Battle Best Free Second Opinion Scanner

jackuars

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Jul 2, 2014
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Excluding real-time protection, which one of the following do you think acts as the best free second opinion scanner giving the best protection by finding and removing malware.

HitmanPro requires a pro version to clean malware so it's not included in the list.

If you can please list Pro's and Con's for each scanner it would be of great help
 

Aerdian

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Jun 3, 2018
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Not the case (here). Emsisoft goes for specific malware infections and is probably better to find deep stuff. Zemana is much more useful for me in terms of general disinfecting machines from hidden malware, appdata malware, adware, rogueware, certificates, etc.

:) They both have their pros and cons. A lot of things like this have a lot to do with personal preference, too.
 

Evjl's Rain

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Apr 18, 2016
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:) They both have their pros and cons. A lot of things like this have a lot to do with personal preference, too.
for zemana, you must include the Users folder scan after the general scan
then, zemana will find a lot of stuffs
zemana is not for scanning malware samples as I tried, it performed worse than its competitors
but for disinfection, removal of hollow processes, malicious system changes or fileless malwares, no one can beat zemana
emsisoft is good against a week old malwares but poor against zero-day and fileless malwares. It also doesn't do well against malicious modifications of settings
 

Aerdian

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Jun 3, 2018
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for zemana, you must include the Users folder scan after the general scan
then, zemana will find a lot of stuffs
zemana is not for scanning malware samples as I tried, it performed worse than its competitors
but for disinfection, removal of hollow processes, malicious system changes or fileless malwares, no one can beat zemana
emsisoft is good against a week old malwares but poor against zero-day and fileless malwares. It also doesn't do well against malicious modifications of settings

Good to know :) When I do my testing, I try to get the newest samples possible, but since Emsisoft is pretty good at detecting them, it must mean I don't have samples as new as I thought :(
 

Moonhorse

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Voted for norton, friend had issue and i recommend it to him. Its very aggressive tool . Also adwcleaner solved some of the problems
Zemana with malwarebytes is also the one i use
 

Ink

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Jan 8, 2011
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Amazing tool! Helps specially to disinfect machines from cracks, keygens, activators, etc.
For some, yes that's useful since they're eager to cheat (licensing).

I use ESET Online Scanner as part of a security check up, once or twice a year.
 
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RoboMan

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For some, yes that's useful since they're eager to cheat (licensing).

I use ESET Online Scanner as part of a security check up, once or twice a year.
Oh, as for intern checking I can't say, it nevers finds me anything. But when I disinfect friends or work machines, it always comes up with mysterious dlls or activators
 
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I

illumination

How can one pick which is best when they have different strengths and weaknesses. What criteria would actually be needed to be the best on-demand to begin with?

I have always held to the belief if the situation warrants a on-demand scan, to use many of them as well as other analysis tools for different reasons to fully check the system. If one needs to go that far though, they should also consider just wiping the system and starting freshly to be sure.
 

RoboMan

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Jun 24, 2016
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How can one pick which is best when they have different strengths and weaknesses. What criteria would actually be needed to be the best on-demand to begin with?

I have always held to the belief if the situation warrants a on-demand scan, to use many of them as well as other analysis tools for different reasons to fully check the system. If one needs to go that far though, they should also consider just wiping the system and starting freshly to be sure.
Indeed. There are many "best cleaning tools" depending the case. I'm always ready with a couple of them in case I need to remove adware, or trojans, or rogueware, or whatever. And that's why we always recommend to have 3 scanning tools in the Configuration threads :)
 
I

illumination

Indeed. There are many "best cleaning tools" depending the case. I'm always ready with a couple of them in case I need to remove adware, or trojans, or rogueware, or whatever. And that's why we always recommend to have 3 scanning tools in the Configuration threads :)
I do not have any listed in the configuration thread, but this does not mean i do not have a set of "tool" flash drive's handy, many bootable... ;)
 
I

illumination

I am guessing the one's who need all these scanners are based on old Windows habits.
I asked, as each have their strengths and weaknesses, meaning their ability to be effective will depend on the criteria, which i would state should be based upon what is prevalent at the current time and which product strengths handle those particular threats the best. So stating any on-demand as the best over all would be impossible, unless of course, the coders run out of creative ideas.
 
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