SuperAntiSpyware Online Safe Scan, Portable Malware Scanner
SuperAntiSpyware is a popular and effective malware scanner that is available as a free and professional version. The developers of the program have now launched SuperAntiSpyware Online Safe Scan, a free portable scanner for Windows systems.
Some users may find the name to be misleading, as it is not a web based scanner such as Virus Total but a portable version of SuperAntiSpyware Free.
The developers suggest to run the application directly from within the web browser which is a possibility. Users with SuperAntiSpyware installed cannot run the online scanner at the same time as the core program (killing the process helps).
The program, offered as a .com file, leaves no traces on the system and does not need to be installed. Before you think about copying the program to an USB device or tools DVD, you should consider that there is no option to update the program database.
The check for updates button and automatic updates option are grayed out and not selectable. This leaves on demand scans but only on systems with a working Internet connection (to download the portable program).
The program is limited to scanning and repairing the computer. Several features like scheduled scanning or automatic updates are grayed out and not selectable. The same is true for most of the program options which are also grayed out.
A click on scan your computer runs the selected scan. Available for selection are quick, complete, critical point, custom and rescue scans with complete scans being selected by default.
SuperAntiSpyware Online Safe Scan can remove threats found on the computer. This is an advantage of pure online scanners who usually cannot perform those operations and require that you download a program to your system in order to do just that (sometimes commercial).
The Repairs section can also be handy as it can restore functionality to features of the operating system that malware may have corrupted or disabled completely.
This includes resetting the browser homepage, enabling the task manager and system tray, resetting url prefixes or repairing broken network connections.
Those features alone make it a nice to have program. The downside is quite obvious: You need to re-download the program every time you want to scan a computer. If you do not you may not be using the latest program version which in turn may reduce the detection rate.
An option to update the program would certainly be useful as it would allow you to use it on a USB device regularly without having to download the latest version before you start using it.
With that said, it may still be worth the download if you want to check a system with a wide range of different security tools and prefer to do so using portable programs.
Windows users who want to try out SuperAntiSpyare's Online Safe Scan application can download it from the official website. (via)
I think it is time for SuperAntiSpyware to make a copy to sell in Tech stores to the public. That they can take home to install on there computer to do the scan for them threw the browser of choice. Probly with some of the browser add-on’s would need to let it activate to do it’s business . I like updating my free copy, then running it in safe-mode to do it’s job completely. Keep up the good work, i say my Win 7 pc has been running well for the past 2 year’s thanks to this very good program. Getting rid of hidden things that will slow down your computer as it gets older. Thank’s again SuperAntiSpyware Killer.
Windows 98SE definitely didn’t exist during the early ’90s. Even Win 95 wasn’t available until August 1995 and no one had Web until 1993 and later. For by far most people, as compared to today, extremely few people got even Internet access, including with only BBS interface, so much less for Web/www interface. And until Win 95 was released, Windows users used Win 3.x; 3.0 for the most updated, I think to recall. Or maybe it went up as high as 3.3.
BBS Internet access existed prior to Web or www access, but extremely few people had even this and most people still didn’t personally own PCs in 1993.
Anyway, getting anything repaired using online Web services probably wouldn’t be at all good even with Win 7, if a person uses a very slow Internet connection, like the old dial-up modems, f.e. When I had that, a Motorola Power 28.8K, it would take over an hour to download a 12MB file. It was about 1hr10min; and with my brother’s 56K dial-up modem, such files took about 1hr (roughly 2x more or higher K, but at best 17% faster, and that’s only when it was faster, for it often wasn’t any faster, at all).
I doubt that SuperAntiSpyware doing a system scan and repair using the online scanner would download anything as large as 12MB, but the operation surely would be very slow, so very long, … I think. With hi-speed Internet, it’s greatly better. And in this sense, it’s great that time doesn’t go backwards, rather than forwards. That unfortunately can’t be credibly said in many other respects of life in this world, however.
The tool seems very interesting to fight spyware, I’ll test the effectiveness.
The trouble is simple about people wanting to fix the troubles on there computers. Is to be able to get easy help or fix for there problems, so a website that is able to do that for You. That can be a very big step for people getting services like Windows Updating there computer. P.S. There would only need to be two websites to visit to fix your PC. Back when Windows 98SE was the BOSS. You were very limited to getting anything fixed in that time. In the early 90’s when i was using such.!
“The program, offered as a .com file, leaves no traces on the system and does not need to be installed.”
Not entirely true. Even the portable installs 2 SAS drivers pointing to the TEMP folder that I can later see thru autroruns. I usually delete them as the temp folder is cleared and the entries become invalid.