Thankfully, I’ve never had to put Avanquest’s Double Anti-Spy to a real-life test yet – I recently installed Windows XP under VirtualBox, and thought I’d give it a whirl by testing Double Anti-Spy.
The GUI’s acceptable (sorry, I can’t think of another word for it); the blue kind of matches Windows XP’s colour scheme (not Vista or Windows 7 though), the buttons have a light shadowed gradient and don’t have that millenium-glassy look that a lot of programs go for (thank the Lord). Everything seems pretty simple and accessible, which is a green light in my books.
Likely it’s just my virtual environment, but I found Double Anti-Spy to be awfully slow – I realize that it’s not the most fair judgment, but understand this: a lot of computers, both in corporate and small business environments, aren’t equipped with the latest dual-core processors or anything more than 512mb of RAM (my virtual environment precisely). I’d really like to see Double Anti-Spy’s client get streamlined a lot more so it performs more efficiently – heck, I’d like to see all anti-virus programs slimmed down.
A plus: Double Anti-Spy’s background process doesn’t take up that many resources (100mb is alright, right?) and doesn’t noticeably slow down my computer too much.
Double Anti-Spy automatically quarantined the EICAR test file and rendered it inaccessible; I couldn’t even locate it in the Downloads file. Kudos! (And yes, I turned it off and downloaded it and let Double Anti-Spy scan my computer – it detected the EICAR file.)
I really like the automatic quarantine; it’s been a while since I’ve used a Windows machine, and while there are many freeware antivirus programs out there, I think that Double Anti-Spy’s got some features that I’m really impressed with (automatic quarantine!). For $29.99USD on Amazon.com, the price is comparable to Norton’s Internet Security 2010 – which has a pretty good reputation. Either way, I think $30 is relatively cheap if you really want to pay – but why not give free antivirus programs a try?
Good point about the software being too sluggish for corporate use. Adding to the problem of these PCs being too outdated is the fact they are often used frequently. A good piece of anti-malware software should be able to run alongside other programs. Imagine if you did your test while running Word and several browser windows!
Thanks for your thoughts, Daniel! I agree, it would probably have been quite sluggish if I had to try that.
It sometimes make PC slow. So I dont use it
That can be a bit risky though, the trade-off is really up to you.