Assigned Is Zemana AM any good in 2018?

This thread is being handled by a member of the staff.

Is Zemana Anti-Malware Any Good In 2018?

  • It's great for zero day threats

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • It's great for its signatures

    Votes: 19 51.4%
  • It has good signatures and zero day protection

    Votes: 3 8.1%
  • It lost its magic

    Votes: 13 35.1%

  • Total voters
    37
Status
Not open for further replies.

RoboMan

Level 34
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Well-known
Jun 24, 2016
2,399
It's great for its signatures, that's a fact. I've always used it as an on-demand scanner for its great ability to detect and remove malware. Nevertheless, and despite I have an active license, I don't find it useful for real-time protection. It's never been worth it to buy, in my humble opinion. It's not a very strong software. In that case, I'd rather go buy HitmanPro.Alert :)
 

gery79

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jun 21, 2011
566
i bought a license back in 2016 good for two years and only used it occasionally just for on demand and not real time . i dont use it anymore as i think trend micro is more than enough
 

oldschool

Level 81
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 29, 2018
7,044
I've had a license for 6 months or so and never had a real-time flag. Whether this is due to careful browsing habits or ZAM's real-time weakness is not something I can comment on.
 

Cortex

Level 26
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Aug 4, 2016
1,465
I uninstalled it for some while but I have it on now in full mode, from my reading it’s not what it was once, but as good as Malwarebytes which continue to cause issues (for the last bloody time), the last one was messing my cut & paste up then fixing it in an update yet still not right hence ZAM returning.
 

KevinYu0504

Level 5
Verified
Well-known
Mar 10, 2017
227
Long time ago , Zemana's detection rate can win the HitmanPro in some of times ,
but now , not anymore .

In this few months , not only my personal test ,
but also some famous testing organizations ( such as VB100 and MRG Effitas )
many new threats and malware sometimes can detected by HitmanPro ,
( thanks for Kaspersky and Bitdefender database)
but Zemana miss it .

And the most important thing is not only detection rate is drop ,
but also they had many false alert problem but just can't solve .

I had try to send the feedback or report to them many times ,
but usually get a useless reply , such as " thanks you telling us , we will try to research it "
but after many months , the false alert still there ...
some of times they even ignore my email !


It's sad to say that , but i feel Zemana from 2017 , began to become a bit strange ,
must some bad thing happen .
Some of great technicians leave away from Zemana ,
and seems there are already stop update the program for very long time .
include their mystery product " Zemana AntiMalware Ultimate " .
(this mystery product show on their official website for few months than disappear suddenly with out reason)


I am still using Zemana's AntiLogger on my system , (with lifetime license)
because at least , i think the encrypt keystrokes still useful .
 

Evjl's Rain

Level 47
Verified
Honorary Member
Top Poster
Content Creator
Malware Hunter
Apr 18, 2016
3,684
despite losing its magic, it's still the best second opinion scanner for most purposes
It's the king against fileless malwares (emerging), unwanted system changes (DNS hijack, hollow processes,...) and active malware infection (sig-less, hollow processes)
the detection rate is still good enough, sometimes better than HMP and EEK but when it comes to non zero-day malwares, the others can do better
norton power eraser is only for knowledgeable users. It's a disaster for average users

HMP is only good against physically present malwares but close to absolute useless against fileless malwares. Slow scanning speed. I don't like it at all but still use it sometimes (usually after ZAM and NPE. It didn't help much)
hub test and cruelsister proved it

I don't really recommend using ZAM as realtime protection because it's realtime protection and second op. scan are not the same. It also causes memory leak after a few hours of using.

the only good thing about its realtime protection is it denies almost all executable scripts and completely eliminates a malware speading vector, which many AVs are not really good at
 
Last edited:

Evjl's Rain

Level 47
Verified
Honorary Member
Top Poster
Content Creator
Malware Hunter
Apr 18, 2016
3,684
I'm curious where this info comes from...
from myself and a few members here
I had been using ZAM/ZAL for several months, upto a year with different occasions. The most recent time was 2 weeks ago when ZAM still caused memory leak 400+MB of RAM, 400MB commited
I contacted their support but they refused to fix it because they said it was normal. Period

I was also testing Zemana in the hub for 1 month with pandora enabled. After the system was infected, I scanned the VM with Zemana and it found a lot of malwares that the realtime protection missed
why? Because Zemana doesn't have on-access scanning/monitor. It only scans a file when the file is executed/double-clicked and will not scan anything the file creates or does to the system after that
I execute A.exe (zero-day malware) -> ZAM scans A.exe, clean, undetected -> A.exe infects the PC and spawns B.exe -> ZAM does not scan B.exe and let it do what it wants -> the system is infected
Scan the system with zemana, it detects B.exe (as malware) and maybe A.exe (as a hollow process)
 
Last edited:

oldschool

Level 81
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 29, 2018
7,044
OK. Thanks! So, I have ZAM Premium. do you recommend I disable real-time protection? What about if using AntiLogger?
 

Evjl's Rain

Level 47
Verified
Honorary Member
Top Poster
Content Creator
Malware Hunter
Apr 18, 2016
3,684
OK. Thanks! So, I have ZAM Premium. do you recommend I disable real-time protection? What about if using AntiLogger?
zemana is fine if you like it
just to make sure you install "cleanmem free" to clean up RAM and prevent ZAM/ZAL to cause memory leak
zemana help you to mitigate attacks from scripts while a lot of AVs are not very good at. ZAL is quite good at encrypting your keystroke
Zemana is very good against PUPs too. Some AVs are weak against PUPs

you can keep the realtime protection enable because it's extremely light (except memory leak)
you can use ZAM until it expires but I don't recommend you to renew the license because it's not worth it
 

tim one

Level 21
Verified
Honorary Member
Top Poster
Malware Hunter
Jul 31, 2014
1,086
It is valid as OD scanner, thanks to the good signatures.
With regard to the real-time protection, it is far from perfection, with contrasting results.
The fact that devs don't update the program for months now is not a good sign IMO.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

About us

  • MalwareTips is a community-driven platform providing the latest information and resources on malware and cyber threats. Our team of experienced professionals and passionate volunteers work to keep the internet safe and secure. We provide accurate, up-to-date information and strive to build a strong and supportive community dedicated to cybersecurity.

User Menu

Follow us

Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to know first about the latest cybersecurity incidents and malware threats.

Top