Remove That Pain in the Neck

very good
key review info
application features
  • Scans all the files loaded at boot time for Remote Access Trojans.
  • (2 more, see all...)

Trojan horses on your computer are definitely a pain in the neck. They fall into several categories and are classified depending on the way they breach the systems and the damage they cause. Thus, there are remote access trojans, data sending trojans, destructive trojans, FTP trojans, security software disabler trojans and DOS trojans.

Wikipedia defines them as being "a malicious program that is disguised as or embedded within legitimate software. [...] They may look useful or interesting (or at the very least harmless) to an unsuspecting user, but are actually harmful when executed."

For protecting ourselves against this type of malware, Simply Super Software has developed Trojan Remover, a software that promises to remove the trojan threats on our PCs. The application has already celebrated its 6.5.2 "birthday" and brought two new additions to the software and one change.

The software is from now on endowed with new heuristic detection routines like Adware, VirtuMonde and Loaderadv Malware downloaders. It will also be capable of scanning all scheduled tasks during the on-boot FastScan and the normal scan for active malware.

The software, as I've said before, is developed by Simply Super Software and the installation file will take just a little over 4MB of your hard disk space. The price you have to pay, if you decide to purchase the application, is now $29.

But enough with the chit-chat. Let's get to the core of the software. The interface is different from what you may have been used to when running similar software. You will see what I mean after installing the program.

The interface is equipped with both a menu bar and a toolsbar. In the menu bar the user has five options: File, Options and Utilities, Registration and Help. The File menu covers mostly scanning options and it will allow the user to perform scans for active malware, a user-defined folder/directory, the running processes and the downloaded program files.

If you decide to scan for active malware, running processes or downloaded program files, the scan will begin immediately, with no menu or some other dialog box popping. For the latter action, the user is prompted with alerts each time the software detects a program, no matter if it is OK or infected. The available options are to continue to allow the file to load as normal, prevent the file from loading (by moving and renaming it) and excluding the file from future scans (no action will be taken).

Each such alert will also include some additional info on the detected program or application (but only if this is available for Trojan Remover) like the company name, description of the file, the version of the file, its size, the date of creation, etc. This permits you to decide if the file is harmful or not.

The Options menu helps the user enable different features of the software. Here, there are alerts configuration (show alerts on confirmed malware only/files not found and show alerts on all unknown files). On enabling the boot-time FastScan, the software will be determined to display an alert screen if it finds a suspect command line in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Some other options in this menu are enabling/disabling logging or running processes, warnings on running anti virus programs, etc. In the Utilities section you can check online for updates of the software, reset Windows HOSTS file and Update Policies.

Trojan Remover has a database of 23328 malware signatures up to now and it will also provide you with the database and the names of the malware (not necessarily trojans) as well as some details (not in all the cases) on it. The user can search the database for a certain malware by its name, port used or both.

The Good

The software's malware database is impressive. It is easy to use, and if you decide to purchase it, you will benefit from free updates and upgrades for life.

The Bad

The aesthetics of the interface need severe improvement. I was also annoyed by all those alert screens popping up just to say that the process or file is OK.

You can schedule a scan only by using MS Windows Task Schedule utility.

The Truth

The software successfully detected my antivirus program and alerted me of the fact that it will prevent Trojan Remover from accessing files that my antivirus already detects as malicious. Of course, this warning message can be disabled.

What else can I say except for the fact that you should try the software before buying it (you have 30 days to decide)? The price is not too high and the software is worth every cent.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 4
features 4
ease of use 5
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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