SUPERAntiSpyware 5.0 limited Pre-Release

[Dieselman]

Cookie alarming is used by many companies as a scare tactic. When a product finds cookies and labels them suspicious it makes the average user think the product is actually working. But the average user does no know that cookies are harmless. Norton sets off cookie alarms also. Then the user goes "Wow I'm sure glad I bought Norton. It removed those malicious cookies. "

[SUPERAntiSpy]

Cookie alarming is used by many companies as a scare tactic. When a product finds cookies and labels them suspicious it makes the average user think the product is actually working. But the average user does no know that cookies are harmless. Norton sets off cookie alarms also. Then the user goes "Wow I'm sure glad I bought Norton. It removed those malicious cookies. "

That's specifically why we moved cookies into a "non-threat" tracking category - this way users don't think they are "threats", but simply items to track data - which is exactly what cookies do!

[SUPERAntiSpy]

Seems that you come here on avast forums to sell your own solutions for all computers.
Besides, you do not tolerate criticism and others' opinions that differ from yours.
Not a good way to sell your own developer image. Sorry.

I didn't start this thread - when I see items or concerns raised about our product, I certainly come to address them - I am actually not trying to sell anything, and I am open to suggestions, concerns, etc. - I do have the right to explain why we did things the way we did - just because one tech writes "a service is bad" doesn't mean that's the facts - and I want to ensure users have both sides of the story so they can make their own decision.

[Lisandro]

Thanks SUPERAntiSpy.

[Coolmario88]

How good is SAS?  like is it good at cleaning a PC from viruses?

[Dch48]

I downloaded and installed the new V5 of SAS. I like the new GUI a lot more than the old one. I did a quick scan with it and another with MBAM. The speeds were pretty much the same as always with SAS taking 3:40 and MBAM 2:37. MBAM found nothing but SAS "detected" 2 threats in a Need For Speed game that I know is malware free so they were submitted as FP's.

[rdmaloyjr]

I also do not like the way cookies are managed and how SAS alarm the users about them. Seems non necessary.

Tech,

It's hard to please everyone, there are a lot of things that can be checked and unchecked in SAS's ui to please as many as possible.

Cookies can be unchecked.

[DraKuL]

My personal opinion about this matter is, nowadays most of the people are using reasonably good computers - specification-wise so a small process that uses a little RAM with a small processor usage wouldnt do any harm..

Advanced users can disable it.. and users who dont know much about computers wouldnt mind at all since they wont feel a difference..

But having said that, SAS didnt detect any of the malware that MBAM detected on my pc.. No point in it being so effective at removing, if it wont detect.. I agree that any program may have leaks.. Avast had leaks MBAM caught.. and I know that no protection SW detects 100% of the viruses out there.. Sadly SAS didnt detect and of the 10 infections that MBAM caught on my pc.. (Avast detected 2 of them)

On my pc it only detected tracking cookies, and about this also I agree with SuperAntispy - the option to disable detecting tracking cookies is there, but I prefer to remove them.. Again, this is my personal preference..

Also @SuperAntiSpy, for some reason my "quick scan" takes 30-45 minutes to complete.. Any idea why? (a few other users have the same problem, if you go through this topic you will see )FYI I'm using version 4.5 (I know that this topic is about V5 but most of the users have compared the speeds of the 2 versions and most of them say its completed in 10 minutes while few have the same problem as me - it takes a really long time for a quick scan..

Cheers!

[SUPERAntiSpy]

My personal opinion about this matter is, nowadays most of the people are using reasonably good computers - specification-wise so a small process that uses a little RAM with a small processor usage wouldnt do any harm..

Advanced users can disable it.. and users who dont know much about computers wouldnt mind at all since they wont feel a difference..

But having said that, SAS didnt detect any of the malware that MBAM detected on my pc.. No point in it being so effective at removing, if it wont detect.. I agree that any program may have leaks.. Avast had leaks MBAM caught.. and I know that no protection SW detects 100% of the viruses out there.. Sadly SAS didnt detect and of the 10 infections that MBAM caught on my pc.. (Avast detected 2 of them)

On my pc it only detected tracking cookies, and about this also I agree with SuperAntispy - the option to disable detecting tracking cookies is there, but I prefer to remove them.. Again, this is my personal preference..

Also @SuperAntiSpy, for some reason my "quick scan" takes 30-45 minutes to complete.. Any idea why? (a few other users have the same problem, if you go through this topic you will see )FYI I'm using version 4.5 (I know that this topic is about V5 but most of the users have compared the speeds of the 2 versions and most of them say its completed in 10 minutes while few have the same problem as me - it takes a really long time for a quick scan..

Cheers!

Please post the scan log from MBAM and SAS so I can see what was detected, and what version of our definitions were in use, etc and we'll make sure things get handled. That's part of the "game" of malware, nothing can get everything on a given day, but we are here to help!

[DraKuL]

Please post the scan log from MBAM and SAS so I can see what was detected, and what version of our definitions were in use, etc and we'll make sure things get handled. That's part of the "game" of malware, nothing can get everything on a given day, but we are here to help!

I'm afraid I dont have the scan logs.. I will try to find them but cant be sure.. I clear the logs frequently.. But in all fairness to SAS, 3 of the infected files were new detections on MBAM, and most of the security suites havent added detection for them, another file got detected by Avast after we submitted it to the labs..

I generally clear the quarantine as well as logs, but for the 3 files mentioned above - since they were new detections I have kept samples - can send them if you want. I actually started a thread about them, to make others aware and to inform Avast developers - with the help of Pondus - a senior poster

I'll copy the link to the posts in that thread, please note that MBAM had a small bug and it was fixed after updating it (this will explain my first few posts in the thread)

post1

post2

post3

And yeah I know that no security product is perfect and totally agree with you on that point.. Anyway what I actually meant in my earlier post was that Any product has 'leaks' but SAS just happened to miss all the infections that were detected on my computer(which was about 10 including registry keys) also some  memory modules got detected(about another 10).. Anyway cant count on just 1 product which is why I'm using Avast SAS + MBAM - all pro versions, but not running SAS on real-time..

Anyway What about the quick scan time? Havent there been any other issues that users reported about it ? about the quick scan taking so long? My version is the current stable release (4.5.xxx)

Also any news about the final release of V5? (is it too early to mention a date?)

[CChamp]

Just remember to disable the "start with Windows" and "show icon in system tray". Also for 64 bit users set the sascore service to demand start.

Thanks for the info. What is and where can I find this SASCORE SERVICE that you mentioned?

[SUPERAntiSpy]

Just remember to disable the "start with Windows" and "show icon in system tray". Also for 64 bit users set the sascore service to demand start.

Thanks for the info. What is and where can I find this SASCORE SERVICE that you mentioned?

You should NOT set the service to "demand start" or it will never be running. This is disabling key features of the scanner.

[Dieselman]

The service doesnt need to be running to update,run or on demand scan. If the service is required then bye bye SAS.

[SUPERAntiSpy]

The service doesnt need to be running to update,run or on demand scan. If the service is required then bye bye SAS.

There is really no reason the service can't be there. It helps SUPERAntiSpyware more effectively remove malware when the system starts up (yes even for the Free On-Demand version ) - and it imposes no negative impact on a system - Disable the service on your system, you run as administrator without UAC so you won't be hindered, but encouraging others to do it is potentially keeping them infected.

I assume you are going to stop using Windows, it requires services as well! (kidding)

The service also helps with real-time protection, and since so many users purchase the Professional Edition, having them disable it will prevent the real-time from working as effectively when they upgrade - so I would ask that you don't have others disable it.

[SUPERAntiSpy]

Please post the scan log from MBAM and SAS so I can see what was detected, and what version of our definitions were in use, etc and we'll make sure things get handled. That's part of the "game" of malware, nothing can get everything on a given day, but we are here to help!

I'm afraid I dont have the scan logs.. I will try to find them but cant be sure.. I clear the logs frequently.. But in all fairness to SAS, 3 of the infected files were new detections on MBAM, and most of the security suites havent added detection for them, another file got detected by Avast after we submitted it to the labs..

I generally clear the quarantine as well as logs, but for the 3 files mentioned above - since they were new detections I have kept samples - can send them if you want. I actually started a thread about them, to make others aware and to inform Avast developers - with the help of Pondus - a senior poster

I'll copy the link to the posts in that thread, please note that MBAM had a small bug and it was fixed after updating it (this will explain my first few posts in the thread)

post1

post2

post3

And yeah I know that no security product is perfect and totally agree with you on that point.. Anyway what I actually meant in my earlier post was that Any product has 'leaks' but SAS just happened to miss all the infections that were detected on my computer(which was about 10 including registry keys) also some  memory modules got detected(about another 10).. Anyway cant count on just 1 product which is why I'm using Avast SAS + MBAM - all pro versions, but not running SAS on real-time..

Anyway What about the quick scan time? Havent there been any other issues that users reported about it ? about the quick scan taking so long? My version is the current stable release (4.5.xxx)

Also any news about the final release of V5? (is it too early to mention a date?)

Ah, I assumed you were running the 5.0 pre-release! The 4.x series will scan much slower and the detection is much better. I thought you had an infection right now that was not being detected by the 5.0 pre-release. I'll take a look at your posts, thank you for the link!