Perusing the PCMechanic forums, I often find software suggested by our members. This week’s freeware subject is just that, and it is called A-Squared 2.0. This is yet another member of the always growing anti-malware family of software. Let’s see how it stacks up to the competition.

Installation will ask about a start menu folder, desktop icon, quick launch icon and adding a scan via context menu (the menu that pops up whenever you right click). All are checked by default .When I first opened A-Squared, it recommended that I do an online update. I clicked yes to download a megabyte or so of database and program updates. 

The Security Status screen is the ‘homepage’ for A-Squared, with a simple layout and a similar look to Ewido. I’m never a fan of reminders for product upgrades and purchases, but at least the box sits unobtrusively at the bottom of this screen only and not on all of them.  Handy links to the website and forum sit on the right, along with a News box with links to articles about malware. The different features sit along the left of the program, with some statistics on recent scans, updates and version number in the center.

The Scan PC page holds four main options, just like most spyware scanners; Quick Smart, Deep and Custom. Descriptions let you know about the first three, and of course Custom lets you set up your own scan method. Choose folders and drives to be scanned first, then choose among options for which objects to scan for, such as malware, spyware, and tracking cookies or to perform a heuristic scan for unknowns. A Heuristic scan is a ‘smart’ scan that will analyze files instead of merely consulting a database of known malware. You can also choose to scan compressed files, such as .zip and .rar, display an alert for riskware or filter out certain file extensions. All are checked by default, aside from the filter. Riskware, as I learned from one of A-Squared’s handy articles, are programs that can be a risk to your system security, but are not an imminent threat, such as an IRC client or a virtual networking program. Finally, there is a link for a whitelist; a list of files or folders that can be skipped during a scan because you know they are safe.

The Quarantine area allows you to safely store potentially infected files that were picked up during a scan. Once stored you can restore or delete them after further research reveals their true threat level. The list shows the file’s original location, infection, risk level and date it was found.

The Configuration page has only a few checkbox options. You can add or remove scanning via the context menu, install the help and add languages. There is an option for installing beta updates, but this was smartly left unchecked. I know I prefer to only download tested updates that are ready for the general public. Also, you can choose whether or not to send malware scan results back to Emsi Software. Lastly, the help folder is very thorough, explaining the options for all of Emsi Software’s programs.

So to test A-Squared’s scanner I chose a deep scan for my half-full 80GB hard drive. The scan begins by checking your memory (ram) for active malware. It then moves on to tracking cookies and finally all files. A-Squared took an unheard-of 1 hour and 2 minutes to scan 166,000 files. When it was finished, it came up with 23 tracking cookies, no surprises there, my IRC client as Riskware, and the same Save.Now adware object that Ewido found in the Windows Defender Quarantine. In comparison, Ewido took 22 minutes to scan 340,000 files and Ad Aware SE took 15 minutes to scan 200,000 objects.

So to conclude, A-Squared is an otherwise solid offering in the world of anti-spyware programs, which can be downloaded here: http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

But compared to other top-notch programs, it loses big points with its slow as molasses in winter scan time. Check it out if you are in the market for a new program to try, but I recommend sticking with Ewido, Ad-Aware SE and Spybot Search and Destroy. Check out my reviews of these and other apps: http://www.pcmech.com/cat/opensource/