Safe Returner

Safe Returner is a straightforward security program that provides detection and removal tools for various malware agents, whether we are talking about Trojans, worms, adware or spyware. Its features are not very complex, so less experienced users can venture themselves in this app with confidence.

After a brief and uneventful setup procedure, you are welcomed by a clean window with a well-organized structure, representing Safe Returner's interface. Its main areas are neatly shown in Overview, Scan, Settings and Help.

Evidently, the Overview section reveals a summary of Safe Returner's activity, such as the last database definition updates, last scan, automatic updates and subscription status, remaining days of evaluation, together with the program and database version.

If the scan reveals files infected with malware on your PC, you can either remove them entirely or send them to the quarantine; the latter option is recommended if the files in question belong to the system.

As far as configuration go, you can ignore non-executable files or files larger than 4MB, scan only known file types, always use online analysis for unknown threats, as well as scan the Windows system files without a digital signature.

The application is surprisingly low on the system resources; its presence is barely noticeable to the CPU and memory. It has a good response time and finishes a scan job in no time. But that's because Safe Returner looks only in the important areas of the computer for malware.

Unfortunately, the tool does not offer the possibility to select the scan mode (e.g. quick, full, custom). It does not provide a real-time shield against malware, nor does it run well alongside other antivirus or anti-spyware tools.

On top of that, Safe Returner popped up and error and automatically exited a couple of times midway through our tests, preventing us from viewing scan results. We must mention that we have evaluated the anti-malware's abilities on multiple OS platforms, new and old alike. But we must also take into account that Safe Returner has not been updated for a while, making it prone to stability issues.