14 DAY TRIAL // Do you fear viruses? I am not really stressed about them, but I am aware that threats are roaming free all over the Internet and a little guard dog would be nice to have...
I am not going to pay for such a program, because I have a lot of other programs in mind that deserve to be purchased and they still have to make it to the top of the list and get a license, so today we're going to have a free antivirus solution here. To be more specific, the program I have here will take care of detecting and cleaning spyware, trojans, worms, backdoors, dialers and other evil pieces of code like them.
The program I am talking about has a rather strange name, a-squared (a2) Free, but I'll call it "a2" from now on. Its latest version is 2.1.0.2, it contains 551,866 malware signatures at this time and, as its name says, it's completely free to download and use! I have found the setup package to be rather large, since it weighs 11.7MB, but installing the program was a piece of cake, so no worries about this part, you can start the download and go eat something or watch a football game on TV in the meantime if your connection is slow...
OK, so you got it, you installed it...time for the first run! This program's interface looks as good as I expected, having an easy to use interface that's well designed and contains excellent graphics. No, no, you won't get skins, but a2 looks good enough to forget about them. The menu isn't extremely rich, having four areas that sound interesting: Security Status, Scan PC, Quarantine and Configuration. Apart from these, you also get a Help menu item that leads to an online help page(although the content here covers a lot of topics, I would like to have some kind of offline documentation installed by default too).
The Security Status, the first area, is the command center of this program. Here, you can get information about the last scan and the number of detected objects, current version, update, signatures and license status. Even more, you get the chance to change the current language of the interface (shouldn't this option be in the Configuration area?!?) and links to the a-squared website and latest a-squared news.
The Scan PC area can be accessed using the menu item or using the Scan Now button from the previous area we just talked about. There are four scanning modes available: Quick, Smart, Deep and Custom. The Custom mode allows greatest flexibility, giving you the freedom to choose the folder(s) to scan and set scan objects and settings options, including a file extensions filter!
The Quarantine allows you to restore items you have sent here or delete them, as it usually happens with this area, while the last screen, Configuration, gives you the chance to enable Explorer integration, install the program's help, additional languages, Beta updates and submit names of detected threats to Emsisoft for statistics purposes...or not, of course, they are all your choices!
This is a2, a simple yet handy tool to stand by your side in the fight against the malware hordes assaulting your computer! These being said, the time has come to draw the conclusions, as always...
The Good
a2 is very easy to use, has an excellent interface and its features can help beginners and advanced users in their fight against computer threats.
The Bad
This program doesn't come with any built-in documentation, but the worst problem that I found is that it doesn't have a real time scanning module.
The Truth
I am used to accept things that are free and then check them out, and I hope I won't get a promotional bomb or Anthrax envelope any time soon, because that would probably mean you will not read my reviews any longer, but a2 proved to be a nice freebie and I hope you'll enjoy it as well. This is not a tool to replace your current antivirus, firewall and antispyware trio, but it's a nice addition to the arsenal for sure!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
