But what about on-demand virus scanners? Avert, which stands for Automatic Virus Eradication & Removal Tool, is a free program intended to be used on already infected systems, or systems that a user wants to scan with multiple antivirus engines to be sure that no virus, trojan, worm or other malicious program is found on it.

Avert can scan the computer system with eight different antivirus engines. By default, it will only download and run VIPRE. A click on the Tools and Settings button in the lower left corner displays the options where scanners from A-Squared, ClamWin, Trend Micro, Sophos, Panda, Avira and VBA32 can be selected. A click on Download loads the programs to the directory of Avert, and makes them automatically available for future scans.

Everything is kept portable, so that it is possible to move Avert and all downloaded antivirus scanners to another drive or computer.

The program directory with all antivirus tools included has a size of 313 Megabytes, less if only some of the virus scanners are downloaded.

In addition, Avert offers to run CCleaner and a set of three tools on the system. With CCleaner it is possible to remove temporary files to free up disk space. The three tools are available to backup the Windows Registry and reset the Windows Hosts file and proxy settings.

The depth of the scans and utilization of the included tools can be configured in the program’s main interface.

The virus scans can be configured before the start. Avert offers to run a full system scan, balanced, quick or custom scan. CCleaner can only be run in thorough mode if enabled, and the three tools can be enabled individually.

The individual programs may download the latest antivirus signatures if updates are available. These signatures do not seem to be saved locally, which means they need to be download every time the program is run. Vipre needs to be downloaded every time as well, because the developer does not offer an option to download the signature file separately. Avert runs all selected programs consecutively afterwards.

Avert is a free portable software for Windows. The program requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0. (via)

The installation of a-squared Anti-Malware requires the creation of an account and a somewhat extensive configuration. It is here that various security modules, notification settings and auto update settings are configured. These settings can be later edited in the program’s interface.

The program interface displays a left sidebar and a main area that changes depending on the selection in the sidebar. The security software always starts with the Security Status which displays the status of the background guards, the program version, last update, license information and the time and date of the last scan.

Each background guard can be configured and activated (or deactivated) in this menu. A-squared Anti-Malware uses five background guards of which two are used for scheduled scans and automatic updates. The three other guards are used to scan files on execution, use heuristics to detect unknown malware and surf protection to protect the user from Internet threats.

Where a-squared Anti-Malware really shines are the configuration options for those background guards. The Malware-IDS guard for instance uses heuristics to monitor malicious activity. The configuration of this module allows the user to configure exactly what the intrusion detection system should monitor. It is for instance possible to disable keylogger or hosts file monitoring. This would make sense if another program was installed that would already monitor those areas.

Those in depth configuration settings are available in other modules as well. The computer user can configure the surf protection guard to block, alert or don’t block various threats and hosts on the Internet from ad or tracking hosts to phishing and fraudulent hosts; Each with their own action defined. This is a powerful way of protecting the computer from web surfing threats.

Another example of this is the on execution scanner which can be configured extensively. It is for example possible to configure application rules to monitor, block or allow specific applications, use the a-Squared community as a guideline to allow or block programs from being executed and even activate paranoid mode which will display a lot of alerts to the user.

Scans are scheduled by default but can be executed manually all the time. Four types of scans are available that range form a quick scan to a deep and custom scan. A quick scan will only scan the active programs and some other locations and files while a deep scan will scan all files on the hard drive. This obviously has an impact on the time it takes to complete the scan.

A-squared Anti-Malware comes with an additional program called a-squared HiJackFree which can be used to display information about processes, ports, autoruns, services, hosts, Windows Explorer add-ons and ActiveX components. The program is available for free at the Emsi Software website and can be very helpful in aiding a manual analysis of specific files.

A 30-day trial of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is also possible to download a free version of the security program which does lack the realtime protection.

Christmas Giveaway

We have ten licenses for a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 to give away. Please let us know which security software you are using currently.

Raju is giving away Returnil Virtual System 2010 Home Lux, make sure to check it out as well.

The offer is good for another day which means you have enough time to download and install the software package. The usual retail price for the software is $39.95.

A-Squared Anti-Malware tries to be the ultimate solution in the fight against malicious software, it protects the computer against all kinds like trojans, keyloggers and rootkits meaning it is more than just an antivirus software.

It’s a great PC software especially for the price. It’s especially of interest for those users who missed the A-Squared Anti-Malware offer the last time.