When choosing an on-demand scanner, one must ask oneself if the product so chosen is sub-optimal (does it actually suck?). Normally one can test the product against a malware pack (God, kill me now) or perhaps test by a different method. To this end, I did a little dance with some common second opinion scanners against malware that hide themselves by various mechanisms (persistence). The test proceeded as follows:
1). malware- a dozen cuties that persisted by various methods (via Registry changes, DLL Search Order Hijacking, COM hijacking, and by addition to Scheduled tasks) were selected.
2). On a W10H2 64 bit system a second opinion scanner was installed and malware was run. The system was then rebooted and checked to insure all malware were present and active. The scanner was then run and results noted. A reboot and re-scan was done.Once finished that system was wiped out, a new system was then setup as above with a different scanner (rinse and repeat).
3). The 2nd opinion scanners used were: HMP, MB. KVRT, Norton Power Eraser, Eset Online Scanner, EEK and F-secure Online Scanner.
Please note that this test is against mechanisms and not specific malware, so a fail would indicate a poor showing against an entire class of malware and not a specific file. That being said, products will only get either a Pass of Fail for the entire test.
Results:
1). Fail- MB. HMP, Eset, F-Secure
2). Partial Fail (33% effective)- EEK
3). Pass- NPE, KVRT
of those that Passed, NPE was the quickest leaving the system clean after the first pass. KVRT after the first pass rebooted and re-scanned without user input (it found a few more items, suggested deletion, and requires a further reboot). On final analysis system was clean.
Anyway, so although not quite a normal test and far from an inclusive one, hope this helps members in the choice of a 2nd opinion scanner.
(And that's all I have to say about that...)