UnThreat Free AntiVirus 2014

Lately I've been trying a number of different antiviruses, with the current one being UnThreat. Since I'm liking it a lot so far, I though I'd post about it.

There are two things which are essential to me in an antivirus. The first, is it being extremely light so that it won't noticeably slowdown my computer. My laptop's processor is not particularly fast by today's standards (Core 2 DUO P8600 @ 2.4GHz), and while with no AV software installed, Windows runs more than fast enough for everything I need to use it for, if an antivirus is heavy on CPU or disk access, I do notice a drop in performance. With a faster CPU or even a clean install of Windows 7 or 8.1 I'm sure the impact would be much less noticeable - but I have no intention of doing a clean install or upgrading for at least a few years.

The second feature I require, is for the antivirus to be able to prompt for action when a threat is found rather then automatically quarantining it. The second one is not a big deal for many users - but personally I won't use any antivirus without this ability.

In terms of lightness, UnThreat was having peaks in CPU as times. I was able to fix this by unchecking "Check files when they are read/copied/written." This means that for example when you open a folder in explorer the on-access protection, won't automatically scan any exe files there. However a malicious file will still be detected when you launch it. Naturally, this is not an ideal configuration, but I like it as it makes UnThreat extremely light. Something else you can do to make it lighter is by selecting a slow scan speed for when doing on demand scans. There are three speeds, slow, medium and fast. I haven't done any testing to compare CPU use with different scan speeds yet, but it a welcome feature to be able to reduce resource usage when doing a scan, if you are going to be using your computer while the scan is taking place.

On the UnThreat website, this is called UnThreat 2014, however, it is not a new product for 2014, but just the latest presumably minor update to v6 of UnThreat.

The install process initially did not go well. The installer for UnThreat is a web based one. The installer downloaded and attempted to install UnThreat. Half way though the install the installer encountered a critical error, UnThreat launched - with one big issue, it was the 30 day trial version of the paid version, not the free version. I uninstalled UnThreat and then installed it again. This time, the install completed and I ended up with the free version installed.

UnThreat uses GFI's Vipre scan engine. I haven't found any recent tests of UnThreat, but it has earned a VB100 award several times in the past, and did quite well in VB's 2013 Feb-Aug RAP test. I think this is the only free antivirus using Vipre since Ad-Aware switched to BitDefender's engine.

All in all, I'm very happy with UnThreat so far. There has been mention here and on other forums about the somewhat dubious past of the company that owns UnThreat (the same thing has been said about Lavasoft) which provides a good reason for some people to stay clear of UnThreat. But with me being a very trusting person, I see no reason not to use it as this is a legitimate antivirus using a well known scan engine and not a rogue.

 

There are screenshots of UnThreat at Softpedia.

However they don't have the current version to download, so you should download it from unthreat.com.

 

Does it have proactive protection & is it effective?

 

It has no proactive protection.

Edit: It was tested a year ago at matousec for proactive protection and performed terribly. Which I guess is to be expected considering it has none.
http://www.matousec.com/projects/pr...hreat Internet Security 2013 6.1.36.15542.pdf

 

I have tried it several months ago but I noticed in the firewall logs that it was making connections to some places I wouldn't expect so I removed it immediately. Don't remember where it was calling though...

 

.... 3 Pass, 0 Fail from April 2011 (10 tests not entered)
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=536

Last entry: April 2013

 

As I recall, the owners have some sort of controversy surrounding them, similar to AdAware's new owners. I don't want to search for the thread/posts, but they are here somewhere.

 

The free version is good at web and download dangers but not good and will not block any proactive mode. If you run a malware exe there will be no blocking or detection. Thats for the paid version.

 

A great, light, effective product with an elegant GUI perfect for complimenting a HIPS/A_E/firewall/Sandboxie setup.

Very frequent updates, although on some older machines with less rescorces that were off for some time, applying the updates could take some time.

As for "a shady company", I used it for over a year and my bank account is still intact as is my PC.

It`s also free.

 

it's catching my eye..

what other protection modules does it have? I happened to install Ad-Aware long time ago when it was using Vipre engine. it was not bad nor great.

Amin

 

It monitors for suspicious behaviour but it`s mainly a signature based app that sits idle at around 5mg of memory.

Any tests of my own the detection rate was very good and the reaction time was fast.

Worked really well with Comodo firewall/HIPS.

 

Here is what their FAQ's say:

UnThreat Free AntiVirus

Real-time protection against viruses (AntiVirus)

UnThreat uses an award-winning virus detection and removal engine that protects your computer against the most recent viruses. UnThreat works in the background, keeping your computer safe with minimum hassle.

UnThreat AntiVirus integrates one of the most advanced virus detection engines, the VIPRE AntiVirus engine, which leverages multiple detection methods to monitor and protect against various threats, including zero-day threats, in real time. By using the anti-rootkit feature, UnThreat finds and disables hard-to-remove malware that gains unauthorized access to system files and hides deep within your PC. The Active-Protection feature, which automatically updates several times a day, protects against zero-day threats and against the latest known threats


Privacy protection (AntiSpyware)

Spyware that spies on you can record your credit card information, browsing history, activity logs, and other information, which can then be viewed by the people who created it. UnThreat detects malware that tries to collect information about you and removes it from your computer.

UnThreat inspects the contents of the Windows registry, operating system files, and installed programs, and removes files and entries that match a list of known spyware. Real-time protection from spyware works identically to real-time anti-virus protection: the software scans disk files during download time, and blocks the activity of components known to represent spyware. The UnThreat spyware database is frequently updated to assure that new spyware programs are detected and removed.

Email protection

UnThreat scans all your incoming mail for spam and phishing scams that attempt to gain access to your personal and financial information and stops it before it could harm you.

UnThreat's Email Protection protects your computer from potentially harmful inbound and outbound email messages by detecting and stopping malware, viruses, and phishing scams, regardless of whether the threats are coming from the email's content or from an attachment.
UnThreat's Email Protection integrates seamlessly to various email clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail (for Vista and 7), and any email program that uses POP3 or SMTP (Thunderbird, IncrediMail, Eudora, etc.)

 

Sounds like it relies heavily on signatures.

 

I think it does. It says that they are updated every hour. Still uses Viper which I have had issues with in the past where is was spiking the CPU way too often.

 

Any popups or other annoying quirks with UT?

 

Just update popups.Haven't had any quirks.Seems to run quietly.

 

it did not fair very well in my own testing. since we can not post about our own tests i will not go into detail but it was not good especially for every day use.

 

Thanks

 

Zfactor- if by "not good especially for every day use" you mean terrible, I would totally agree.

 

I've been using this for about 3 weeks now & i like it.It slows my computer down only when it's updating.It's not much at all & the update is fast.I need av's that are low in memory usage.I use this & still use Kingsoft Antivirus(English Version).