Mairoll,

'OA++' is the full FW and the EAM engines integrated where the 'Internet Security Suite' is the full FW and the separate (new) EAM program, combined in one purchase package but not integrated into one program, right?

If the new security suite will get a unified gui, what was the reason for not simply renaming 'OA++' into 'Emsisoft Security suite'?
The possibility to develop OA and EAM separately and only integrating them visually in the future?
(Just looking for the rationale behind the decision, cutting some dev. costs I assume?)

 

The antivirus features of Online Armor ++ are very basic, far away from those of Emsisoft Anti-Malware.

OA++ just adds an onExecution scan of started applications to complement the HIPS. AV always was an addon for the HIPS part.

It doesn't have full onAccess scanning.
It doesn't have a flexible and configurable on demand scanner.
It doesnt' have any quarantine features except execution blocking via rules.
etc..

In short: It doesn't have all the typical features that users today expect from a solid antivirus and we don't want to develop all those features twice as we don't have the required ressources to do that piece of extra work.

 

Will it be possible to use an OA++ key to use with OA Premium once the ++ is gone?

Gerard

 

As announced, you can change your OA++ key to an Internet Security Pack key which actually consists of 2 keys right now: One for OA Premium and one for Anti-Malware.

We're currently working on a solution that accepts one and the same key for both programs, but you're never forced to install the Anti-Malware part too, if you don't want to.

 

I have Online Armor ++ which will expire in 9 months and MAMUTU lic which will expire in 2014.
Now The reason why I have both is that I like both and I like that fact that OA++ AV is on access only and does not bug down nor interfere with the resources of my RT AV NOD32.

Now I know that the AntiMalware 5 and 6 include MAMUTU style Security so if I were to upgrade my OA++ to the OA Premium and AntiMalware 5/6 then what will happen with my MAMUTU lic? Will it become useless?

Also I like the non-competitvness of resources between the OA++ AV and my NOD32 AV, will inclusion of EAM 5/6 change that? I mean EAM is more of a full time AV rather then an Add-On AV that can be ran with other AV's or am I wrong?

Thanks for any and all answers.

 

Just contact our customer support and ask for a license merger. We can credit the left Mamutu license period to the Internet Security Pack licenses if you want.

Emsisoft Anti-Malware shouldn't make more troubles than Mamutu in combination with NOD32 if you set it to scan programs on execution only (default setting additionally scans on write actions too).

But in general I'd suggest to use only one full antivirus suite. Emsisoft or NOD32. Your setup seems to be a bit overkill and might just make your PC slow.

 

Emsisoft, thanks for the clarification.

 

Thanks! Will contact them.

Question: is the behavioral analysis of MAMUTU identical in EAM 5/6?

 

Yes it is the same.