a-squared Anti-Malware with avast home

[DavidR]

@ Mike Buxton
That isn't 10 minutes for avast but 10 minutes for all three scans, avast, MBAM quick scan and SAS quick scan.

I never scan archives as they are inert and don't present a risk until you unpack them and run whatever is inside and long before that the resident scanners would scan newly created files or before executables are allowed to run. So basically I run a Standard Scan (as that also runs the anti-rootkit), which is only concerned with files that are at risk of infection, would present an immediate risk if they were infected and without archives.

I don't have a huge amount of data to scan I don't hold lots of junk and regularly clear out stuff I don't use.

I haven't had an infection in all the time I have had avast, but I don't expect to either because of the precautions I take, but it doesn't stop me sticking to a practice I have been doing for many, many years.

If all that fails I also have a robust back-up and recovery strategy, I have used this many times over the years for various computer problems and not once to recover from a serious infection.

Some people attract viruses like a light bulb attracts moths, so if my standard practices help others great.

[Mike Buxton]

Hi Yokenny,

Did you read post #4 paragraph #3?

If you are unable to locate the suggested independent reports perhaps you could post back again when you have run a-squared Free so that you have something concrete to contribute to this thread.

Hi DavidR,

Thank your for your reply. Deliberate archiving sounds like a very good idea for many users and I had not thought of, or read of that use, in this context.

I imagine, perhaps wrongly, that a vast number of individual Avast users spend countless hours every day/week/year doing on-demand scans.

Yes, I did understand it was 10 minutes for all three scans and I would be interested to know roughly how many files and/or GB your Avast scan actually checks?

My regards

[YoKenny]

Hi Yokenny,

Did you read post #4 paragraph #3?

If you are unable to locate the suggested independent reports perhaps you could post back again when you have run a-squared Free so that you have something concrete to contribute to this thread.

I ran a couple of scans after update

a-squared Free - Version 4.5
Last update: 11/11/2009 5:48:31 PM

Scan settings:

Scan type: Smart Scan
Objects: Memory, Traces, Cookies, C:\Windows\, C:\Program Files (x86)
Scan archives: On
Heuristics: Off
ADS Scan: On

Scan start:   11/11/2009 5:52:18 PM


Scanned

Files:    62898
Traces:    368775
Cookies:    11
Processes:    20

Found

Files:    0
Traces:    0
Cookies:    0
Processes:    0
Registry keys:    0

Scan end:   11/11/2009 6:03:31 PM
Scan time:   0:11:13

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.42
Database version: 3150
Windows 6.1.7600
Internet Explorer 8.0.7600.16385

11/11/2009 6:56:38 PM
mbam-log-2009-11-11 (18-56-38).txt

Scan type: Quick Scan
Objects scanned: 82740
Time elapsed: 1 minute(s), 22 second(s)

Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 0

Memory Processes Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Memory Modules Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Values Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Data Items Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Files Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

[Mike Buxton]

Hi YoKenny,

Thanks for that. It is interesting though the comparison is rather misleading in that a-squared tests for more than 3.3 million problems and I think your favourite program checks for less than 0.3 million problems.  Nevertheless it has a good reputation for fixing the problems it can locate.

My regards

[DavidR]

@ Mike Buxton
My routine scan shows only about 6.x GB of data scanned in about 5 minutes.

[Mike Buxton]

Hi DavidR,

My computer was delivered on 30th June 1998 and yours is some eightfold faster than mine; though I am still very satisfied with the performance of mine.

You have helped me in the past and so has Tech and I expect those from North America who have written in this thread have been a great help to many of us.

Every once in a while I am tempted into the almost impossible fight against injustice. I have a massive regard for Avast and also for a-squared and I wish them both well.

Hi YoKenny,

Please let us know if you use a-squared Free again and do bear in mind that there are a wide range of Custom Scans, with include/exclude settings, each of which can be saved.

Hi Defence,

Emsi are also in process of upgrading some products to v 5 and compatibilities may alter.

My regards

I have no idea how this thread may progress, but my attempted contribution has ended.

[DavidR]

I noticed a huge jump in performance from my old system (XP Pro, AMD 1.8ghz mobile CPU, 2GB RAM and 2 IDE Hard disks), which was half the age of your system. Whilst my new system had a faster dual core CPU, the same OS type and RAM size, but the RAM was much faster. My hard disk is SATA2 and formatted to NTFS as opposed to FAT 32 of the old system. So collectively all parts of the system moved forward as technology did and it is this which makes my system perform much better than the old one.

I tend to keep my systems for about 3-4 years tops and either upgrade components or build a new one (got lazy this time and ordered a custom built one), as the software we use as that progresses requires much more system resources or the system grinds to a halt. Either that or staying in a time warp with old software to retain what little speed you had.

[YoKenny]

@DavidR

I noticed a huge jump in performance from my old system (XP Pro, AMD 1.8ghz mobile CPU, 2GB RAM and 2 IDE Hard disks

I noticed a huge jump in performance when getting a new system I purchased in March of this year with Vista Home Premium.

The best update I did was to purchase Windows 7 Home Premium Full 64-bit and install a larger 320GB HD to install it on as a clean install.

I still have an old Win98SE system that works great and I fire it up occasionally when I feel nostalgic.  It has ClamWin anti virus, HostsMan, Opera 10, SpwareBlaster and WinPatrol.

@Mike Buxton

You could go to PROFILE then Modify Profile then Forum Profile Information then select your country then Signature: and add system information like my signature.

[street_lethal]

I've been using A-Squared for many years. It indeed does have a good detection rate but also a high number of false positives(and always has), so much that I recently stopped using it. It also has issues deleting what it finds since I have never had A-Squared ask me to reboot a system in order to delete a file. And I have used it hundreds of times on client machines over the years. It attempts to delete a file while running in the user account. If you have worked on as many machines as I have you quickly learn that trying to get rid of certain malware while running in the user account is pretty much useless. It either can't be deleted or it's respawned. I would take the drive out of the client machine hook it up to another machine with A-Squared and other AVs already installed, take ownership of the drive and scan with A-Squared that way. It was more effective but most home users can't do that or won't do that.

According to a Emsi rep:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2334422,00.asp

"Our philosophy is that once a system is infected, the only way to guarantee safe working is to format and rebuild the operating system… Cleanup in general and cleanup testing is nonsense. Once infected, you can't trust the system anymore. Then it doesn't make a difference if there are some traces left after cleanup or not."

In which the article writer wrote this:

"This would seem to contradict the company's home page, which states that a-squared will "Remove Trojans, Viruses/Worms, Keyloggers, Dialer and Spyware/Adware from your PC!" Certainly most people expect a malware protection utility to both clean up existing problems and prevent future ones. "


In which I say F it, why use it? Not saying you should not use AV but a number of people would pick up on some of the signs of the less sophisticated malware(the stuff that doesn't hide itself) without a AV scan. If that's the case people can just wipe their drive whenever they think they're infected. Better yet use A-Squared and when it finds something, ignore the list, don't bother deleting it, follow the Emsi rep's philosophy and reformat. Maybe Emsi should add a format button to the scan results page..lol. Click the button the machine reboots and formats the drive.

[Lisandro]

I just can't believe what I'm reading...
Another reason for not using a-squared...

[Lopesmaio]

I do not like to read unjustified criticism of any competitor program.

My personal opinion and experience: a-squared gave false positives, remove registry keys that could not restore back, messed my computer that I have to restore a full partition backup. Too intrusive, too ad-push imho, again, imho.

Yes, i think you are right. a-squared gives some false positives, which are not very convenient for some people.

[polonus]

Hi lopesmaio,

If you know how that a-squared free ticks and you are a bit of an experienced users it will provide you with a very detailed scan. Yes you have to sift out some of the false positives, but as you know what you download that is not so much of a problem, just don't tag for what you are sure is a false find. Then it finds a lot of what it considers risktools, where you know why you have installed it and because it is flagged because of a bug inside the software, just leave that also. It is and was for me always very accurate on finding privacy related cookies (only a minor threat as such). Well because I have grown used to it, it is still on my computer, but I would not advise it to some-one that cannot establish between suspicious and false positives, not for newbies I think. I am very positive on the working of my in the cloud av solution ImmunetProtect, it scans all that comes onto my computer (all downloaded files and temporal files) and it flags what it has to flag (one suspicious file got a red) and the rest was all green. It works great next to the resident av-solution and recognizes and works alongside Threatfire. Does not use much cycles, does a full system scan and of running processes. I have to give this tool a big thumbs up, guys,

polonus (malware fighter)

[street_lethal]

I'm experienced with removing malware, doesn't mean I want to sift through a extensive list of false positives(waste of time, even when I know they're false positves), and not be able to remove real threats..read my above post about A-Squared's ability to remove malware.

Whether you're experienced or not, there's no reason a AV should spit out excessive false positives.

[Lisandro]

there's no reason a AV should spit out excessive false positives.

They push detection rates.
They hype the product.
They do a bad job for the users.

[polonus]

@street_lethal

Well the rate of FPs is not that alarming I had 10 finds of those 6 were ad-related cookies, 3 could be considered as riskware or unwanted as you take strict policies (like firm admins for instance all that he has not installed himself he will consider a risk), even a joke program will be flagged as unwanted.
@Tech
Well that also comes into your categories - it is a nuisance for users.
Again every program that really does protect has false positives, it could be there is a file with anti-resource hacking obfuscation used (also used by malcreants - think of Themida), a security hole in a program could make it being flagged as with IntelliTamper for instance. Normal files that are used by computer vendors and have hooks because they are driver related are flagged - also added FP's.
DrWeb had these issues also in the past, where it even flagged a joke program where users saw an animation of their memory running out on the computer, DrWeb said then they flagged it as unwanted because some granny would take the animation for real and could experience a heart attack. Hope she never enters a shock page... So the whole issue is a bit more subtle then given here. But again MBAM and SAS do better in these respects, but what is much, much more important are these programs capable not of flagging malcode but also of REMOVAL....??

polonus