A-SQUARED
http://www.emsisoft.com

Reviewed September, 2006

What’s it do?

The program claims to remove Trojans, worms, keyloggers, dialers, adware, and spyware.


Does it do what it promises?

Reviewer 1: Yes. It detects, prevents, and deletes when necessary, malware based not solely on signatures but also based on behavior, and it offers additional detection of rootkits as well. Furthermore, in a rare example of honesty among such software, it suggests that it is only an "enhancement" to your overall computer security; not a replacement.

Reviewer 2: Yes.

Reviewer 3: At first, to be honest, I was not sure about this program. I already have other anti-spyware programs running on my computer, using a "layered" approach to protecting my computer from attacks from within or without. I was not sure that I needed another one. I also had the impression that a A squared was going to be hyperaggressive. I recently had a bad experience with such a program, and it left my computer somewhat in tatters. (Eventually, I had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows.) But it grew on me as I used it. It is aggressive, but not overly so. It does find malware that has been missed by my other defenses, but so far I have not found it reporting any "false positives" (when a test incorrectly gives a positive result; in this context, for example, a "good" program is flagged as spyware). So in short, yes, it does do what it promises.

Reviewer 4: My two principal criteria in judging anti-malware programs are: 1) How completely it prevents, ideally, or at least detects infection; and 2) How efficiently it runs a full-system scan. There are other characteristics -- usability, documentation, support, and cost, but these are of less consequence in my opinion. In that frame of reference, my tests were inconclusive on how completely A Squared prevents or at least detects infection. It detected so few instances of spyware in its numerous runs on my computer -- only a handful of objectionable cookies and those debatable -- that it's impossible to draw any definite conclusions. In a full system scan, A Squared's median run time was 11 hours 48 minutes, compared to SpySweeper's 5 hours 33 minutes, Ewido's 5 hours 50 minutes, and CounterSpy's 13 hours 1 minute. These run times are substantially greater than I believe would be expected by the average user.

Reviewer 5: Yes.


Was it easy to install?

Reviewer 1: Yes. Although it was a rather sizeable 13.5MB download - more than twice the size of some of its competitors - it installed easily using a standard installation wizard. The update to version 2.0 , however, proved to be problematic. (See below.)

Reviewer 2: Not really, perhaps due to my getting it via a coupon it was a convoluted process just getting the software. Once gotten, however, it did install normally. After it installed it asked to go online to update its databases. That was a bit of a long process but not prohibitive. There was a major update to this software that amounted to an upgrade. The process went smoothly from the Update button. It didn't 'remember' my registration information, however; but once I re-entered that, it was fine.

Reviewer 3: Due to current difficulties with my computer hardware, and to the kind of testing that my machine has been running, I recently have had to reinstall Windows several times. This means that I have had the chance to reinstall A Squared more than once. It goes well, in that I can specify the location of the program and of the shortcuts that it creates. On the other hand, I actually go through two installations. The first one runs from the file that I have downloaded from the site. As part of that process, I have to run at least one update. To do this, I have to logon to their Web site, using my email address and a license code. A new process now seems to begin, with an upgrade to the program itself. Things then become a bit confusing with a window at the top of the screen saying "Uninstalling Old Version." At the same time, I am asked to click on "Finish" to complete the process, and do a reboot. I wait for the "Uninstall" to complete. When nothing happens after a while, I go ahead with the reboot. Up comes a complete new installation process. I like to define the destination folder of the installation of all my software - not simply dump them all into "Program Files" . Surprisingly, A Squared does not find my original installation folder (unlike many programs which know where they have been installed before), so I have to navigate through to the installation folder. The "browse" function does not take my choice, but tries to add an additional subfolder. Then another update takes place, this time, the downloading of the "signature" file. So essentially, I can make it do what I want, but it is rather complicated. All that said, however, I like the fact that you are given several warnings about the use of anti-malware programs: that the disinfection of malware-infested files could produce unforeseen changes to those files, and that you should be responsible for testing the program with unimportant data before you use it on your system as a whole.

A Squared Responds: I have to note that your review was timed some days after our major release - V2 (or you need the beta update checkbox that provided the v2 files earlier). If you would have downloaded the V2 setup, all the uninstall/reinstall stuff wouldn't have been necessary. The V1.x user information cannot be used for V2 because of a complete change of the default paths; therefore, it is required to specify them again.

Reviewer 3 Responds: Actually, my review was not timed like that. I had already downloaded and installed the version we had been given to test. It so happens that I had to reinstall the program, and that reinstallation it seems was timed after the upgrade. I had not used the beta update checkbox. This could have happened to anybody else, so it does not invalidate my comment. I like to define the destination folder for the installation of all my software, not simply dump them all into Program Files. Surprisingly, A Squared does not find my original installation folder (unlike many programs which now where they have been installed before), so I have to navigate through the installation folder.

Reviewer 4: Yes , very easy, quick, and trouble-free, although I would have liked to print and read the EULA. I believe the EULA should allow use on multiple computers used by a single person, and I doubt that the restriction against selling of the product is legally enforceable.

Reviewer 5: No. Registration was required via submission code on their Web site.. and a password is then emailed. They report that a number of ISPs including America Online, Hotmail, and Verizon are likely to block email originating from their servers. I have a Verizon email address and was unable to receive the email containing my password. Apparently, in order to improve one's chances of receiving their email with the password, they give the choice of resending the password through one of three servers. I sent it through all three of their servers and not one came through. I sent an -mail to their technical support link found on their Web site and received a prompt reply which contained my password. Once I received my password, the rest of the setup was smooth.

A Squared Responds: We're unable to do anything against spam blockers. It's not our fault that our emails are blocked. It's the fault of "stupid" users who specify our newsletter emails as spam instead of just unsubscribing them. Note that our newsletter system uses a double opt-in mechanism and is therefore fully legal. If you can't receive emails from us, the best way is to contact your ISP support to remove our servers from their spam blocker.

Reviewer 5 Responds: There are indeed strategies they can use to circumvent the problem of their domain name being blocked by spam filter run by ISPs. The first would be to remove the registration/submission/password by email process. Most other publishers have simply supplied the appropriate password. They could establish a "pure" dedicated domain name for the registration process, distinctly different from the domain associated with the newsletter, so that it would not be based on the same behavior that triggers the blocking. This would be an inexpensive solution if they feel the need to maintain a complex registration process. Please note that I did contact my ISP and ask that their domain name be unblocked, but this is not my responsibility and I have no control over whether the block was removed.


Good points

Reviewer 1: I like how well this program finds and deletes malware. In my testing as with all testing of anti-malware products, I once more purposely downloaded the notoriously problematic Kazaa as well as visited multiple unsavory sites known to be ripe with infections of all sorts-especially Trojans, dialers, and general spyware-- with the real time guard protection disabled. I then scanned my computer with A Squared, quarantined the findings, restored them to my machine, and repeated the test with five of the most respected and highly rated antispyware programs on the market: CounterSpy, ZeroSpyware, SpySweeper, Spyware Doctor and AdAware. The results were not as good as I had anticipated, but still excellent. A Squared found, not including cookies, 16 items, among which were two Trojans and two dialers. In comparison, Ewido found, not including cookies, 19 items, of which three were trojans; ZeroSpyware found 12 items; Spyware Doctor found, less false/positives, nine items; CounterSpy discovered eight items but was unable to delete two of them; SpySweeper identified only six items, and the ever popular AdAware found none (which by the way was the same result as the also popular Spybot Search and Destroy) A Squared was able to delete everything that it found. When I visited the same above sites, this time with the various programs background guards enabled, only A Squared and Ewido blocked all malware. A Squared came in second to Ewido in my sample as it did in other testing (see below), but does have unique features that set it a part from all of the above compared programs. First of all, at nearly 500,000 signatures, it has the largest signature database of any such application on the market. In addition to being able to specify the depth of your scan as well as offering good user configuration options as to scheduling scans, creating white lists, etc., A Squared is unique in that it offers the highly respected (although generally cautioned to be for advanced users) HighJack Free. HighJack Free is considered to be the most thorough way to investigate your entire system for malware as, again, it is able to investigate portions of your system that even the most advanced user is generally unable to do. Because of this, HighJack Free creates a log after scanning that must be uploaded to specialized sites for analysis. This, too, is provided through the A Squared Forum. While HighJack Free is available as a free stand-alone program available at various sites, it is nice to have it included in an anti-malware program as this rather totally completes any anti-malware program The A Squared interface is easy to use and attractive although the orange is difficult to view and especially read. Updating can be set for automatic or manual, but be aware that this program offers updates literally every day, often several times a day. It uses heuristics (behavior based detection) in its scanning to find unknown pieces of malware. The "IDS" system works similarly to a HIPS program in that they are both intrusion protection based programs.

A Squared Responds: (Regarding scan results) Which items in detail? Are you sure that the detected files are really harmful or just additional stuff of spyware that can't harm your PC? (Regarding color of interface) Which orange? Could you please send a screenshot of that?

Reviewer 1 declined to respond.

Reviewer 2: A Squared runs in the background unobtrusively and asks before stopping, inhibiting, or deleting what it finds. Although it can take a long time on a busy system like mine, it runs an extremely comprehensive and detailed scan on everything on the system. Actually, the second version ran much quicker. So much quicker, in fact, that I ran it again and watched it more closely, to be sure it was doing the full scan - it did. Unlike many other similar tools, it shows an itemized list of everything it is scanning, rather than just showing a bar graph (although there is also a bar graph to allow you a sense of progress). That gave me the feeling, at least, that it was actually doing what it said it was. During the time this was under review, the company made several updates, including a major revision to the software and, apparently, to their Web site. All of the issues (mostly minor) that I had initially seen, mostly with scheduling, were gone. That showed me a good degree of activity on the part of A-Squared and made me feel that they are a company that is dedicated to their product and their customers.

Reviewer 3: First, unlike some of the competition, A Squared gives full access to all parts of the program and all of its components for the full 30-day trial period. Once the 30-day period is over, the full program can be used as freeware except for the Background Guard, Automatic Updates and Scheduled Scans. Another excellent feature of the program is the HiJackFree module. This gives access to detailed information about much of what is going on in one's computer: the Processes, open Ports, Autoruns (everything that runs automatically) the Services and a group called "Others". Precise information about these items is provided and, if more information is needed, an online analysis is available. Information is color-coded to suggest which ones are OK, which should get a closer look, and which are potentially dangerous. If you have no other tools on your computer to give you this kind of information, this module alone is very interesting indeed. The main program screen is "Security Status". This provides an excellent overview of the main components of the program and the status of all its elements. A single click can enable, disable or configure any of the "Background Guard" elements, initiate a scan, or update the program and/or the "signature" database. All the main modules of the program can be accessed, including the help file and all of the support possibilities. Several online links are provided. One I like is titled Security articles providing information about the different types of malware: Cookies, (not always a threat - but this is an interesting read), Trojans, Worms, Dialers, Rootkits, Backdoors, and so on. There are also other interesting topics here as well. The other main modules are available from this same screen, so from here you can Scan the PC, you can check which items have been placed in Quarantine, and you can access the HiJackFree Module and the Help. Finally, I like the fact that you can configure the program to update its "signature" file frequently. I have it set to do so every hour. A little notice slides up from the system tray each hour to tell me that the update has been done and installed successfully. I have not noticed any slowdown of my computer at all while this is going on.

Reviewer 4: A Squared has very rich functionality and great design , as good or better than any other malware program I've seen, used or tested. In addition to its traditional Anti-Malware Scanner it contains a new preventive behavioral analysis technology component (Malware Intrusion Detection System) and a rich offering of system inspection and threat-removal tools such as HiJack Free. It provides daily updates of malware signature files available for download. A Squared has great documentation, crisp, comprehensive, and beautifully laid out on screen. The tech writer deserves an award.

Reviewer 5: The 30-day trial version of this program runs with no limitations on scanning or removal options. There were no false positive reports of problems. I found no conflicts with other programs on my system including other monitoring and anti-malware programs. There is a wide and appropriate range of scanning options. A Quick Scan just scans for active malware processes. A Smart Scan (the default option) scans selected files, registry and memory. A "Deep Scan" examines every file system and is recommended if other scans have detected malware . Finally, a Custom Scan provides a choice of which drives or partitions are scanned, and whether to scan compressed files, NTFS Alternate Data Streams, and a variety of other choices. The "Help" link on this page gives a good description of what each of the options entails. Quarantining is an available option for suspicious files. It is the recommended option for suspected malware since it gives the option of restoring the files if they are actually needed. Modules run silently in the background, examining new behavior. Since much of this background monitoring is based on behavior rather than specific signatures (which are also used), there is increased potential to detect malware before it is identified as such (known as day-zero exploits). This also gives the possibility for greater generation of false positive reports, although I did not personally experience them. There is a discussion forum available online for help from technical support and from the experience of other users. This program also includes a module called HiJack Free. This gives a detailed report of the processes, services, ports, Explorer AddOn's, LSP Protocols, Hosts files, and ActiveX controls. It appears that it would be quite useful in tracking down and eliminating malware on your system, although I did not have the opportunity to test this first hand.


Weak points

Reviewer 1: I am unable to recommend this program due to its heavy use of resources, between 45 mb and 50 mb of memory, or, for many users, 20-40% of total system resources. This could make many applications unusable. If using an ISP such as AOL which requires approximately 70% of total resources available to operate properly, there would be noted difficulty in getting on line. Even for a user with a more powerful desktop, this amount of memory usage could represent as much as 10% of the total, still unacceptable. When loading at startup, it registered a peak memory usage of 277,536K, preventing other startup items from loading and freezing my desktop until all startup loading had completed. I could not even right click to bring up Task Manager but had to use the old Ctrl/Alt/Delete method to do so. While scanning using any of the scan choices, it ran my 3.8G Pentium IV CPU at 100% for the entire scan. only occasionally dropping to 97%. There were also serious difficulties in updating to a newer version of the program which required installing the new version manually from the installation folder and, since it did not transfer my registration, I had to manually re-register the program. The GUI opened in full screen only and I could find no way to reduce the screen size except by manually reducing the size by pulling in the borders after which it would still repeatedly open only in full screen mode. The daily signature updates often require downloading the entire signature database as well as any new updates rather than simply adding the updates incrementally. The scanning is extremely slow and required two hours 43 minutes to scan my 246,000 files in Deep Scan Mode as compared to under an hour with Ewido. As to its overall detection results, Malware Test at www.malware-test.com reports a detection rate of only 43.24% and Spyware Warrior at http://spywarewarrior.com shows detection of only 50 of 100 infected downloaded test files. It is compatible with most antivirus programs; however, it did not seem to get along well when running in real time with other antispyware programs , In fact, it would stall on a scheduled scan if being used with ZeroSpyware, and would cause AdAware to scan at a crawl. I contacted support directly through email on several occasions but received no reply other that I needed to first search through the Forums for an answer. When I am paying $39.99 for a one-year license, already higher than the competition, I have better things to do with my time than spending it searching through a developer's User Forum hoping to find an answer

A Squared Responds: We are aware of this weakness and are currently working on memory optimization. (Memory usage of) 277 mb sounds unrealistic. There must have been a bug, because it usually doesn't take more than 50-60 mb at all. The base file is usually updated only once in 2-3 months. Because you tested while we released version 2.0, there have been some additional base updates necessary for that 2 weeks after release.

Reviewer 2: Initially, I had some problems with scheduling and, more alarming, I couldn't contact the company to report the problems. The problems with scheduling, except for the known 'midnight scan' bug have been fixed in the new version and their Web site is now functional insofar as reporting problems by way of service tickets. One thing that has persisted is where the tool runs a scan every night at midnight, although I have no scan set for that time. It sometimes finds some suspected malware, but when the scan ends the tool exits without doing anything about that. A query to A-Squared, by way of a service ticket, was answered the next day stating that the midnight scan was a known bug in the update process and it was being corrected.

Reviewer 3: With A Squared on my computer, I downloaded and installed Kazaa (Kazaa by itself produced 374 nasties in one very short run) and deliberately exposed the computer to "live" attacks from intentionally indiscreet wanderings on the Internet. I also downloaded some test files, then ran the scan to see how A Squared dealt with these issues. It responded fairly well, sometimes picking up on ones that other programs missed, but also missing some that the others picked up. This was not a scientific test, nor can I claim that it verified how A Squared and the others did in all categories of malware. From what I can ascertain from my own tests in addition to the results of testing by others as reported on the Internet, A Squared is only middle-of-the-pack. This was a disappointment, as I was expecting it to be more successful. Apart from the rather complicated installation process I referred to above, I find that navigation through the program could be improved. If you click on "Scan PC" from the Main Screen, you will really find yourself in that module. That's OK, but if you decide that you want to check your configuration before you do the scan, there is no "Back" button. Nor is there any other method to get to other parts of the program. The only way that you can get back to the Main Screen is to right-click the A Squared icon in the System Tray. After a scan has been completed, I would like to have some kind of report, whether the scan has found problems or not. I would like that scan to be logged automatically, in a folder of my choice, with the possibility of the log being saved, also to a folder of my choice, and with a name that I give it as a text file.

A Squared Responds: That's not right. When you close the scanner, the main screen always appears. There is such a feature. Simply click the "Save Report" button after the scan finishes.

Reviewer 3 Responds: So it does. I note that the same thing happens with Hijack Free. But normally the X means to shut the program down, or to minimize it to the tray. This is the first time that I have seen it used as a "Go Back" button. It is true about the "Save Report" feature. Where I did not see the report was when I had a scheduled scan (I normally set these things to run at night when I am not using the computer.) This may be due to the way the computer goes to sleep after being inactive a while; however, some programs (e.g., Counter Spy) nonetheless leave the report on the screen and it must be shut down before the report will go away.

Reviewer 4: A Squared's price is higher than any malware program I know and should be reduced if it is to be competitive. Their support statements promised on turnaround time nor hours support is available and their expressed statements of support left the feeling that they were too busy to be bothered with customer service A minor omission I found is that the EULA is not included in the Help Files nor is it available for printout, even after the user is forced to take-it-or-leave-it during installation.

A Squared Responds: We'll add it to the help file. Curiously, nobody else asked for a print feature so far.

Reviewer 5: "Purchase" of this software only buys a one- or two-year license on a single computer. While a 50% discount is given upon renewal, use of this program over many years and/or many computers can get expensive compared to competing products which offer a one-time lifetime fee. In the Custom Scanning drive option, just the letters of the drives/partitions are shown on the initial screen. It would be nice if the labels of the drives were shown with the letters to facilitate easier drive identification as is done if you choose the option to "Add Folders". In the help section it is sometimes obvious from the sentence structure that English is not the primary language of the developers. For example, in describing scansets they write: "For not being due to configurate everything again before later scans all chosen options can be saved in so-called Scanset files" It would be helpful if a "native speaker" would proofread and edit the English version. It would be nice if the "Help" link for each portion of the program led directly to the section of the Help Section related to the area of the program the user is currently working in. Instead, the "Help" link currently leads to the top of the Help document and it is up to the user to search for the appropriate part of the document. When a scan is running, it gives no indication on the screen which type of scan is running (i.e. quick, smart, deep, or custom). The default scanning frequency is once per hour, every day. I found that this setting resulted in a scan window appearing, with the accompanied high utilization of the hard drive and memory much of the time. The "Security Center" module allows the user to configure, enable, or disable the other modules in this package. I found it inconvenient that the modules, such as the "Scanner" would pop up in a separate window when functioning, but that they contained no links back to the "Security Center". Therefore, it was necessary to go back through the Start Menu and "All Programs", or back to the Desktop to access other functions through the "Security Center". The online discussion forum contains complaints that technical support was not responsive enough for users' needs.

A Squared Responds: The yearly fee included ALL software updates as well. That means if version 3.0 is out and you have 2.0, you'll get the new one for free. Nearly no other products, even with lifetime signature updates included, offer their latest software updates forever. Calculated on 2 years, the monthly fee is less than $2.50. (Regarding wording in describing scansets) Thanks for telling us. We'll correct it. (Regarding scanning frequency) That was a bug. The auto-scan should be set to once a week.


Other comments

Reviewer 1: The company's policy on technical support, explained in detail on their Web site, is totally unacceptable.

A Squared Responds: The problem for us is that we would need 15 support technicians more to handle all support requests of the freeware users. But we don't earn anything from freeware users, so we can't spend thousands of dollars in supporting them. So we have to filter out the customers to provide the best possible support for them

Reviewer 2: I found no conflicts with my firewall or antivirus software (Avg) nor with any other software on my system. A Squared's usefulness and the company's apparent commitment to quality make this a tool that will be found on my PC for the foreseeable future. After running a malware scan, I invoked several other anti-malware tools that I have. None of them found anything that A-squared might have missed. I then disabled A-Squared for one week at the end of which I ran several other anti-malware tools. They all found something, even if just tracking cookies. Then I ran an A-Squared scan and it found and removed a plethora of cookies and potentially harmful malware that the others had overlooked. If I were to only have one such tool (and that is not advisable), A-Squared would be the one that I would keep. It appears to be an excellent alternative software to Microsoft's "Window's Defender". It goes beyond what Defender does, however, in incorporating the best features from popular anti-spam tools (such as Ad-Aware) and the startup software scanner, making it an all-in-one tool that makes keeping your computer safe and clean a one-step process. Its behavior seemed more aggressive than Defender in that it immediately found and asked about my wireless driver and a little shareware package that I have to harvest my Yahoo mail via POP. Like a firewall, it gives several options as to what to do with what it finds - allow, always allow, remove, and quarantine.

A Squared Responds: AdAware is not an anti-spam tool, it's an adware remover.

Reviewer 3: One method of protecting ourselves is to adopt a "layered" approach, with some anti-malware programs, an anti-virus program and a firewall. A Squared requires about 50 mb of active memory to run. This is a fairly significant amount of system resources.

Reviewer 4: A Squared did not detect malware samples identified by other programs, e.g., SpySweeper found Tracking Cookies:go.com, tribalfusion, ic-live, and realmedia; and, Ewido found two instances of Downloader.small, which it classified as High-Risk. I'd have liked to see a close button on the main screen rather than having to use the top-tile 'X'.

Reviewer 5: I kept my system clean with other products and practices before installing this program. I had no popups or alerts during my use and my system was found to be clean upon normal and custom scans. I cannot comment on how it deals with threats or infections on a system since this portion of the program was not activated during my usage period. This package does not deal with viruses and they are very clear about this in their documentation. This program is intended to be complementary to virus scanning software.


Will you continue to use it?

Reviewer 1: No! It has been removed from my computer.

Reviewer 2: Yes, absolutely.

Reviewer 3: Yes I will, in concert with a pair of other anti-malware programs. But I would not rely on this program alone to be my sole anti-malware defense mechanism.

Reviewer 4: Quite possibly, though probably secondary to my mainline trio: CounterSpy, Spysweeper, and Ewido.

Reviewer 5: No. It is redundant to software I already run successfully. If that was not the case, I would have no qualms about continuing to run it.

 

OPERATING SYSTEMS USED IN THIS REVIEW
Windows XP Pro, XP Home, XP Media Center

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