a-squared Free

A-Squared Free is a nifty little utility designed to check your computer for Trojans, worms, dialers and spyware and remove them, so you can enjoy a clean and speedy computer environment. The installation process takes only a few seconds. Upon initiating the software, A-Squared asks you to perform an update. If you do this, then you will have to choose between two newer versions of the program - Emsisoft Anti-Malware or Emsisoft Emergency Kit (a portable version).

But, returning to A-Squared - the interface is very user-friendly, and also has some nice graphics. You can view the security status or logs, scan the PC, check the quarantine list, or configure A-Squared.

Scanning can be completed in several ways - quick (scans all active programs, spyware traces and tracking cookies), smart (same as Quick Scan + inactive programs and Windows files), deep (thoroughly scans everything, so it's the slowest), and custom.

We ran a Deep Scan on our computers (which took a very long time, of course), and A-Squared managed to find some issues. Right next to Diagnosis are the Details, where you can view how many traces there are, as well as the level of risk. CPU and memory resources are highly used during this time.

Unfortunately, A-Squared could not move all objects to quarantine, even if not all of them were Windows system files, so that was a bit disappointing.

In the Configuration menu you can activate context menu integration, quarantine re-scan, select language, and more.

In conclusion, you can try A-Squared Free and see how it fits, but the software is weaker than other antivirus systems.