Ashampoo has been a respected vendor of pc cleaners for years.  They have just recently made foray into the “anti-malware” market.  It appears that even though they are a new entrant their product has exceeded expectations.  According to many user reviews, the antivirus software performs excellent at deleting viruses and spyware.  In fact, the software is ranked number one of all antivirus software at Softpedia.  Unfortunately, we found that while antispyware functionality was excellent Ashampoo’s performance falls short of mainstream antivirus products including free antivirus such as Avast and Avira Antivir.

Functionality:

    The installation of Ashampoo Anti-Malware was extremely fast.  The program started and immediately updated the database and started scanning.  Ashampoo is not like a normal antivirus in terms of its speed of installation even though its executable (77 megabytes) is bigger than CA Internet Security and even Quickheal antivirus.  The program generally feels lightweight and nimble.
    The virus scanning is very fast and should only take about an hour to finish.  The scan is interesting because it first scans about 417662 files/registry keys in 2 minutes and this scanning performance is very similar to Prevx 3.0 in terms of speed.  Unfortunately, after theses initial files (program files, registry, windows folder etc.) are checked, the scan performance significantly degrades (this is misleading because the status bar is already at 75%).  The next leg of the virus scanning will only scan about 40,000 files per 22 minutes.  Therefore, the full system scan will actually finish around 50 minutes, which is still faster than most mainstream antivirus but the preceding discrepancies still create problems.  If a user has a lot of auxiliary files such as MP3’s or AVI’s etc, Ashampoo will have a hard time scanning these files quickly and efficiently.  Ashampoo also has problems with large files such as ISO’s or compressed archives.

    I am personally confused with the discrepancies between scan times.  Is it that Ashampoo isn’t checking the initial files sufficiently?  I ran a virus test to see how Ashampoo works.  I utilized the EICAR test virus.  Interestingly, upon downloading the test virus file, I wasn’t even altered to the download of a virus.  Ashampoo claims that its software has a “network protection” resident shield that detects viruses.  Unfortunately, the supposed network protection did not live up to its advertised functionality.  Even though Ashampoo doesn’t have hard drive write access scanning enabled, most mainstream free antivirus do not also.  However, every free antivirus tested on this website with a resident shield was able to detect the EICAR test virus.  In fact, all antivirus vendors are motivated to detect the EICAR virus because it’s a very easy way to confirm the effectiveness of any antivirus.  In fairness to Ashampoo Anti-Malware 1.02, the software was able to detect the EICAR virus when it was opened and when it was put into the Windows System directory.
    Ashampoo offers a variety of different scans.  There are the “full system scan”, “Scan only system areas”, “registry scan”, “scan browser cookies” (doesn’t seem to be a necessary scan) etc.   The fact is Ashampoo offers scanning options customized for each situation.
    I don’t really understand why the “Signature update” and the “Search for Update” are different buttons.  I always thought that they should be combined into one option.  A user could inadvertently update the  signatures while not updating the core program.

Interface:

    The Ashampoo Antimalware interface is lacking.  It simply does not have the refinement of other popular antivirus suites.  The menus look outdated and the explanations of the tools will confuse a novice user.  I also ran into problems when I wanted to open a certain security tool.  If one of the tools was already open, it wouldn’t allow an additional window to be open.  There is no warning message that there is already an open window etc.; the tool simply won’t open.

Resource Usage:

    Ashampoo’s resource usage is different from the standard free antivirus.  Most software only uses a lot of memory when the virus scan is actually in progress.  However, Ashampoo uses a lot of memory upfront and only increases it’s memory footprint slightly after a scan is started.  The application uses about 162 megabytes when idle and about 165 megabytes when performing a scan.  This type of memory usage could create problems for users with not a lot of available memory available because Ashampoo is always utilizing a significant amount of memory regardless of operation. 
    Ashampoo’s CPU usage was pretty efficient but not outstanding.  During a virus scan, the software would use about 40 to 60% CPU power.

Features:

    Ashampoo includes a lot more features than most free antivirus.  This is definitely where the software shines and shows it’s antispyware roots.  However, there are not really a lot of standout features from most freeware antispyware versions.

    Host File Checker and Protection.  The host file is a text file that determines exceptions for DNS lookups.  It is used for local servers so that they can be accessible inside a network while still typing in the domain.  Often viruses will attempt to modify the host file so that “google.com” will point to a malware site.  In a default Windows installation, there will be no indication if a modification is made.  Therefore, Ashampoo includes host file checking that will detect modifications.  There is also a great viewer for the host file if a user doesn’t understand the entries.  The viewer will explain each of the host file entries and make recommendations.

    Rootkit Detector.  The rootkit detector is another important feature that is included in Ashampoo Antimalware.  Some free antivirus such as AVG etc do not include Root kit detection and this is alarming because rootkits have become a more prolific threat.  Rootkits are often used in the latest viruses and Trojans.  Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of scan customization options.

    LSP Viewer.  A user can view all of the components of the TCP stack or essentially the files that allow a user to connect to the internet.  Malware often try to infect this area with a modified TCP stack entry for devious ends. 

    Ability to turn off scanning engines.  Ashampoo Anti-Malware 1.02  gives the user the option to disable either the Antivirus or Antispyware Engine.  Only a few other mainstream security suites offer this functionality.  This is helpful if a user already has a favorite antivirus or vice versa.

Conclusion:

    Ashampoo Antimalware is not a mature antivirus product and probably should not be relied upon.  A user should download the likes of AVG or something else to protect their PC.  On the other hand, if a user needs good antispyware protection then Ashampoo should be utilized to clean up a nasty spyware infection.  The Ashampoo company lists 3 people as responsible for creating the software.  How can a software product such as Ashampoo compete with the likes of Symantec with 1000’s of employees ensuring the latest protection against viruses?

• Download Ashampoo Antimalware free here.