WSA+AIS?

Tyrizian · Mar 21, 2013

Techfox1976 said:

You're quite welcome.

I'll point out straight away that highly-educated users have a tougher time with it unless they research all the details. They are used to very specific operational parameters and behaviors.They all have their own preconceptions as to what works and what is best. But the most intelligent ones look at facts and concepts well and can make their own decisions based on the issues at hand.

Things to consider:

If it WOULD detect something the other program also detects, it will either A: detect it later and remove it fully while protecting you against it despite the latency in detection, or B: Allow the other program to block WSA from the detection and remove the malware. It does not want to get into a fight with other AV and negatively impact your system. It's been shown time and time again that when it's alongside something else, it will never give a peep if the other AV detects the malware even when it can detect also.

It does not look for or detect -everything- that other AVs may detect. Another AV may flag on the configuration file or registry entry for an infection, for example, even if the core infection is gone. Though WSA has a VERY strong ability to remove traces that it saw get placed, even if they are not detected by other AV programs, it will also miss outliers that existed prior to its installation even if other AVs have explicit detection for those outliers. The important thing is that none of those outliers are ever active machine code or able to actually influence your system.

Nothing is perfect. Period. When something gets by, a lot of us are completely capable of removing it manually ourselves. WSA not only provides a useful tool set to assist in this removal, but it also has outstanding support and a framework by which support and threat research can remove the infection without having you run ComboFix or MBAM and often without needing you to do anything at all if the infection got in while WSA was installed.

it's light. OMFG light. It's like it's not there. My current rig is a high end system. Three monitors, 2x GTX 680 SLI, 32GB RAM, 3x 512GB SSD in RAID5 for system drive, octo-core 3.8GHz CPU, etc. Yet conventional AV on my system still impacts performance noticeably and quantifiably. I support thousands of systems for enterprise and others, and the number of low-end systems, even many running XP on things like original P4s is huge. The impact of normal AV on those systems is nearly registered in megatons. :\ But WSA has no noticeable impact on my or any other systems when running right. (Caveat: When running right. Most of the time, AV is running right and impacting, or running poorly and impacting worse. WSA is not-impacting when running right, and minimally-impacting when running badly. Then support is tremendously helpful if it runs badly for any reason, and even then I can generally remediate it myself. WSA makes it so the computer you paid for belongs to YOU, not just the 75% of it your AV isn't using.

Support doesn't suck. Not only does the program give you the ability to solve the vast majority of any possible issues yourself if you know how, but support follows the sun, is in-house (US-based as well for US customers), and highly intelligent. Though it's always possible to catch a support person on a bad day (nothing's perfect), your chances of having a good support experience are much greater. Support also doesn't consider your computer or data to be expendable. if you have an infection, "Wipe everything and reinstall your OS" is the absolute last thing they want to ever say. That's a HUGE step away from other AV support where "Make an effort, then nuke it from orbit, that's the only way to be sure" is the common answer.

A huge number of people use WSA as their only AV. Many also use it as a layered approach with others. With all the time I've been the security industry, I know its strengths and weaknesses and I utilize it exclusively. It's not perfect, but it sucks less than the other stuff.
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Very nice post, thank you for this

I'm going to purchase WSA when I can, I liked it quite a lot.

kjdemuth · Mar 21, 2013

Good choice

ams963 · Mar 21, 2013

@RADEON0101
Good decision R. WSA is just awesome.

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