A private malware geek called “unbreakable06″ did a great youtube video review of Anti-Malware 4.5 showing how it catches live malware infections. All 20 samples were detected.

Interesting side note: 5 of the 20 tested files were new and unknown to the signature based detection, but the behavior blocker cought all of them!

We once more got an award from the Asian experts at PC Security Labs. Emsisoft Anti-Malware achieved the best overall performance in detecting viruses in the year 2009!

Both the static signature and dynamic behaviour analysis tests were taken into account – with a great total detection rate of 99,96% we got the PCSL Excellent Award 2009.

Excerpt of the results:
1) Emsisoft 99,96%
2)  TrustPort 99,90%
3) Kaspersky 99,84%
4) GDATA 99,83%
5) Sophos 99,67%
6) F-secure 99,61%
7) Panda 99,59%
8) Microsoft 99,57%
9) Jiangmin 99,48%

A few days before Christmas the Malware Research Group published a new test measuring the effectiveness of five full Anti Malware / Anti Virus and two Anti Malware / Anti Spyware products.

The reviewed products:

a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5.0.27
AntiVir Premium 9.0.0.452
Bluepoint Security 1.0.0.83
Hitman Pro 3.5.3 Build 80
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware 1.42
Prevx 3.0.5.23
SUPERAntiSpyware Professional 4.31.1000

As test systems a freshly installed Windows XP with Service Pack 3 and all updates was used. With cloned images including Internet access every program got its own seperate Windows with all real time protection features being enabled and of course the lates updates. A folder containing 1000 different Trojans, Backdoors, Worms, Rogues, Spyware and Viruses then was scanned by right clicking it. Those samples had a maximum age of one month.

Result of the on demand test:

Note: Hitman Pro uses signatures from multiple programs, including a-squared

For the infected system rescue test again Windows Xp with Service Pack 3 was used. The tested programs were installed with standard options and deactivated real time protection here. Then 15 malware samples were executed individually, with the system being rebooted after each execution, until all fifteen samples had been executed. Now the system was scanned with each program. The result of the detection / cleaning rate could be measured by differences between snapshots of the according images..

Result of the infected system rescue test:

The failing programs were not able to detetect / remove at least two of the samples. For detailed information please visit the test page.

During the annual European Software Conference, the Epsilon Award is given to the best software of the year.

This year’s Epsilon winner is a-squared Anti-Malware!

That award winning was not only based on our efforts, but also on the massive support of the a-squared Anti-Malware user community.

Thank you very much!

The prize includes:

• A piece of art by an European artist and a winners certificate.
   
• 200 Euro in cash. Emsisoft will donate that amount to the SOS Children’s Villages organization that was founded in Austria.
   
• Press coverage of our products.
   
• Entry to the Hall of Fame which means free full access for the winner only to future ESWCs.

Here’s a short explanation of the Epsilon banner from the ESWC website:

Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet and the Phoenician Word for sun derives from that root. An astronomer knows that there is a constellation in space called (Lambda)-Epsilon which we can see at the right hand side. So the Epsilon Award is a combination of Excellency, craftsmanship and visionary ability. These are characteristics of an outstanding programmer and a piece of true software art.

Donna Buenaventura, a highly respected security software expert and MVP, wrote a comparative review on BrightHub.com:

Which is Better? Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware vs. a-squared Free

Her test 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, commandline and deep system scans.

The famous Malware Research Group has again tested 21 antivirus products to protect your PC in October 2009. Tested virus scanners had to find the enormous amount of 554,891 malware samples, split into the following categories:

Trojans/Backdoors: 398,951
Windows Viruses: 8,864
Worms: 61,928
Adware/Spyware: 48,552
Rootkits/Exploits: 10,736
Other Malware: 25,860 

That ensures a representative mix of current malware types that is similar to a ”in-the-wild” malware mix. Test enviroment was a Windows XP machine with service pack 3. Here are the original test results:

We are proud to be able to defend our number one place!

The independent ProtectStar test lab makes detail reviews of security software solutions. Only a few selected products have been awarded with the ProtectStar Award during the last 5 years.

a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 was tested and won the coveted ProtectStar Award 2009!

Please check out the full 6-page detail review of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5.

Great news!

a-squared Anti-Malware was nominated for the Epsilon software award 2009. This award is given to the best software during the European Software Conference event, which is held once a year in Berlin, Germany.

The voting period just began and lasts until October 27, 2009, so please give us your vote!

We need your help to win! Please go to the voting website, scroll down to the bottom and click the Next button. Then select a-squared Anti-Malware from the list and submit your vote.

Thank you very much!

The German com! magazine did a short test of the Mamutu 2.0 release in the latest issue 10/2009.

Quotes:

“Mamutu detected 100% of the tested Malware and blocked them.”

(+) Detects new pests too.

(+) Less false alerts with the community.

Issue 10/2009 of the German com! magazine published a big comparative of 10 freeware antivirus tools. The testing was executed by www.av-test.org. The In-the-wild test included 3200 of the most spread malwares. For the testing of the specific malware categories, they have used about 480,000 unique malware samples.

The following programs were tested:

- Avira Antivir Personal Free Antivirus 9.0
- Bitdefender Free Edition 10
- Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta
- Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0
- Alwil Avast Antivirus Home 4.8
- AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.5
- Emsi Software a-squared Free 4.5
- Comodo Internet Security 3.10
- PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition 6.0
- Clamwin Free Antivirus 0.95

The detection test results for a-squared Free:

- Wildlist-Malware on Demand: 100% detected – best in test!
- Worms: 99.99% detected – best in test!
- Backdoors: 99.98% detected – best in test!
- Bots: 99.81% detected – best in test!
- Trojans: 99.95% detected – best in test!
- 5 active nasties: 100% detected – best in test!
- Heuristic (1 week without updates): 63.56% detected – best in test!
- Heuristic (2 weeks without updates): 52.72% detected – number 2 in test
- Ad- and Spyware: 99.57% detected – best in test!