Battle Free Second Opinion Scanner 2018

[jackuars]

I know most of you should be using more than one second-opinion scanners on your system.

Care to tell us what they are and how good it is compared to the rest?

Please mention the Pro's and Con's of the free products you use.​

More than your vote, your response/comment is going to help the most. Dont shy away from that​

 

[Dave Russo]

I about 3x a year I will try everyone listed except xvirus ,never heard any reviews on this one in a long time, no need to limit your list to 2 but if pushed to only 2, I like EEK and Norton power eraser.Thanks gl

 

[Sephiroth Source]

NPE: is very fast (some FP) and ZAM: very good against worms (waiting for an update).

 

[plat]

Voted "others." By the way, great news about Zemana, looking forward to it.

-RogueKiller 64 bit desktop (there's a command line version also). Aggressive scanner which requires a smidge of understanding from user. Scan time has been reduced in recent builds.

-Windows Defender with cloud lookup and automatic sample submission enabled. The quick scan is 10-20 sec on here. I place greater faith in SmartScreen tho'.

Also have HitmanPro paid but it doesn't count in this context.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Windows Defender with cloud lookup and automatic sample submission enabled. The quick scan is 10-20 sec on here

IMO, cloud fearure has absolutely nothing to do with WD's scan. It never improves any detection
I had everything enabled but WD always detect 2-5/20 malwares. When the samples were executed, the cloud started to work

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Agree .
However if the software can detected but can't remove it ,
for me, it seems useless . :emoji_cold_sweat:

Of course the user can try to remove the threats by manual ,
but hope there are not many threats.
Otherwise , just remove these threats and your hands will cramp.

scan with zemana first: default scan + users folder scan
then, scan with HMP when only few malwares left. You can manually go to the paths and delete them
HMP has kaspersky and BD engines out of 4 so it's still useful
usually HMP detects next to nothing after I scan with zemana

 

[509322]

This is the same as "What is best AV ?"

Obsessing about which second-opinion scanner to use is a waste of time and effort. Each one is going to miss something. That is the nature of signature-based protection.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

This is the same as "What is best AV ?"

Obsessing about which second-opinion scanner to use is a waste of time and effort. Each one is going to miss something. That is the nature of signature-based protection.

it should be named: what combo we should use
I use them everytime so they are very helpful. Some people refuse to have their windows reinstalled

also most of us don't have 3-4 hours to install windows, tweaks, drivers and essential softwares for laptops
nobody around me uses an SSD. 20/20 including me unfortunately

 

[509322]

it should be named: what combo we should use
I use them everytime so they are very helpful. Some people refuse to have their windows reinstalled

also most of us don't have 3-4 hours to install windows, tweaks, drivers and essential softwares for laptops
nobody around me uses an SSD. 20/20 including me unfortunately

Like I said, each one is going to miss something. No one can deny that fact. So going through a lot of effort to analyze and pick-and-choose "What is best second-opinion AV ?" is not going to add much to overall security. The difference between one and the other might be, perhaps, 1/100, at best.

 

[Moonhorse]

I voted zemana
and as other: Roguekiller

 

[noob guy]

Special: FRST, RKill, ESET SysRescue Live
Offline - CureIt, Kaspersky VRT and TDSSKiller
Online - Norton Power Eraser, ESET Online Scanner

EEK - I can not help it, but it seems to me a little stiff and big boned lately. Also updating takes like forever.


I did not even know, they offer that, it is not listed on their webpage and the name suggest tuneup software. Going to check it out.

EDIT: Nevermind, it does not work with a limited internet (typically caused by malware).

To download - http://install.avira-update.com/package/pccleanerwebloader/win32/en/avira_pc_cleaner_en.exe
Someone named Cruelsister likes to use it - The Basics of Manual Malware Identification and Removal
I find her very credible.

 

[plat]

Evjl's Rain: Defender doesn't do like HitmanPro--that is, send flagged items to cloud during scanning? Hmm, only after the fact. Well, as I said, I place more faith in SmartScreen. The Microsoft scanner is third opinion and probably redundant.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Evjl's Rain: Defender doesn't do like HitmanPro--that is, send flagged items to cloud during scanning? Hmm, only after the fact. Well, as I said, I place more faith in SmartScreen. The Microsoft scanner is third opinion and probably redundant.

I think WD doesn't send any thing to cloud during its scan or if it does, the detection rate is still extremely low for newer malwares. It's also not good at malware removal. I prefer dedicated scanners with multiple engines + super fast speed
your are right, smartscreen is the the main strength of Windows 10 and 8, not WD. That's why the number of infection has decreased significantly after SS was introduced

 

[Evjl's Rain]

To download - http://install.avira-update.com/package/pccleanerwebloader/win32/en/avira_pc_cleaner_en.exe
Someone named Cruelsister likes to use it - The Basics of Manual Malware Identification and Removal
I find her very credible.

for some reason, I found avira PC cleaner with the latest signatures has significantly worse signatures than avira antivirus
I disinfected a PC with PC cleaner, then scanned again with avira free, it found many more items

 

[509322]

for some reason, I found avira PC cleaner with the latest signatures has significantly worse signatures than avira antivirus
I disinfected a PC with PC cleaner, then scanned again with avira free, it found many more items

Just running a scanner and quarantining what it detects is not sufficient to clean any PC. There might still be malicious un-detected drivers and\or services still running. Not to mention missed-items and stuff running from the registry using trusted Windows processes, for example. So, you can run every single second-opinion scanner available, and still have an infected PB with fully functional malware running on it.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

I quoted myself from the post this year
and add 2 points:
- zemana is very good and ESET is great against PUPs while HMP is meh. Zemana can also detect malicious chrome's extensions. EEK is also meh for some reasons I don't know why
MB3 must be installed so it's not my favorite although it's good for disinfection
- roguekiller is the last resort when everything else fails: slow scanning speed, FPs but every effective

each scanner has its own strengths and weaknesses, there is no best. If you want the best, you must combine 2 scanners at least:

My best combo:
Internet is available: Zemana + norton power eraser
Internet is not available: Emsisoft emergency kit
Unbootable machine, rescue CD: ESET SysRescue

Reasons:
- Zemana: fully cloud, no need for update, always has the latest signatures, multi-engines, very fast, good signatures, the absolute best against worms, file-less malwares, and already infected PC, can detect and revert malware's changes effectively | Cons: doesn't scan all user data folder -> can miss some malwares but you can scan it manually

- Norton power eraser: checks the reputation of files so it doesn't need signatures -> can detect new malwares due to their poor reputation | Cons: only for advanced users because of false positive rate, many safe programs have low reputations

- HitmanPro: 4 engines (kaspersky, BD, sophos & their own engine), good detection rate, sometimes better than zemana, sometimes worse | Cons: extremely poor against file-less malwares, not the fastest scanner, requires license to use in long term in 1 machine

- Emsisoft emergency kit: dual engines, great signatures against non zero-day malwares, very fast speed | Cons: not the best against worms, file-less malwares, very new malwares, requires signatures update and the update takes very long time

-ESET SysRescue: fast scanning speed and good signatures | Other rescue CDs have very slow scanning speed (Kaspersky) or poor/basic/not the same signatures (bitdefender, avira) compared to their AV products

 

[JM Safe]

This is the same as "What is best AV ?"

Obsessing about which second-opinion scanner to use is a waste of time and effort. Each one is going to miss something. That is the nature of signature-based protection.

I think it is interesting viewing different opinions on different products, obviously this can help a member to decide which product to use.

 

[509322]

I think it is interesting viewing different opinions on different products, obviously this can help a member to decide which product to use.

Comparing notes is an academic exercise that has little to do with reality because of the huge range of variables.

It would be different if that is all it was... comparing notes. But it's not. It is obsessing over "which is best ?" - as if spending a lot of time of effort carefully analyzing each one is going to make one bit of difference in practical terms.

This forum is famous for "What is best AV ?". I mean that dead horse has been beaten to death hundreds, if not thousands, of times. And what was true the very first time the question was asked is the same on the N-th time.

And what's more... when an infection is found, it is not sufficient to merely quarantine what is found. It is entirely wrong to assume that an AV clean-up removes the infection.

 

[Moonhorse]

About above comments, if i would have my pc heavily infected, i guess backup is the solution there (personal computer)



I would call antimalware as post protection and just go with backup if needed

Zemana is very agressive ( fp on firefox privacy possum extension as example) , probably roguekiller aswell, MalPE module is disabled by default

 

[jackuars]

Like I said, each one is going to miss something. No one can deny that fact. So going through a lot of effort to analyze and pick-and-choose "What is best second-opinion AV ?" is not going to add much to overall security. The difference between one and the other might be, perhaps, 1/100, at best.

Which is why I gave 2 choices to choose. I made sure not to insert the word "best" here in the thread. It's mere choice.

The big question is what makes you feel more safe? If the first misses something by off-chance, then the second will come to your rescue. Having more than 3 (antivirus + second opinion scanner + third opinion scanner) is being paranoid.

 

[509322]

The big question is what makes you feel more safe?

You hit the nail right on the head. It's all about "feeling" safe. The whole goal is to have more comfortable emotions and lessen mental discomfort. One thing I know with absolute certainty is that feelings and psychology will get you infected every time. It's not about security really. It's about people having the need to feel secure and wanting to have that need fulfilled. That's more important than actually being secure.

"I feel insecure... so I will throw 10,000,000 filters and signatures at it. Ah... now I feel safe."