IObit Security 360

Link: http://www.majorgeeks.com/IObit_Security_360_d6088.html
Home Page: http://www.iobit.com/beta.html?Str=download

It seems to me they could have come up with a MUCH better name the anything ending in 360. With Norton's disasterous 360 product, and all the rogue-ware using 360 in their names, something else IMO would be better (and smarter?). Maybe something simple like "IObit System Security". Huh? Sounds good, doesn't it? No cheese, no numbers, no implied 'all encompassing safeness' terminology, straight and to the point....

Anyway- I know this is new app, but I see it's getting fairly high votes here at MG, which to me seems to be jumping the gun a bit since it's only been here for maybe 12 hours or less....

It installs quick, and it updates quick, but the color scheme reminds me of Rising Antivirus (which I commented on heavily when it was first released). Everything in the 'Tools' section is greyed out, meaning none of these features are active or functional, and everything in the 'PC Security Status' section is greyed out and non-functional. What's up with that? And the overall settings seem very light on user configurability, but I do like the transparency feature.... I understand this is a beta, but in order to really test it, shouldn't we have full access to all features?

(no real question here... just kind of posting my thoughts... I just downloaded it and will be running it on my home PC for a bit just to see how it compares to AntiVir's free offering, and the paid full version from MBAM)

 

:-o Duhhh... obviously should say ". . . better name than anything . . . " rolleyes

Anyway... I'd be interested in the thoughts of other MG members out there who are using IObit Security 360. I'll be posting more info as I get it, and as soon as a PC crippled with malware comes my way, I'll run IOBS360 on it first, just to see how it handles it....

 

Looks like a new version came out today (June 09 2009), and as far as I can tell it's exactly the same. The same things as posted above are still greyed out and non-functional, and it is set up to install updates when it starts, and it didn't istall the updates when it started. I had to manually download and install 'em myself. This is a already looking like it's going to get a low rating from me. But, it is a beta, and that is the 'saving grace' at this point....

 

Hmmmm.... no other comments.... I'm answering my own posts.... (I'm "secretly" bumping this to keep it on the front page for a few days LOL )

:confused

Over 27000 downloads in under 3 days, over 80 votes for a 4.55 average (amazingly high considering that about one-third of the features don't even work), and absolutely no other input. I find that strange....

I'll say it again:

[dlb]

 

g'day dlb had look at this program and installation went smooth and your right about the extras not working.the uninstall required a reboot to manually remove the left over programs folder and the isuninstall.exe that was left in the windows folder.i also found that the 3 processes that are listed in the task manager can be confused with other malware related programs that are listed with prevx.com along with the isuninstall.exe file.

 

Thanks for your input. The only activity I've seen from IOBS360 so far is when I tried to manually scan a questionable file with MalwareBytes (right click > Scan with MalwareBytes), the IObit app jumped in and asked if MBAM was a safe program and if I was expecting it to open. Hmmmm......

Still running it though, on 3 different PCs just to see what's up with it. I haven't had a chance to scan a really infected PC, but once I do, I will definitely post the results.

[dlb]

EDIT- it STILL doesn't auto-update like it supposed to.

 

OK- finally I have some 'legit' action from IOBS360. It seems to watch the start-up list fairly closely (the 'msconfig' list), and the related start up registry keys. This is good! It's also very lightweight and has very little (or no) impact on system resources....

I have not had a chance to run a scan on a heavily infected PC yet.... I'll be sure to post when the opportunity comes up!

 

Well, this may be my final post on this topic.... it seems that IOBS360 offers some good basic security for the start-up lists (like the msconfig list for example) and against BHOs, but it's detection abilities when scanning for malware are quite poor. I had a hard drive that I knew was infected with malware, and I hooked it up via a USB port to a PC with AntiVir (free version) and AutoRun Eater (see my thread here ), and IOBS360 installed and updated about 4 minutes before plugging in the drive. As soon as the drive was plugged in, both AntiVir and AutoRun Eater jumped in screaming "BEWARE! BEWARE!". AutoRun Eater (we'll call it ARE) removed a malicious autorun.inf file (as it was designed to); I did NOT remove the 3 or 4 .exe and .dll files flagged by AntiVir because I wanted to see how (or if) IObit Security 360 would deal with 'em. Well, IObit's software did not detect anything in real-time or actively like ARE and AntiVir did. So I decided to run a custom scan on drive E: only (the known infected drive plugged in via USB was drive E: ). During the scan, AntiVir popped up many times with warnings (and I wasn't scanning with AntiVir, it was just running its normal real-time protection) and I ignored them (on purpose) just to see if the IObit software would do anything. So far, IOBS360 has found NOTHING during the scan. So, just for kicks, I paused it, and went to the Windows\System32 folder on the infected drive, I highlighted a large block of files (about 50 or so plus the Drivers folder) and started a MalwareBytes scan via the right-click menu. It immediately recognized 8 files before I stopped it after maybe 15 seconds. Again, AntiVir howled "WARNING!!" during these 15 seconds, and, again, IObit Secuity 360 did nothing. So I un-paused the IOBS360 scan, and it still has found nothing, and AntiVir is still popping in about 2 or 3 times per minute with more malware found. So, IMO, IObit Security 360 is basically not capable of detecting or removing malware, either by scanning, or in real-time. Like I said earlier, it does pop up every so often when installing software and asks if "such and such program should be allowed to add itself to your start up menu" and the first time I ran a MalwareBytes scan from the right click menu, IObit jumped in saying "such and such process just started, do you want to allow or deny it". But there are many programs that do this same thing, and do it MUCH better (like Arovax Shield for example, and AShield doesn't claim to have "360 security" nor does it try to scan for and remove viruses; AShield does what it says it does, and it does it well). My final rating of IObit Security 360 is 2.5 stars out of five, and it only gets those stars because it did offer some minimal real-time "protection", but did nothing when actual malware was shoved in its face. Keep in mind that about one-third of IObit's program features are greyed out and non-functional, and maybe this is why it's detection and protection is so poor, but it should be made clear that this is the case. I can't believe that IObit Security 360 has rec'd such high ratings here at MG. It really isn't that great (in my opinion) and should not be used as a primary (or secondary) line of defense.

[dlb]
:major

 

It is Beta, but....

Spycar Suite.

Homepage http://www.spycar.org/
EULA http://www.spycar.org/Spycar EULA.html
Tests http://www.spycar.org/Spycar.html

 

Thanks for your hands on test & review dlb,
I have been looking awhile for an alternative real time program to replace windows "Defender" with , and I was really tempted to try this one because of the good ratings it has gotten since it was released,sorry to know that it was unsatisfactory and a disappointment , so for now i will keep using defender until they (hopefully) improve this one(360).
Do you think that being a "beta release" might have had anything to do with the poor performance, Since it's still technically a work in progress ?
I guess we'll find out when they release their final "stable" version .

 

Well since this program (IObit) is pirated, what are people like me supposed to do if we dump it? What other free program will do the job? I am a novice and need help. Please help.

Confused Creedy :O

 

MajorGeeks Top Freeware Picks.

 

Strange how some can be hesitant at "free ware" were as the more geeky I get the more I use freeware as I find they generally have the "best products". Commercial software has a "vested interest" to see their product perform the best whereas freeware and "open source" has a genuine interest to have their product perform the best. I prefer the later.