RAV or Rising is a chinese antivirus from Beijing and the free version hasn’t been out for more than a year. Rising Antivirus provides enhanced protection against Asian computer viruses while also having the capability to detect and eliminate prolific western viruses. China is now the number one SPAM creator and has an increasing malware threat. Rising Antivirus promises to stem the growth of malware at one of the primary sources.
Installation:
The executable file was about 66 megabytes and supports 32 bit and 64 bit Windows XP, Vista, and 7. The installation of the program was for the most part without hiccups. The installation performed an initial memory scan for viruses and needed about 2 minutes to finish. After completion, the software required a restart of the computer.
Upon resuming Windows, the program blacked out the whole window. A dialog box appeared and then started to do an initial configuration scan. The premise is that this initial scan will make future scans faster. However, in practice, the initial scan was extremely slow and since the background is blacked out, a user is not able to complete any other concurrent tasks (Update: there isn’t the ability to run the initial configuration scan after install so it’s probably best to wait through it after installation).
Next, the user is given the option to set a password. A user can password protect several options including a premature shutdown of a virus scan, modifying defense settings (disabling the real time shield), and emptying the quarantine etc. Rising is comparable to Panda Antivirus in its access control functionality.
Interface:
The Rising interface is interesting, but lacks refinement. While the majority of the graphics look professional, there are format errors. For example, on the main page the text for the “License” and “Scan All” are not formatted correctly. In addition, the text in the buttons is aligned correctly and the screen frequently flickers when a new menu option is selected. While these are small imperfections, it kind of degrades from the overall experience. I presume this is because the antivirus supports multiple languages each with separate formatting.
There are settings sliders that can change the security settings from high, to medium, and low. Unfortunately, when the slider is changed the features are not activated immediately. A user has to return to the previous menu and click apply.
Features:
Rising is a pretty barebones free antivirus and really resembles the likes of AVG in terms of functionality.
Active Defense. The defense shield is pretty standard. One thing that is unique, is that the there are lot of file scan settings. For example, a user can configure settings for DOS viruses, NTFS file streams, unknown Trojans, and expanded definitions. The only problem is a lot of these scan settings are not initially activated by default. In fact, in the scheduled scans option, the boot sector is not even selected as a scan area! After installing Rising free antivirus, it is crucial that a user changes everything to the highest security settings. If not, the scanning protection will be below industry acceptable levels. Finally, the “Smart Speed Up” setting, which attempts to speed up realtime scanning by ignoring previously scanned files, could be potentially dangerous. I suggest a user disable this feature because when a virus infects the computer it spreads like wildfire and frequently to files already marked as “safe”.
Email and Instant Message Virus Monitor. While this is a standard feature, some free antivirus still do not include email protection such as Bitdefender etc. Unfortunately, the instant messaging scanning didn’t detect that I had MSN installed. So, be wary of the advertised protection.
Custom Installer Creator. This is the first time I have seen this functionality in a free antivirus. Essentially want it does is create an installable .exe file with all of the latest virus definition updates applied. This is perfect for a computer that does not have an internet connection or cannot connect to the internet due to a virus. A user can also create one of these custom installers at any time.
Virus Scanning:
The quick scan was extremely fast at 2 minutes 10 seconds. The second time I did a quick scan it took only 1 minute and 8 seconds. The third time, the quick scan needed 18 seconds. These quick scan numbers are some of the fastest in the industry meaning that a Rising quick scan could be easily run on at every system startup. The full virus scan took about 2 hours and comes with a handy time elapsed and time until completion information. The scan also detected all of the viruses on my virus hard drive.
Resource usage:
Rising’s resource usage is also very good. While the idle operation tends to be a little high at 35 megabytes of RAM and 5 active processes, a full system scan only needs an additional 20 megabytes for a total of 55 megabytes. In comparison, this is about one-tenth what CA antivirus needs to run a single scan. I infer that the RAV’s minimal memory usage is because most foreign users do not have the latest computers and need programs that conserve memory.
Unfortunately, during a scan CPU usage is quite high on high security at 50 to 70%. However, if a user wants to sacrifice security over performance, medium settings will top out at about 50% CPU usage.
Virus Updates and Annoyances:
The binary that I download was quite old and hadn’t been updated since March. The update was therefore an extremely time intensive process taking about 30 minutes. RAV doesn’t download the whole update in one piece like PC tools antivirus but rather in multiple small pieces.
In addition, the help file includes screenshots and explanations for another version. Therefore, if you are a beginning user, the help documentation may be tough to follow. However, one can find online help relatively easy if there is a discrepancy.
Conclusion and Download:
Rising isn’t the most full featured free antivirus but it isn’t the least. If you’re in an Asian country or if you’re frequently bombarded with Far East viruses, give Rising or RAV a shot. Download Rising for Free below.
