A-Squared 3.0 final released

Re about the HIDS

I am impressed. I Guess an average with Antivir free + A2 Malware HIDS + DefenseWall HIPS would have a rock solid security defense, made very very simple to operate.

One tag more complex and more secure would be Online ArmourV2 incl FW + A2 Malware HIDs + DefenseWall HIPS, but I am impressed in the new user friendly solutions.

Reg K

 

Can I set a-squared 3.0's "a2service.exe" to manual?

Thanks,

Michele

 

Yes, but it seems to have a mind of its` own. Mine started itself on the next boot. Also it does not stop after you start A Squared then close it. I have since un-installed it which is a bit messy. After reboot the service remained. Only after some manual registry searching was I able to remove the entry from Windows services. I have used the free version for many years as an on demand scanner. No longer....and I sure will not be buying it either now.

 

A real shame. I used this for many years (free version) and was very helpful many times over. I know they are trying to tighten monitoring for bad entries but just like other security proggies, for one example Cyberhawk, the research group that compiles these have a devil of a time getting their drivers to run stable. Looks like now A2 is also following the same trend.

I fell out my chair when i one day realized that Cyberhawk employed a compliment of not 1 or 2 or not even 3, but "4" drivers Thats way too many IMO and is bound to stress any system if not immediately over a course of time while engaged.

 

I can almost understand this method for real time protection, but for on demand only.....?

Back when I worked on peoples PCs for a living I found it was not unusual to find 40+ processes on average running, without even a hint if security software installed. Almost to a person they complained of their PC being slow. Now it seems adding drivers\services is the new standard in the security industry. The Members of this forum being above average in PC knowledge are able to see\detect\and deal appropriately with this situation. The average user........

 

ThunderZ thank you.

Hmm... I'd like to know whether a2service.exe running all the time stresses the system more or less than AVG AS's new v3.0 with guard.exe needing to run all the time (set to manual impacts its analytical/cleaning abilities now). On demand seems to have become demanding. I am that little icon with the three question marks over its head!

I just checked & a2service is still set to manual here--I right clicked & exited after scanning last night. Would that have made the difference? I take that step for SAS (on demand) so it doesn't crash when I log off Windows. It's become second nature now.

Michele

 

yes, a2service.exe could be set as manual. When I right click and scan the file/directory, it works. But the problem is after I close the gui window, the a2service.exe is still there and I have to close it manually through task manager. I don't like the way it is.

Anyway, it's a little bit better than avg as, which requires guard.exe running all the time.

shek

 

It isn't in the task manager, but once started it continues to run as a service, Shek. After closing the GUI, exit.

Michele

Edit: Correction... It is in the task manager.

 

yes, a2service.exe run as a service. after closing the gui, the service is still there. I don't know why it's different from your case. But that's what happen to me. Anyway, I will try it again.

Thanks.

shek

 

It's still runs in Task Manager and is listed in the Control Panel Services after uninstall as well. I had to search registry to delete the left overs and it was gone from my Services after reboot. I liked a-squared alot, but Prevx2 uninstalled fine recently and so has Cyberhawk and Blink Personal Edition in the past. (Although Drivers are left over for Prevx and BPE in root/Legacy part of registry) There is also the case of the disappearing GUI when switching from one part of it to another that I think needs to be taken care of. The good news is that as far as RealTime it should be pretty effective, and has found things in scans that other programs haven't. Will wait and see what happens in the near future though before I decide to install it again.

 

i'm using the A Squared 3 (Free). I want to try thr A-Squared Anti-Malware.

Will it be a waste program in my computer since I have installed NOD32 and Jetico Firewall?

 

Vista is to blame for the new service. It's becoming a trend. I do however like the lower memory use, although it could be better.

On a side note, After the program update sometime yesterday or today, I noticed my 'enable background guard on system startup' was un-ticked I'm fairly sure I did not disable it. Not sure if it was do to the updates or the fact that my machine has been through many changes this week. You all might want to double check that setting.

Cheers, innerpeace

 

Correction to my post. I am still using version 2.1 and not version 3. Did not update the program as I previously thought. Guess I will wait before I do replace the version.

 

Hi PPl,

I am running 3.0 also on XP SP2

I think I might be able to help some.... Maybe!

I used winPatrol Free and what I did is I killed it in services, then instead of changing it to manual I chose disable....
I closed the program, did a reboot, opened the program, checked for updates, then I checked with winpatrol....and it does not show it as running....and it is not in active tasks or in start up programs.


I am not a computer guru, but this does seem to help me!

 

Why not just go to admin tools>services, stop the service, and set it to manual?

 

I have used WinPtrol Free to disable the AVG AS guard exe. when it was installed on my PC, and it wouldn't start up at all when I initialized AVG to update it. However when I disabled the a2service.exe with WP and initialized a-squared and then closed it down, the exe not only starts but still stays running. I didn't try a reboot because I have already un-installed a-square, but can anyone verify if it's still running in Task Manager after doing this?

 

This software has gone down the toilet. Scanning time takes longer and it's somewhat of a resource hog. I un-installed it and will stick with SAS and Counterspy.

 

Not used Winpatrol to do this, but have set the service to "manual", stopped it, and following a reboot it is not in task manager.

I suspect this will be the same as for AdAware 2007, the same procedure works, but if the program is opened the service will start again, and not stop until either you manually stop it or reboot the computer.

No big deal, but you shouldn't have to remember to manually stop a service. It will, however, just become part of my computer habits, like running ccleaner after any browsing, or updating a scanner before doing a scan.

Thanks to this forum. I wouldn't have known to do this if I hadn't read it here

 

I just installed SuperAntiSpyware Free and like the subtle change that has been made to the GUI. Also because I like the fact that it doesn't leave any processes running after I shut it down, I think this will be my On Demand scanner from now on. Besides I had a problem with Avira PP only starting if a-squared didn't start up along with it after reboot. I know the Avira Guard can be finicky, but this problem didn't exist with version 2.1 of a-squared.

 

How is the scanning speed? I remember it used to take ages for a scan.

 

Couldn't be better.

Gerard

 

hey aigle, if you're talking about SAS, the Complete Scan took around 40 minutes to finish.

 

I am SO GLAD i quit that damn buisness ...

I can remember all that people that whined and complained about a-squared not being able to be used from non-administrator accounts. Christian and his team took your criticism and added non-administrator support. Now the same whiny people complain about the service that was added.

If you are pissed about a service that needs less than 1MB in idle mode and that will get swapped by windows if the memory is needed you realy should consider using the command line scanner. It doesn't even have graphics so you will save a few megs of RAM wasted for eye candy, too.

Regarding the service that is left after uninstall. I did the install routine for 2.1. The uninstaller will never ever remove files he didn't install. a-squared 2.x never had a service so the 2.1 uninstaller won't remove it. To be sure you do a clean upgrade uninstall 2.1 and install a 3.0 setup.

Otherwise you should consider posting your problems at the a-squared forum. I was the only one visiting wilders on a regular basis. You will get answers there way faster.

PS: I just saw there is a thread going on regarding the service here:
http://forum.emsisoft.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=2181

 

Was asking about A-Squared.

@ gerardwil
I hope u mean A-Squared.