65 replies to this topic

[YoKenny1]

I gave up on a-squared ages ago

Quote

a-squared Anti-Malware 4.0
Alarming False Positives

There's a dark side to a-squared's stellar malware blocking skills. In testing, I found that it also blocks a variety of perfectly valid programs. I don't just mean behavioral warnings indicating that a program is loading a driver, changing autorun settings, and so on. I mean that it takes a perfectly innocent program and states categorically that it is malware, even displaying an official-looking malware name like Trojan-Proxy.Win32.Delf.bx!IK. I tested it with a dozen PC Magazine utilities and some small programs of my own. Even in this small sample it identified three as malware.

http://www.pcmag.com...,2334423,00.asp

[mountaintree16]

Eak! That's definitely NOT good...

YoKenny1, on Jul 21 2009, 05:58 PM, said:

I gave up on a-squared ages ago http://www.pcmag.com...,2334423,00.asp

[Corrine]

I thought it might be unauthorized, thus: Rogue or Real A-Squared Marketeer?.

[RubbeR DuckY]

I spoke with the CEO of Emsisoft regarding this situation. Christian confirmed it was an employee of Emsisoft and he has dealt with him properly. I thank Christian for his efforts.

[TeMerc]

RubbeR DuckY, on Jul 21 2009, 04:24 PM, said:

I spoke with the CEO of Emsisoft regarding this situation. Christian confirmed it was an employee of Emsisoft and he has dealt with him properly. I thank Christian for his efforts.

Kudos for direct action, whatever it was.

Now all the rest of the sec comm vendors need is a name so they can avoid hiring him\her.

[mountaintree16]

@ Marcin

Glad its been dealt with!

[ShadowPuterDude]

The individual responsible for those postings is no longer an employee of EMSI Software. His employment was terminated upon learning of the postings.

I can't make any further comments, as I have no direct knowledge of what transpired.

http://forum.emsisof...?g=posts&t=5771

[turtledove]

Good news the person was fired. That's one messed up way to "market"
MBAM is better imho by far.

[yardbird]

thats what happens when you mess with the RubbeR DuckY .....lesson learned, he burned...

[MBAM OR SAS]

mountaintree16, on Jul 21 2009, 10:36 PM, said:

Yikes. did they offer support to help you fix the problem?

I didn't even bother to ask them for help.

[S!Ri]

Mess with the best, die like the rest

[hilander999]

This is my favorite part...

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I have come to believe that the meteoric rise of Malwarebytes (look at the CNet dowload stats) has been fueled by the attention they have paid to forums like techguy.

The support offered by Malware Bytes is awesome, and has got to be the best I've seen in a very long time, so "Paying Attention" to forums and helping users remove all sorts of malicious software is certainly what has fueled this "meteoric rise" to the top of this market.

Quote

3+ million, once-per-day updates vs. several times in a 24 hour period

I like the fact that every time new definitions are added to the database it is immediately available to the end user.
No one should ever have to wait 24 hours for the next update.

Quote

I spoke with the CEO of Emsisoft regarding this situation. Christian confirmed it was an employee of Emsisoft and he has dealt with him properly. I thank Christian for his efforts.

This is good, but should be followed by a public apology from the CEO of Emsisoft.

Honestly, this is more then likely going to boost your market share, not diminish it.

[jedi]

Quote

Honestly, this is more then likely going to boost your market share, not diminish it.

I agree, A² have only shown that MBAM is making them nervous!

[fredvries]

Fear does strange things to weak people.

[Fatdcuk]

TeMerc, on Jul 22 2009, 12:55 AM, said:

Kudos for direct action, whatever it was.

Now all the rest of the sec comm vendors need is a name so they can avoid hiring him\her.

Named and hopefully shamed!

http://forum.emsisoft.com/Default.aspx?g=p...p;m=32702#32702

Fabian Wosar (Technical Support)Emsi Software said:

Mike Christenson, the person responsible for the PM you quoted, is no longer part of Emsi Software GmbH. He was fired today (actually yesterday) as soon as we became aware of the mails and PMs he was sending out.

[GT500]

Fatdcuk said:

Named and hopefully shamed!

I'm sure he's pretty upset, at the very least. I just wonder how much of it was his own idea, and how much of it was supported by management. Knowing the way typical corporations work, he probably said something like this to his manager, "How about we reach out to these online support forums that are recommending Malwarebytes and see if they would also be willing to recommend our software as well." I guarantee that his manager thought it was a great idea, and then probably allowed the guy to implement it how he saw fit.

What they need to understand is that our software became the #1 recommended on support forums for several reasons:

1) We didn't just ask experts what they though. Marcin made an application specifically suited to helping them help users online and in the tech shop, and then we took their suggestions and recommendations and we improved upon our software.

2) We ignore old malware and easy to remove viruses that are removed by most anti-virus software, and we go after the nastiest and hardest to remove malware on the planet.

3) We have the best teams of developers and researchers on the planet. I have never seen people as capable and dedicated as the ones we have on staff. Some of them work 16 hour days, and I would believe that we all work 7 days a week.

[Vino Rosso]

RubbeR DuckY, on Jul 21 2009, 11:24 PM, said:

I spoke with the CEO of Emsisoft regarding this situation. Christian confirmed it was an employee of Emsisoft and he has dealt with him properly. I thank Christian for his efforts.

Well done Marcin for dealing with this in a positive and sound commercial way

[Spud]

GT500, on Jul 22 2009, 12:39 PM, said:

I'm sure he's pretty upset, at the very least. I just wonder how much of it was his own idea, and how much of it was supported by management. Knowing the way typical corporations work, he probably said something like this to his manager, "How about we reach out to these online support forums that are recommending Malwarebytes and see if they would also be willing to recommend our software as well." I guarantee that his manager thought it was a great idea, and then probably allowed the guy to implement it how he saw fit.

You took the words out of my mouth as was going to say very much the same thing.

Regardless of the whats happened, it has obviously discredited them with a lot of people and they will have to carry the brunt of this for a long time. I am sure a valuable lesson was learnt and they can make it better following through with a public apology which will save them some face.

[Maniac]

Fatdcuk, on Jul 22 2009, 01:36 PM, said:

Named and hopefully shamed!

http://forum.emsisoft.com/Default.aspx?g=p...p;m=32702#32702

Justice has triumphed! GG!

[AndyAtHull]

I'm glad you could resolve it Marcin.