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!

Softpedia.com is similar to Download.com a high quality software directory. They published a very detailed review of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5.

Full quote of their conclusion:

The Good

Although it brings to the table a plethora of options and fine tuning settings, a-squared is easy to manage by any average user. Its detection rate was over 98% and the flexibility in letting you decide upon online threats is to be fully appreciated.

The initial wizard can help you set up the entire application while the main screen gives way to fine tuning options in order to customize the way it protects your system. For each app on the computer you can create rules to restrict their performance or receive alerts when suspicious behavior is detected.

The various layers of protection can be enabled/disabled at will and all a-squared activity is logged for later reference. Scheduling system is very well thought, offering the chance to plan scans at specific times, dates and with a certain frequency, as well as define a start and end interval.

In order to reduce the amount of alerts, community knowledge can kick in and decide for you, according to your pre-configuration.

The Bad

Surf Protection alerts can be quite annoying, especially if you’re in the habit of roaming the less-known paths of the web. If tracking cookies are okay to block, with hosts things are different and many users may feel the urge to disable surf protection.

The Truth

a-squared managed to score high in our tests and prove that it can be a great ally against the cyber threats. It is easy to handle and the help file thoroughly explains every option in the program.

Background Guard can easily help you monitor any application for suspicious activity, as well as deflect malware-like activities on your computer.

Each program launched on the system can be scanned upon execution in order to make sure that its activity is benign. Alert system is flexible enough to let you automatically create a rule for the notifications you receive and thus reduce the amount of pop-up messages displayed.

EDITOR’S RATINGS: User Interface: Features: Ease of use: Pricing/Value: Overall:

The independent testing organization Malware Research Group spent much efforts in creating a close to real world needs test environment.

Methodology:

The MRG testers have installed and tested 25 different security solutions to see if they can prevent virus infections. From pure antivirus over firewalls with antivirus features to full internet security suites. To make the test as representative as possible, they have executed 60 different nasties. All samples of malware used in this test came from infected machines, samples were collected in August 2009.

The test results:

Only less than 50% of the tested security products were able to protect the test system.

a-squared Anti-Malware has detected all malware samples!

On request, MRG told us that a-squared Anti-Malware was the only product which was able to detect all samples purely based on signature detection. The behavior blocker part was not even needed to prevent the infections.

The tables shows: Program tested, Amount of samples blocked, Amount of Samples missed, Passed or Failed the test.