A-squared Anti-Malware and Anti-Trojan Freeware - Epsilon Award Winner 2009

You want to use the best freeware possible in all categories. But who can tell you, which one is the best? Definitely, there is no single opinion, and no single review, which can be considered as absolute truth. Still, all the reviewers’ ratings and rewards, given to the particular utility, enhance its reputation and credibility.

Emsi Software announced that winner for 2009 competition among all anti-malware utilities is a-squared Anti-Malware, and the Epsilon award has been presented to the authors at the annual European Software Conference (Berlin, November 2009).

Donna Buenaventura, a highly respected security software expert and MVP, compared a-squared Anti-Malware with another respectable utility Malwarebytes – with the following comparison results:

A-squared Free won in the major categories.

• Malware Detection - Winner: a-squared Free.
  Of 100 malware samples, a-squared Free found 92, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware only 58.
• Removal of Detected Malware Samples - Winner: a-squared Free.
  A-squared Free was able to remove all detected samples without the need for a system restart.
• Performance - Scanning - Winner: a-squared Free.
  A-squared Free finished a full scan of the system drive in 29 minutes, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware took 1 hour and 24 minutes.
• Options and Feature - Winner: a-squared Free.
  A-squared Free lets you run a quick, smart, custom, right-click, silent, command line and deep system scans.

With a-squared Free, you can scan your PC for infections of Trojans, Viruses, Spyware, Adware, Worms, Bots, Keyloggers and Dialers. Note that instead of a single scanner, you can double in the same product: Anti-Virus + Anti-Spyware. There are not just any scanners, but a combination of two world class products - the a-squared Anti-Spyware, and the Ikarus Anti-Virus engine. Latest tests approve that both are cutting edge in Malware detection.

No doubling of the scan duration as it would be the case with two separate scanning programs. Considerable performance improvement is possible thanks to the integration of the two engines on the lowest level.

What is detected by a-square Free?

• Trojans, Backdoors, Keyloggers
  Trojans and Backdoors provide strangers with access to your PC. Once a Backdoor is installed, an attacker can take full control of your computer. A Trojan is best described as a piece of software pretending to be something it is not - they often contain Backdoors, and usually arrive as email attachments. A Keylogger is a type of Malware that invisibly records all keyboard activity. a-squared Free specializes in recognizing and eliminating these types of Malware.
  
  
• Spyware, Adware, TrackingCookies
  Your personal data and information is worth a great deal of money to certain advertising companies. They have no qualms about smuggling software into your system, recording information and spying on everything you do. Adverts that change the start page of your browser also belong in the Spyware/Adware category. a-squared Free completely removes Spyware from your PC. Traces of Spyware in the Registry and Tracking Cookies are also recognized.
  
  
• Worms, Bots, Viruses
  Worm viruses are currently one of the most irritating phenomena on the Internet. Usually transmitted as dangerous email attachments, worms send copies of themselves to all reachable destinations and cause great damage. Newer network worms/bots use security holes (Exploits) to infect a PC, and can reproduce at an astonishing speed. Without your knowledge, your PC is essentially transformed into a spam-sending zombie! a-squared Free eliminates worms from your PC and prevents them from doing any further damage.
  
  
• Dialers
  Dialers are small programs that change the Internet access number of a modem-equipped computer to a much more expensive number. Costs can rise as high as several hundred dollars per dial attempt. a-squared Free detects Dialers with special Dialer Heuristics.
  

System requirements

a-squared Free runs on Windows XP, Vista, 7 as well as on 2003/2008 Servers in all 32 bit and 64 bit editions.

During scan are approx. 100 MB free RAM required. We suggest to use it on computers with at least 512 MB RAM, best would be 1 GB RAM.

Unlike other malware scanner products, a-squared Free was designed to run parallel with other antivirus and firewall software without troubles.

Developers’ website: http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/