Twister Antivirus

Hi,

Tried it for 30 minutes then like danny and aigle after a high CPU use, had the same BSOD

Tried it against my small set of samples (nearly 1250 files) and this AV reached 99 % detection. Really impressed by this personal result.

Regards,

MaB

 

Hi,

Just received a reply from Twister support in regards to #42 concerning BSOD's.

They said they had no feedback regarding this issue and think it maybe a conflict with other software, more so another security app.
Asked if I'd send them my mini dump folder but because I did a restore those files at the time of running are now gone.
The only other security programs running at the time were OA paid and SpywareBlaster.
Any opinions if one of these could have conflicted?
At least we know their support is alive and working.

Just an after thought. Could the hips in Twister conflict with the hips in OA?

Thanks, Dan

 

Thank you Danny for your report
RollbackRX removed the dmp too

I don't think so because subset seems to use it without conflict

The only other security software installed on my comp are GeSWall (used by aigle too) and Ad Muncher

regards,

MaB

 

Twsiter runs on my pc without any problem. I still try it since two days now, and all i can say, it´s perfect. low memory usage, fast scan speed (only 12 mn on HD C: with 60 gb), hourly updates, suspicious behaviour blocker..
it produces although a little bit FP´s, like many other scanners i would say.

 

Thanks subset, you've gone to a lot of effort in this thread with your testing and screenshots.

Asking the question whether it stacks up against two free programs, which are highly regarded, shows that this Twister program seems to have some potential. If it had more support, could (hopefully) be even more refined.

I think it's worthy of support. Especially those that might only want to install one program, and receive good support. If their support is on-hand, then it is worth the $$.

I still have a few months left with my current program. I'm definitely looking into purchasing something lighter with high detection.But if I were asked to choose between supporting this small program with good results, and a large bloatware program with average results, I'd choose this unknown program.

Cruelsister, without comparing A vs B, how many other programs have you tested with that pile of malware? Your test along with subset's and Mab69's have all looked promising.

MaB69, I've had some BSODs with GeSWall and my current AV, so I've never been able to try out GeSWall.

 

Hi Saraceno,

Thanks for your input
Uninstalled GeSWall yesterday to install latest Defensewall (i like to play with this 2 jewels). If i have some time, i will retry Twister and report back if i have again or not BSOD.

Regards,

MaB

 

DefenseWall is on the 'tobuy' list.

Let me know how it runs with it.

I ran Twister on its own. Tried to run the both (Twister and DefenseWall) for a brief period, but DefenseWall obviously listed the Twister processes as untrusted, and rebooting setup wouldn't allow the program to finish setup. I'll try it again by adding the entire Twister program folder as trusted in DefenseWall. Or I'll install Twister first, then DefenseWall. (Or there might be an easier way that I'm not aware of)

 

Agree 100%

 

Saraceno- I was hesitant about posting any results in my initial post as doing a test that can't be vetted by anyone should normally be viewed with suspicion. But since you asked:

I tried to test against any that crossed my path, with most testing being done about 3 months ago. I ran the On-Demand test against G-Data, Avira, F-Prot, Sophos, KAV, Symatec Corp, Mcafee, Panda, Eset, Clam, Norman, CA, Dr.Web, AVG8, F-Secure, Bit Defender, and Rising. All testing was done in a VM courtesy of VMWare. I do make sure that the malware I utilize in the tests are all fairly recent (~24 months since initial detection) with some that written and never released (virus/Trojan for test purposes only). No DOS or early Windows viruses allowed! I also include legitimate programs that use Binders or Crypters or Packers in mt test set as a way to measure FP's. I think this is essential to do as Anti-Malware program's effectiveness is inversely proportional to the amount of FP's it finds.

With such a small malware sample that was used, results expressed as raw detection percentages would be meaningless; but the AV's can be classed in detection tiers. The ususl suspects are in the top tier (Eset, KAV, G-Data, F-Secure and Bit-Defender). Now Twister can be included in that list.

I personally will not use KAV due to its intrusiveness, and on my computer I can tell the difference in having G-data, F-secure, and Bit-defender installed versus having no AV active. Avira has been my latest fav until the coming of version 8. I don't rember the last time my computer froze, but with Avira 8 it has happened multiple times. I was just eagerly awaiting subsequent builds, but now it seems I have q viable alternative.

Hope that answered any question you may have had.

 

This sounds like you may not have removed the twister exe from the untrusted processes list after downloading it.

 

Well it is sure fast and light, some nice features

A) registry protection (run and some basic autostart entries)
B) checks digital signature etc of a executable plus does some file structure analysis and rates its risk
C) warns when exes are written to disk, also performs (b) analysis of the writing/written program
D) does memory sweaps (like anti trojans do)
E) packer analysis

It knows most POC's so you have to test it with real malware. For a life time lisence, it is cheap in Euro's. Its real malware stength is really impressive (considering that most of the members rate it a third tier AV).

I did a 'break it' it test (thinking to classify it indeed as third tier AV), but hey it kept standing. Do not know what to think of it: could be a jewel or just sheer luck due to the statiscal irrelevance of my little test. On the other hand most so called newbies/improved 2nd tier antimalwares were brought down their knees with my little test.

The GUI is clear, but messages are on the level of HIPS, giving your clues, but you still have to take the time to evaluate your options. Intrusion handling options (after it pops-up) are really full featured. Update frequency is also remarkeble.

I am left with questions and would ask more serious testers to give it a thorough pounding.

MAB69, It worked flawlesly with DefenseWall by the way


Regards Kees

 

Hi,

@Saraceno & Kees : thank you guys for your input but i retried Twister with OA and DW only in RT as security products and had again a BSOD (each time nearly half a hour after first install reboot).

Explored the snapshot created by RBX before i rolled back to previous state and still no dump to send to Filseclab

Regards,

MaB

 

Just uninstall and install as trusted.

 

I decided to try both fileclab firewall and twister as my only security .( just firefox and no script . It really rockets along as far as system performance. We in the west are familar with all the usual AV s etc however there are over 1.3 billion people in china. There are also a lot of computers . So thats possibly alot of experience gained by AV/ malware companies. Perhaps in the next year or so they will have as much experience and quality in some areas as we have taken to gain here in the west in the last 10 yrs or so .

 

I decided to give Twister another go around tonight.
I did the quick scan and as soon as it was done, BSOD.
This time I watched the graphs in Task Manager.
CPU stayed under 30% which is not bad.
The big change again is in Kernel Memory.
Running Avira and OA the total is 52,700.
The paged stays around 28,500.
With Twister the paged starts out around 40,000.
During the scan it keeps climbing and reached 106,000.
I'm no memory expert but this was the only thing I noticed that changed from the norm I've been seeing.
Maybe not a big deal and I'm just grasping at straws.
For now I'll stay with what I have, at least until the next version.

 

something i am unable to perform is a scan in safe mode with twister

 

Just read Filseclab`s page and found it very confusing... Their FAQ mentions yearly renewals. Their sales site says it`s a lifetime license.

So is it a one time fee or an yearly renewal they are selling?

 

The FAQ is out of date~The licence is lifetime.

 

Twister cannot run in safe mode.

 

it takes very long time to scan large archives
all files are extracted to temporary directory before scan

 

maybe i will give it a try and test its detection rate

 

I emailed customer support asking about scanning in safe mode and also the deal with their license.
I received a very polite reply the next day saying they were sorry that the Twister couldnt scan the computer in safe mode because their scan module is a kernel module, and safe mode does not allow it to load this driver, and that they will try to improve this in the next version. And that usually, the Twister need not go to the safe mode to scan because it has good detection and clean ability.

Also the license key is a lifetime license, that you only need to purchase once for updates including both virus definition and application.

 

Yes, yes, it's worth trying.
Did a test with about 6000 and Twister came out head-to-head with AV-C champions Avira and Trustport.
But of course my samples are old and lousy.

Cheers

 

Online Virus Scan
What is it?

 

Not sure what you mean rayoflight. Is that in the program details somewhere? If it is, I'm assuming it would mean it scans like 'http/web guard' scanning.

If you test Twister with the EICAR test files, it quarantines the files before the download starts.