A-Squared anti-malware 2.0 Beta

What operating system are you using controler?

 

I am using XP Pro on this system.

 

Hmmm ... can you please send me a list of installed software via PM so I can try to reproduce the problem?

 

I would not worry about it. I have installed so many programs it would not be fair to A2 to mess with this. I am going to install Vista Beta on here and will give A2 a try with that.

Keep up the good work

controler

 

Hi Controler

that's the least you can say .. I'm trialing this new version for a few weeks and to be honest .. it's a fine piece of equipment! with advanced features for the ones who want it and with the possibility to be protected "right out of the box".

waaaay much better then the previous version imho and it's reassuring that every day again (not every day but still every day updating) they're active, responding and making things better...

cheers,

 

I'm VERY impressed with this program.

Especially the fact that it's able to find everything from spyware... to worms.. to trojans.

I also love the frequent updates. Have noticed there tends to be a new definition file daily.. sometimes more than one even.

I'm real anal about protection, so in addition to tradional firewall and antivirus I've got everything from trojan hunter.. to adaware..to spybot on my machine.

This along with trojan hunter (which also seems to have frequent updates) just might be my two favorites of the bunch.

Bravo!

 

Well gents, I beg to differ here. I have been an ardent fan of A squared for 2 years now and I have to say my enthusiasm for this product dwindled yesterday. I was very happy with V 1.6.5 , simple and did the job. Yesterday I went to update and found myself with V2!, I had no choice in the matter. [I ditched Antivir 7 some months ago because of a compulsory programme update which was still Beta and buggy.]
However, seeing as how I had 'got' it, I would trial it. First thing I noticed was an annoying splash screen being flashed at me everytime I changed the context menu. The GUI looks fine but disappears when I change the context menu, giving me the splash screen again. The hijack free part is really only of use to the advanced user. The background guard/realtime scanning and IDS progs etc consume..........would you believe 76MB memory,
ie a2start.exe 38MB and a2guard.exe 38MB , just about more than the rest of my PC put together. When scanning the scanner uses 42MB ram and 98% CPU usage. It didnt find anything so I must be doing something right.
Result, firstly, I have disabled the real time scanning because of RAM usage. THerefore it follows it is not worth renewing the license if the RAM usage is abhorrent to a point where you cant really use it. It also follows if you dont get a license , will I be plagued with the splash screen all the time? If so it will be uninstalled.
In the help files it says to make 'it free' delete the following
a2guard.exe
a2handler.dll
a2sys.exe
a2cfg.exe,
But I cant find a2sys.exe or a2cfg.exe, so when Updated I got the other 2 files downloaded again.
Whats gone wrong Emsisoft? I loved A squared before yesterday. It annoys me that to continue using it I got an automatic prog update, I wasnt asked. This is my PC, dont I have a say in whats installed on it?
I dont think A squared will be on it much longer.
Gordon

 

Gordon, which splash screen are you talking about on which context menu? Can you please send me a screenshot of this to info@emsisoft.com?

I'm curious because a-squared Anti-Malware doesn't have a splash screen any longer. Not at the scanner and not at any other program part.

About the memory consumption you're right, it is very high. But please keep in mind that you usually only run the Guard and not 2 or 3 program parts. The security center (a2start.exe) is usually used very infrequent as well as the scanner. But we're currently working on an optimization for that. More than 420,000 signatures take more memory than a simple spyware scanner that uses just a few thousands signatures, that's clear.

The help file needs to be updated, because in version 2.0 you can no longer downgrade to the Free edition from the Anti-Malware. Btw, a-squared Free 2.0 is not available at this time. Will take some more weeks.

Version 2.0 is nothing else than normal evolution. We will definitely not support version 1.6.5 any longer because everybody who has paid for that version paid for 1 or 2 years license of the latest software. So everybody will get the new version for free. Anti-Malware 2.0 is no longer beta software. We are in final stage for about 10 days now and that's why we decided yesterday to publish it to all 1.6.5 users too.

 

Dear Christian, thankyou for your reply, and explanation of some of the features of ver 2. I understand about normal evolution and wanting to move forward. I will continue with it for now to see where we go in the next few weeks, keeping an eye on updates, ram usage etc.
About the 'splash screen' , it is the screen that comes up telling me how long my license has to run before it expires, ie...always on commencing the programme and when returning from both the Hijackjfree screen and the scanner screen back to the status screen, it pops up again. Once is enough surely.

 

Lots of folks call that sort a screen a NAG screen.

I detest Nag screens, and will rarely continue testing a product that uses this sort of thing. If a product is good, I buy it. If not, I don 't.

Perhaps a reminder a few days before a trial period expires might be less of an annoyance - possibly even useful. In any event, a daily nag screen sells nothing to me. In fact, it can have just the opposite effect.

 

Bellgamin

,
It is doing.

 

They should put the splash screen as optional. BTW, if some software is free, in my opinion at least a splash scrren on system start up can be acceptable if software is free.

 

my opinion too (but only if optional) ..

regards,

 

The trial screen should only occur once each day and only while the 30 day trial period, not at full versions at all. It is not made to annoy users, but once a day I'd say is acceptable to see that you're running a trial.

Which operating system do you use? Which version is displayed in the Security Center?

 

And I guess most of those custom made nag screens are builtin just because to fight against reverse engineering the program .. just my 2 cents .. (at least I think so) ..

 

Dear Christian, I am running XP service pack 1. The version in the security centre is 2.0.0.393. I dont get the 'trial screen'/nag screen' just once a day. It is everytime I open the proramme and as said before on returning between the Hijack screen and scan screen to the status screen. Something is not right then?
regards Gordon

 

Could you please try to refresh your license information?

Security Center -> Settings -> License tab -> Refresh Licenses -> Click the license and restart all a-squared applications (Security Center, Guard).

Is the trial box still displayed?

Are you logged on with administrative rights btw.?

 

Thanks, I do have admin rights. I have done what you ask, and indeed, now when the guard is activated the trial screen disappears-- so long as the guard is active. But due to the large ram usage I have disabled it again and the numerous trial screens return as before. The trial/nag screen only appears when the guard is disabled. Is this a bug in Ver 2 ?, or how its meant to be?
Incidentally, we had better be careful where we go with this thread as it is suppose to be opinions on A squared Ver 2 beta, we dont want to invoke the wrath of the moderators on setting up a forum.
regards Gordon

 

OK, it seems to be a problem only with the disabled guard. Which is definitely not recommended and therefore not a really good tested case so far.

How much RAM do you have, that these 30-40 mb ob the Guard are really important to save?

You have to keep in mind, that only an active guard is able to protect from any new infections. The auto-update and scheduled scan can only be run if the guard is active too.

More than 420.000 malware signatures take a lot of ram, that's clear. But we're still working on it to decrease the ram usage of the guard.

 

Ok thanks for looking into this problem Christian, and point taken. But Glad to hear you are trying to reduce the footprint.
regards Gordon

 

Andreas posted a while back that removal of the debugging code will make a big improvement in footprint. They are leaving it in for now to find and correct little bugs in the new version. I am very impressed with Version 2 so far...

 

When I run a deep scan I notice A-Squared finds alot of cookies from FireFox, the same ones over and over, is there a way to stop this, either through FF or A-Squared?

 

Beside that I reworked the whole signature handling of a-squared in the last week dropping the memory usage by ~20 MB. I am currently busy implementing a signature manipulation language so we are able to change older signature files using incremental updates instead of forcing a redownload of them.

The new engine will be available for beta testing at the end of this week.

 

As far as I remember this was a problem in one engine build that has already been fixed. Can you confirm that?

 

A slightly diiferent question. When the present A squared ver 2 licence ends [in my case in about 7 days], if we dont renew, will it revert to the free version?, or what will happen to it? I havent yet seen any info regarding this, as we all know in VER 1.6.5 it went free, with the background guard disabled.
cheers Gordon