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Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko —  — Software — antivirus, command-line, malware, portable, virus

Emsisoft (a-squared) Anti-Malware portable

emsisoft_antimalware_icon Emsisoft has a solid lineup of security software (currently being rebranded from previously used a-squared naming) and their Emergency USB Stick files pack caught my attention. What can I say – I am an addict of any and all portable antivirus software. :)

What it does

Portable version is package with two Emsisoft programs (Free and Command line scanner), modified to work without installation.

emsisoft_antimalware_interface

Download is simply a ZIP archive and app is ready to be used right after unpack and prompt to download latest signature definitions.

There are several scan profiles, including custom, with full scan of all files being default.

Strong features

App is very thorough (read it – takes its time) with scan and maybe even too thorough with browser cookies. It plays better safe than sorry.

Self-update and command line scanner are functions both rare and welcomed in portable antivirus.

Downsides

Download size is very considerable at almost 90MB as of writing this post. Most of this seems to be signature files. Portable scanners usually manage to keep their signatures much more compact. Size matters when you need to quickly fetch scanner from Internet on possibly slowish connection.

Earlier version stuck its service in the system, but this doesn’t seem to happen with latest one. Still service executable is still present in download, so it might be used for some specific tasks.

Overall

Interesting balance of features – heavier than most command line scanners, but closer to fully featured antivirus solutions as well. Free for private use only.

Home http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/stick/

Download http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/download/

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6 Comments

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  • Rush #

    d/l and tested. Seems to work as well or better than most other p-a/v's. Nice find!

  • Rarst #

    @Rush Glad you like it. If bulkiness is ignored it is very solid indeed.

  • Rush #

    Yeah, all mine are 8gb so I don't even really think about it too much. However, if I was only toting 1gb or less it would probably be the deciding factor between this and Clam (which is only like 14m if I remember correctly).

  • Rarst #

    @Rush You mean ClamWin? That one is also quite bulky, portable version from PortableApps I have is over 100MB.