AVG antispyware vs A-squared

In their current versions, which one of these products is superior? Does AVG detect rootkits as Emisoft says a-squared will? Has anyone tested them in depth personally?

 

i dont think avg antispyware detects rootkits but i could be wrong.
i prefer a squared myself
i havent tested it against threats thou.
lodore

 

It detects rootkits, back in the day while it was called Ewido it found one.

 

I've tried both. I went with A2. I remember fondly their last product which was superceded by A2. A hint: it's logo was a spinning horse. But that was like 5 or 6 yrs ago. Anybody else remember A2's predecessor?

 

Ive found asquared good in detection and gives lot's more info on found nasties then ewido, however avg as proofed to me it's removal capabilities are lot's more solid.

Ive not conducted tests but have runned these on heavily infected systems and they both seemed equal in detection but asquared doesn't do a good job on removal cus the nasties never left untill i run ewido.

I always run both just to be on the safe side but for the time being my vote goes to avg as.

 

I remember A-Squared's predecessor- Ants.

I prefer A-Squared over AVG AS.

 

It wasn't Ants.

 

When I test them, on the systems that clean, they made a bad job compared with other tools...

Also, the progress on their development is quite disappointing...

 

wich tools? thanks.

 

AntiVirus that have much better detection on Trojans and Spyware, SUPERAntiSpyware, Spyware Terminator, CounterSpy, GMER...

AVG Anti-Spyware and a-squared can have +/- 600.000 signatures, but their detection efficient is very weak...

 

In the new versions of these products, which one do you think is superior? Also, how do they compare to spyware terminator, for on demand scanning only (as a backup to SAS Pro and Antivir)? Has anyone actually tested all 3 against malware and compared? Thanks

 

The RealTime shield of Spyware Terminator is very good...comparable to many paid programs. But scans produce a lot of false positives. And personally I think its HIPS features are weak and the AV component is really just free window dressing for the product, and not an effective resident av.

 

I'm using a one year free subscription to a-squared Anti-Malware 3.0 and it alerted me to programs that try to access the web for updates like SuperAntiSpyware and other programs like AIM and QuickTime faster than my AVG firewall did. It also alerts me to any new Start Up Programs like when I decided to run WinPatrol free again. I definitely perfer it over AVG AntiSpyware and although I like Spyware Terminator a lot, I like a-squared more. The GUI and the features it has are great. However if I had to buy it I'd use ST instead.

 

It was ANTS and Anti-Trojan. Anti-Trojan is the one with that "spinning horse".

 

Comparing the new versions that were released recently I still prefer A-Squared.
Although the Antispy tool in AVG-AS is a nice touch.

 

How does spyware terminator compare in terms of detection (without the HIPS enabled)?

 

There was a discussion about that several months ago.
I don't recall the site name,but someone tested Spyware Terminator's scanner and it didn't fare too well at that time.

 

Did you use A2 with IDS? (the paid version)

 

The more I keep reading about a-squared's IDS the more I'm glad I have a-squared on board. It can and will be argued that there are HIPS programs out there that offer better protection than a-squared's IDS Guard, but as far as being unobtrusive, easy to use and rich in features it's hard to beat a-squared. Now I know AVG AS rivals a-squared in the things I just mentioned, but I can't bring myself to believe that it's Guard is better than a-squared's is since it doesn't offer anything for Real Time detection other than signatures. What I can't understand is why Grisoft hasn't implemented some type of HIPS in AVG AS, as Ewido had planned sometime ago before they were bought by Grisoft. Ewido was even talking about adding Behavioral Detection in future releases at the time as well. I can no longer find an old website URL where Ewido had announced this and it seemed to disappear not long after I posted this info in the Ewido Forum. I'd gladly use the AVG AS Component as a part of the AVG Internet Securty Suite I install and use on occasion, but because of the lack of anything more than signatures to detect RealTime intrusions I can't see a reason for doing so. Grisoft has made great strides in it's AV and the On Demand detection that AVG Antimalwre offers now is much improved, but I'm all about prevention and the more I keep reading about a-squared's IDS the more I feel it may very well be as good as many of the HIPS programs after all.

 

Duke1959

I agree. In the early days when Anti Trojans were an innovation I used A2 free. Later on Ewido got beter references, so I started to used Ewido. Now I have 'downsized'protection from DSA + CyberHawk free to SSM Pro to SSM Free to EQSecure free to A2 paid. I just could not create a silent / flexible layered defense with anti executables. SSM was silent (UI disconnected), EQSecure came close to being flexible (only protecting against strange behavior).

Since I have the combo A2 IDS running after DenseWall (what a strong and easy to use HIPS&box), my wife never complained of 'things' not working anymore/incorrectly.

A2's is very silent (with intelligent false positive reduction) and gives very very clear messages, so for me it is a keeper. I tested A2 against samples to check whether the protection they claimed was available (off course not such a thorough test like NicM did on DSA), so I decided to trust the makers that the program would stand it claims.

I bought A2 for the IDS not for the blacklist capabilities. Afterward I was happy with the AntiTrojan back ground of A2, because Antivir free (which has beter protection rates against trojans, worms and backdoors than KAV) updates were not getting through. So I switched to Avast free (with 5% less protection rates against real baddies) with the knowledge A2's blacklist was there as a second safety net.

Regards

 

Thanks for the reply and info Kees1958. I have used a-squared Anti-Malware for over the past 2 months with other programs like AVG AV, Comodo Firewall, PC Tools Firewall, Avira PP and currently with AOL AVS, and it got along well with all of them. I did have a small problem with the Avira guard not starting after reboot if a-sqaured was set to run at start up awhile back, but everything was fine last time I used them together. The scans can be a little time consuming, but it recently picked up traces of something I can't remeber fully like blurb toolbar, and seems to run lighter at around 40k. I agree with you that a-squared is a keeper, and this is coming from a chronic changer of security apps. LOL.

 

I'm trialling a-Squared but SAS is finding stuff a-Squared isn't. I'll probably dump it soon.

 

Well I have to admit that this morning while trying to open the a-squared Security Center, a2start.exe box pops up with a message reading an error occurred in application with send bug report (which I did) and a few other options. Rebooting fixed it and I don't want to jump ship over this, but it was a slight bit discouraging. SPRINTMAN, what stuff didn't a-squared find?

 

There's been massive program updates today, so perhaps those suffering issues with a2 will find relief.

 

Other than what I stated, a-squared runs well on my PC and from what is listed as it's RealTime protection capabilities, I would think it has to be as good as the other paid Antispywares.