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A-Squared tries to pull a quick one

RubbeR DuckY

By RubbeR DuckY
in Malwarebytes News

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RubbeR DuckY

RubbeR DuckY

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Apparently A-Squared is trying to unhook us from the US market because they see us as a threat. A representative of A-Squared sent this to tons of helpers on forums requesting that they drop us as a tool and use A-Squared instead. A-Squared should be ashamed! Thank you to the many people that alerted us!

I started working with A-Squared (Emsisoft) a few weeks ago to try to boost their presence in the US market.

A-Squared and Malwarebytes are both small companies with the same business model. That makes us competitors, which is a good thing-- it drives improvement. Both companies release scan-on-demand software, with the hope that people will upgrade to, in our case, a multi-faceted, top-quality paid version.

Since I frequent the windows fixit forums like this one in my line of work (home and SOHO tech support), 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. Then when virus-stricken folks google on their problem, it leads them to many posts with mbam recommendations from expert advisors. That's different than in Germany, A-Squared's biggest market, where people pay more astute attention to head-on-head anti-virus detection rates and then make their choice. A-Squared creams all the competition in that respect, when they are included in reviews (look at the website for particulars). Unfortunately in the US market, who gets reviewed is a matter of money and influence. And most people here probably don't pay as much attention to detection rates, anyway. They often just used what's preloaded on their computer, until it fails them. Then they find you and mbam.

As very technically sharp developers who believe in the "if you build it, they wil come" philosophy, it has puzzled our people that the US market doesn't see a-squared's technical advancement, and has so readily embraced Malwarebyte (which they see as a less capable product).

Let me be frank. A-Squared is not a marketing-driven company. That's a problem. 95% off the staff are developers, who don't believe in designing what they think of as "fluff" into the product. E.g. Norton 360's hold-them-by-the-hand approach. I have tried to make the case that this very market in the US of casual to intermediate users is the place where growth will take place, and that the company needs to ask people what they want, and then develop product. My advocacy of this market-driven approach has been listened to but not well-received yet.

In the same spirit of frankness, A-Squared is a very good product. The developers are baffled by mbam's rise because of the weaknesses they see in the competitor:: a small data base of virus signatures vs. 3+ million, once-per-day updates vs. several times in a 24 hour period, no behavioral analysis module in the paid version, too much "schmoozing" (in their tech-centered opinions), not enough development horsepower, and I could go on. Just today, the ceo of Emsisoft sent me the following:

"We found that mbam uses a filename whitelist to

exclude some good programs from detection (their type of false positive filtering). This is completely crazy, because all you have to do is rename a malware file to one of those 'safe' names and mbam will not detect it anymore. Some of them are:

taskswitch.exe

igfxpers.exe

TDSSmabm.dll

_gotomypc.exe

gotomypc.exe_

ASCIIcatUninst.EXE

FahCore_78.exe

and many more..

This clearly proves to me that the mbam designers are not only just pandering to the online community, they are also just beginners in software development who make

people believe that they're experts." Wow! Pretty scathingly delivered, if you ask me. I think a little humility and pandering is in order. What do people need? Then the product can stand on its own.

To be completely transparent with you, A-Squared does not need to focus on Malwarebytes, except to gain clues to establishing wider usage for our own product, which can then stand on its own, and whose marketing in the US has been flat ignored. I believe I need to talk with techs like you about your nearly exclusive recommendation of mbam on the forums and see if A-Squared's very positive capabilities can get something like equal time here to allow the competition to sort things out.

So, I'm asking you and your very esteemed colleagues (I admired your dedication, ever since my first encounter with Rollin' Rog): would you please occasionally use A-Squared as an alternative to mbam and get a feel for yourself as to it's excellent detection and removal capabilities? It won't be hard to work with the log files. I believe that if you do this, you will find it stands above mbam in its detection rates and usefulness. If there is something you don't like about it, we will be very thankful to get feedback from people of your caliber and make adjustments.

Healthy competition is good, and this is not a static market. Give it a try will you? I'll be very interested in your results and am in a position to pass feedback directly to the ceo in Austria and our virtual team of developers around the world.

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RubbeR DuckY

RubbeR DuckY

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A few people have asked if our whitelist is comprised of filenames only. Our whitelist is comprised of multiple counterparts. Renaming a file to a 'safe' name will not work. If our whitelist is bypassed, we simply edit it. To our knowledge, there is no malware that bypasses our whitelist at this time.

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exile360

exile360

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Wow, first they detected MBAM's files BY NAME (supposedly an FP) and now this.

I don't recommend it for 1 simple reason: False Positives. I'm not a seasoned veteran like many of those here, but I know how to do a bit of googling to determin if a file is actually an infection or not. There are plenty of other advantages to using MBAM vs ASquared, but for me that's the biggest. Sure, MBAM has FP's sometimes, but I see them get fixed within hours, often just MINUTES. That's a huge difference.

As for why I recommend and use MBAM, that's an easy one: It works where nearly every other tool and software on the market free or paid has failed. If A2 starts making a product better than MBAM I'll certainly make the switch, but it'll take a lot more than the results of their so called tests to convince me.

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AndyAtHull

AndyAtHull

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I'll comment more than just "Ooops". It feels empty.

Regardless of what individual recommends or not, its not for the company behind A-Squared (or any company for that matter) to enforce or influance what ppl prefer to run/recommend. Their application itself should be that influance

And this example just shows how MBAM and the company behind it are moving up in the community againts other apps who have been out there for years. The fact tactics like this are being performed is in the same context sometimes as the likes of Enigma and others have used.

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Beenthere

Beenthere

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All I know is, a-squared once broke my bs player cuz it supposedly contained adware... but that version of bs player was clear as a tear because it was old.. the adware in bs player started many versions after the one I had.

For this move :thumbs down:

p.s. how come you dont have a thumbs down smiley?!?!?!

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Prm753

Prm753

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You know, I think the thing that irritates me the most about this posting is the line which purports the developers of Malwarebytes to be "just beginners in software development who make people believe that they're experts."

I would hardly call at least five (if not more) years of programming experience by Marcin a beginning level. Having seen some of Malwarebytes older projects in source code form, I can tell you as a (not particularly skilled) application developer myself that he does not write beginning code. I know good code when I see it.

This is bad marketing by A-Squared, and shows that they are genuinely terrified of Malwarebytes wiping out their sales in the United States.

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Spud

Spud

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Well I can't say I have heard of A-Squared but Malwarebytes has always been very prominent in my surfing and forum use, besides I trust it and believe I get excellent software for free. Now I see these people saying they are beginners! Well, that will really encourage me to try their software or even visit their site NOT.

Keep up the great work guys, you have one very appreciative user here who knows which side his bread is buttered. :)

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mountaintree16

mountaintree16

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I've never even heard of them before. :/

They should be ashamed!

Eck.

I must ask though, what are they talking about here? I don't completely get it. :

In the same spirit of frankness, A-Squared is a very good product. The developers are baffled by mbam's rise because of the weaknesses they see in the competitor:: a small data base of virus signatures vs. 3+ million, once-per-day updates vs. several times in a 24 hour period, no behavioral analysis module in the paid version, too much "schmoozing" (in their tech-centered opinions), not enough development horsepower, and I could go on. Just today, the ceo of Emsisoft sent me the following:

"We found that mbam uses a filename whitelist to

exclude some good programs from detection (their type of false positive filtering). This is completely crazy, because all you have to do is rename a malware file to one of those 'safe' names and mbam will not detect it anymore. Some of them are:

taskswitch.exe

igfxpers.exe

TDSSmabm.dll

_gotomypc.exe

gotomypc.exe_

ASCIIcatUninst.EXE

FahCore_78.exe

and many more..

Apparently A-Squared is trying to unhook us from the US market because they see us as a threat. A representative of A-Squared sent this to tons of helpers on forums requesting that they drop us as a tool and use A-Squared instead. A-Squared should be ashamed! Thank you to the many people that alerted us!
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TeMerc

TeMerc

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Thoes guys should be ashamed.

I hope someone outs this and makes them look bad.

Pathetic.

I don't know why, but I was thinking this was in our 'back rooms'. Good, so then it's out and also being discussed other places I'm sure.
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YoKenny1

YoKenny1

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I gave up on a-squared ages ago

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/article2/0,2817,2334423,00.asp
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TeMerc

TeMerc

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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. :angry:

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