A2 free, good?

Discussion in 'other anti-trojan software' started by Matt_Smi, Mar 24, 2005.

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  1. Matt_Smi

    Matt_Smi Registered Member

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    I eventually want to buy an AT that offers resident protection, but really want to wait until TDS-4 comes out to see what it is all about. In the meantime I was thinking of installing A2 free for use as an on demand scanner. Is it a good AT? Is it comparable to Ewido free? I was also thinking of installing Ewido as well, but don’t like how it need to run a background task/service even if one only uses it as an on demand scanner, although I think I read that it came be disabled and the program can still be used. Anyway A2 looks like it has a very simple interface and that the free versions leaves out real time protection but its on demand scanner is the same as the paid version.
     
  2. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    I use a2 and like it quite a bit. see screen shot to see how many sigs. are in the data base
     

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  3. Blackcat

    Blackcat Registered Member

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    You may have a long wait.
    No harm in installing both. The 1 background process only takes up 652K VM!
    The paid version enables the file-scanner to scan inside archives.
     
  4. Andreas Haak

    Andreas Haak Guest

    Neither the Free nor the Personal version are able to scan within archives currently cause we thought its to unstable currently. If its activated again both versions are able to scan within memory and archives.
     
  5. Blackcat

    Blackcat Registered Member

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    Oops. I was referring to Ewido for this feature and not A2!
     
  6. rdsu

    rdsu Registered Member

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    Yes, you can still use it for on-demand if you disable the service process :)
     
  7. bellgamin

    bellgamin Registered Member

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    Title of thread: A2 free, good?"
    Reply: Ugh, him HEAP good. I use for 3 moons now.:)

    @Andreas- When there is no new update, A2's updater should reveal that fact. Instead, the updater reports, "The update process was finished successfully" even though there were NO new signatures. That is somewhat mis-leading.

    Why not use a statement like "You already have the latest signatures." or something like that?
     
  8. Andreas Haak

    Andreas Haak Guest

    Well the current version was designed by me and I am a coder and not a user. Update process completed means that the updating algorithm produced no errors. The algorithm itself doesn't contain of the downloading only. It also includes comparing remote files with installed files and a few more things.

    So if a² says "The update process was finished successfully" just means everything was ok and you are up to date and is perfectly fine - from a coders point of view ;).

    The user point of view is a little bit diffrent:

    Update means downloading a file and installing it.

    So from a users point of view it might be misleading :). That's why the interface and GUI of version 2 isn't designed and coded by me anymore but by a team consisting of usability experts and special GUI coders with the users point of view in mind - just to ensure such misunderstoods won't happen again :).
     
  9. hollywoodpc

    hollywoodpc Registered Member

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    Did I miss something here ? Is version 2 out now ?
     
  10. hayc59

    hayc59 Guest

    No, I am sure Andreas meant the on going development of a² Free or a² Personal :)
     
  11. hollywoodpc

    hollywoodpc Registered Member

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    Thanks Gordon . I was hoping that was what he meant .
     
  12. Matt_Smi

    Matt_Smi Registered Member

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    I got A2, seems pretty good, the interface is extremely user friendly, I cannot really comment on malware removal because my system is clean but the scan seemed to be pretty in depth. Anyway it’s always nice to have another program to cross check with NOD32 to help assure me that my system is clean. I will probably get Ewido as well and just disable the service it runs, I mean I have two free on demand spyware scanners, why not two on demand AT’s? IMO having more than five security programs running resident is too much, but having extra on-demand scanners never hurts.
     
  13. Howard

    Howard Registered Member

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    /me stares into space and tries to look innocent

    [A2 free, good; a² Personal, better]
     
  14. erikguy

    erikguy Registered Member

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    Yeah, a2 is pretty good. Development is coming along nicely, it's improving all the time. It does however seem to be lacking in the way of spyware signatures. I happen to know that ewido has a high quality and quantity of spyware signatures. So why miss out on that extra protection?
     
  15. iwod

    iwod Registered Member

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    Its good. The only thing i don't like is registration. Which makes silent install next to impossible.
     
  16. Howard

    Howard Registered Member

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    I didn't much care for the way ewido sucked on my CPU when resident and I didn't care at all for the way install/uninstall/reinstall of ewido in two days equalled the end of the 14 day trial. OTOH, I really like the way a² Personal is developing, especially the use of IDS and the almost invisible, scarcely measurable CPU usage of a² Guard and I am happy to help support that development. Ewido has enough cheerleaders round here, it can do without me :p ;)
     
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