SuperAntiSpyware v A2-Squared

Assuming that A2-Squared supports Vista, I'm considering replacing my current Anti-Spyware package with either SuperAntiSpyware or A2-Squared.

I'd appreciate your pros & cons for each package.

It needs to run in Vista, be compatible with Nod32, have real-time protection with good zero-hour & heuristic type features.

 

I had A2 Squared but it seemed "buggy" to me with Vista.
For instance, HiJack Free absolutely would not work with Vista, I kept getting error messages one after the other any time I clicked on HiJack Free, eventually my screen would freeze and I would have to reboot.
I had no problem running a scan with A2-Squared but the problem I had was trying to get the program to start in order to run a scan.
I had A2 Squared set to run as On Demand and when I started the program sometimes it would hang at around 98% complete so I would have to close the program and try again, usually on the second try the program would start completely.

As for SAS, I have no problems running that program with Vista.

Hopefully Ewido..uh I mean AVG Anti-Spyware will not have problems when it becomes compatible with Vista.

 

Hi Biscuit

I'm not sure about A2 but SAS offers a time limted trial of there paid for software,if a2 dose the same it might pay to give them both a seperate runout as part of a decision making process/experience etc

 

CJsdad
Thanks for your reply, that's just the sort of user experience info I need.

fcukdat
I appreciate that both offer free trials, but I wanted some user experiences. I often find that people who've used a product for a while generally can offer more real world advice. Also people may ask questions that I may not have though of.

 

ok i have a squared free fro on demand scans and i also have superantispyware pro.
i like both programs and wouldnt stop using either.
for paid programs superantispyware is lighter but a squared antimalware i havent tryed it myself but i would say thats also a great program if its like the free version but with realtime protection.
lodore

 

Isn't Vista supposed to be secure enough to be able to do without anti-spyware software?

 

....also smart money would check to see if the developers are claiming Vista compliance for their current offerings.

though Vista has never been a secret and has offered a couple of releases and betas, most vendors seem to be lagging behind in their offerings adoptations to Vista.


Mike

 

I asked smartmoney, & Superantispyware claim Vista compatibility. They also take up 70mb of memory.

 

I have UAC turned off because it's a huge PITA. Also I suspect Defender of some software conflicts & I don't like the UI or membership of Spynet. It also doesn't protect against tracking cookies.

 

SUPERAntiSpyware fully supports Windows Vista - we also use much less than 70MB of memory on a typical installation - the amount of memory really does not hurt system performance as Windows swaps out unused memory and swaps it back in when it is needed.

 

and A2?

for the record i actually posted this in response to the post where the guy was having difficulty with A2 squared and Hijack Free on a Vista OS. my guess is that he installed it without ensuring it's currently designed to work with Vista.

i have no intention of installing Vista for another 18-24 months. an OS without solid, stable software support is pretty pointless in my estimation. i am also not interested in being a developers guinea pig while they bring their product lines up to speed.

Mike

 

A2 doesn't say, there's mention on their forums about forthcoming compatibility, so I guess not. As I want protection against tracking cookies, then Superantispyware is out, still waiting on A2, or I may just have to wait until AVG wake up.

 

cant you just use your browser to handle cookies?
i dont see the need of an antispyware program to handle cookies in the realtime guard because its a waste of resourses.
it detects cookies in the on demand scanner thou
lodore

 

Interesting towing the line....

I do handle cookies, I use Firefox & the Cookiesafe extension to manage them. However, I'm also a reseller & my customers usually only use IE. I therefore need a security package that will protect them.

 

then you should know that cookies arent really dangerous.
cant you just get them to scan and get rid of the cookies that way?
or setup there browsers to manage cookies?
the only thing spysweeper stopped using its realtime protection was cookies so i turned it off since it was just using resourses.
you can just run ccleaner to get rid of traces and cookies.
why bog down a system with a realtime program to get rid of tracing cookies it seems stupid if you ask me and im sure other people will agree with me.
infact someone asked Nick to get superantispyware to block tracking cookies in realtime and he said it just wastes resourse so never put it in to SAS
lodore

 

Protect them from what

If you are portraying *Cookies* as a security risk then you misleading your clients sir

Extract from Wiki-

Hey Nick carry on nuking the Gromozon's,Rustocks,haxdors and wincom32's rootkit trojans on the web since they are very real security risks and pertinent to this thread is a2 inability to deal with them when they are loaded

Streight comparison SAS absolutely rules king over a2 when it comes down to the new breads of ring0 dwelling malware

 

As a reseller, I don't have the comfort of doing what I want, I have to use & learn Vista as my customers will want to use it. I do agree with your point & in my opinion Vista is still beta software.

 

You are trying to put words into my mouth. I don't find that acceptable.

I see tracking cookies as a breech of privacy.

 

can you explain why?
lodore

 

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I've decided to discount the superantispyware product & wait for A2 & AVGAS to get their acts together & update their products.

 

I think SAS has their act more straight than AVG and A Squared even when all of them are good. SAS has what the others have and prob even more, it's a damn fine product.

 

Cookies are not "harmful" - we detect them because if we don't, people that don't understand that cookies are just text files (.txt) and cannot infect your computer, nor do any harm think our software is not "working". Many anti-spyware vendors use cookie detection to get users to purchase the software - we explain that they are not harmful but are detected.

We specifically don't detect cookies in real-time because it is a complete waste of resources and offers no real protection to the the end user - a cookie can in no way harm your system or anyones system.

If you want cookies to be erased as users surf in IE, you can use our SUPERAdBlocker (http://www.superadblocker.com) product which can clean the cookies each time the browser navigates or closes.

 

To me, cookies are more of a provacy concern. They can track your internet activity in order to target ads to you, correct?

That's why I have IE set to not accept them other than from approved sites. And I always delete them at the end of each browsing session.

 

I would classify them as a privacy concern - rememeber that only sites that know about specific cookies can read them and track anything. All they are really tracking is general demographic information - which really amounts to nothing - meaning do you care if a site knows you looked for a specific car on one site and serves you an ad for that car? (example only).

If you (a user) are concerned about the ads, users can run our SUPERAdBlocker (http://www.superadblocker.com) software and block all the ads so you don't have to worry if you are being tracked or not, you won't see any ads

 

From the tests and cleans that I make, SAS does a much better job, in all the areas, than a-squared!

To be honest, as always , a-squared is really disappointing compared with other similar tools...