A squared antimalware antivirus

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by Superman20, Jul 22, 2009.

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  1. firzen771

    firzen771 Registered Member

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    i hope it is included in the next av comparative, along with Vipre and CIS.
     
  2. JoeBlack40

    JoeBlack40 Registered Member

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    A squared flagged several times this file C\Windows\System32\image.dll as a trojan......and this file belongs to my laptop's webcam (Acer Aspire 6930).....i submitted the file 4 months ago to emsisoft,but even now it is still flagged as a malware.....i have the full version for a year,but thanks,no....i'll stick with my curent AV....
     
  3. firzen771

    firzen771 Registered Member

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    does A2 not have a way to make exclusions? its pretty easy to do... :rolleyes:
     
  4. JoeBlack40

    JoeBlack40 Registered Member

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    I know that...but i think that it's not normal after 4 month,this file is still flagged...it's a FP,right?Why they didn't fixed it after all this time?I don't like it and i don't trust in their product anymore.Just IMHO.
     
  5. firzen771

    firzen771 Registered Member

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    well im assuming they wuld get lots of emails whether it be for FP's or malware samples or general support, so 1 missed email culd be the case, every vendor has the occassional missed email.
     
  6. JoeBlack40

    JoeBlack40 Registered Member

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    Maybe you are right...but still,A squared is too agressive even for an average user....high detection,indeed,but on the other hand....oh well,depends on everybody's pc skills i think...
     
  7. firzen771

    firzen771 Registered Member

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    i agree it might not be suited for the everyday person, but for people with somewhat computer knowledge it wuld be fine probly.
     
  8. JerryM

    JerryM Registered Member

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    If it is tested by AVC it will be interesting to see if its detection rates are good enough to put up with the FP. Of course FP cause lower rankings anyway.

    Regards,
    Jerry
     
  9. Macstorm

    Macstorm Registered Member

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    wow o_O And to think that I've been cursing Bitdefender for not fixing their fp's after two weeks! ha ha

    IMHO, I think i could stand several fp's from any AV (not my case fortunately) but at the same time i'd like to see them fixed in a timely manner after the submission of the 'suspected' files.
     
  10. Stefan Kurtzhals

    Stefan Kurtzhals AV Expert

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    My understanding is that the detection method used by A2 is the cause of the high false positive rate. And no matter how fast they whitelist old false positives, the detetection method will cause new ones faster.
    They use some sort of similarity calculation, but their automatic signature generator sometimes picks bad locations for the area inside the file that is used for this calculation. If that area is part of a common runtime library or common tool (SFX stub), you will get lots of false positives. A2 excluded alot of those bad cases, but still there are plenty of problems left.
    So they have false positives on all type of software, not only keygens, but also normal installers and so on.
     
  11. JoeBlack40

    JoeBlack40 Registered Member

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    That's right....you,Stefan,are the only one who knows what's talking about (no offence for the other posters)......again,it's too agressive.Maybe I'm just an average Joe.......
     
  12. Saraceno

    Saraceno Registered Member

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    I had 70+ portable programs from portableapps.com and portablefreeware.com on top of normal installations to program files (burnaware, frostwire, handbrake, dvdshrink, imgburn etc etc).

    All were clean.

    Joe, you're building it up to be this program which is to be feared by all users when your only instance is the laptop's webcam. I'd click exclude, or send them another email. Another email would have taken less time then numerous posts on here about emsisoft FPs.

    I agree version 4.0 produced many false positives, but I'll come back to my original point, that the program has improved and an average person is using only a handful of safe programs on top of a standard installation (firefox, winamp, faststone image viewer etc). So they won't have a problem. Most average users don't install programs, they use what's there.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2009
  13. subset

    subset Registered Member

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    I assume you mean Ikarus.
    Or does A2 have an automatic signature generator?

    Also most of the FPs have this IK tag.

    Cheers
     
  14. JoeBlack40

    JoeBlack40 Registered Member

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    You are right...i'm sorry about all my posts in this topic.....exclude the folder,and thats it.
     
  15. Stefan Kurtzhals

    Stefan Kurtzhals AV Expert

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    Yup, it's the Ikarus engine (IK detections) that use the similarity detection.
     
  16. Saraceno

    Saraceno Registered Member

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    Joe, you don't have to be sorry, as everyone's standards (and what they expect from programs) are different.

    The way I see it with AVs, you can have one that produces FPs when you first use the program, then none from then on. Or you could use one AV program that might give the all clear now, but when you download several programs in the future, you might start receiving FPs.

    To me the best part with a-squared's program is that you're not only getting an AV, but the behaviour monitoring of mamutu, and surf protection. The Hijackfree tool built in, which can be used as a standalone tool, is enough to delete most malware that gets past an AV, installs services or makes outbound connections.
     
  17. JoeBlack40

    JoeBlack40 Registered Member

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    Hmmm....that makes me wonder if wouldn't be better to give it a try to A squared...as i said,i have the full version,but i always hesitate to use it in real time...as soon as i uninstall my curent AV,of course....(till now,i used to use a squared only as on demand scanner)....
     
  18. JerryM

    JerryM Registered Member

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    It has been said that A Squared might not be suitable for average users due to FP. I consider myself pretty much an average user.

    So my question is "Why should I choose it over other AV's that show 97%- 99.7% detection rates?" If there are tests which show a clear advantage in malware detection and removal then it is worth looking at. Even if FPs are at a minimum there is no good reason for me to change from AV/AM that run well on my system, and have high detection rates.

    In over 10 years with computers I have never been infected, and only about 3 or 4 times was an attempt made to penetrate. In each case the AV at the time caught it. If I recall correctly those were Norton 1, Bit Defender 1, and Kaspersky 2.

    I did have A Squared for a period of time. It did show some FPs and they were never corrected. It was not difficult to determine what they were, and if I recall correctly one was a dial up application, My Travel Access.

    Regards,
    Jerry
     
  19. cruelsister

    cruelsister Registered Member

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    I just gave ASquared AM a trial on my test machine.As I like to test fresh, nothing aside from XP Pro and Asquared was installed (A2 was installed using the default parameters (not the "Paranoid Mode").

    I downloaded the latest Nightly build of Firefox (3.6a1) and the 2.0 alpha build of Seamonkey. Both were downloaded from the Mozilla FTP site. On installing both Seamonkey and Firefox I got a warning that the "application exhibited trojan-like behavior" and then asked me what I wanted to do.

    I know in the past there were some whopper FP's, but with the popularity of Firefox I was surprised that they let this one through.
     
  20. thathagat

    thathagat Guest

    hello turn the intelligent alert reduction on in A2 IDS setting and you would not see such warnings
     
  21. dell boy

    dell boy Registered Member

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    if your a web developer and make htmls or what have you, put them all in one folder and put as an exclusion maybe? im not sure if you can do that but just a suggestion
     
  22. Retadpuss

    Retadpuss Suspended Member

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  23. JerryM

    JerryM Registered Member

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    It looks very good in that test. However, I do not place a lot of confidence in it until I see how it fares at AV Comparatives.

    I think the next one is this month, and it might tell the tale.

    Regards,
    Jerry
     
  24. Graystoke

    Graystoke Registered Member

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    I purchased an a-squared anti-malware license a few months ago. I liked it at the time, but uninstalled it to try a couple of other AV's and suites. I reinstalled a-squared a few days ago, and really like the way it performs on my computer.

    During a full system scan, it flagged a couple of files I know are safe, so I just added them to the white list, ran another scan, and those files are not flagged anymore. I consider myself an average user, and I have no trouble configuring a-squared AM. There is also a very helpful a-squared forum.
     
  25. TonyW

    TonyW Registered Member

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    I don't think a-squared is one of the regularly tested programs by AV-Comparatives though.
     
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