Antivirus and antispyware protection

We started the antivirus and antispyware tests by checking whether Emsisoft Anti-Malware can protect you when surfing the internet in your favorite web browser. This security product chooses to protect you by filtering all the network traffic that goes through your PC. We used the most popular web browsers today - Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Opera - to try to load some bad websites. Unfortunately, Emsisoft Anti-Malware did not manage to block our access to those dangerous websites. We were able to visit most of the phishing websites we tried to load. In many cases, the Windows Defender SmartScreen did a much better job at warning us about the dangers lying ahead.

Then, we wanted to see what Emsisoft Anti-Malware does when dealing with a removable drive containing malware files. We copied several malware samples on a USB memory stick, which we then plugged into our test computer. Emsisoft Anti-Malware displayed a notification telling us that we do not have to do anything because it "protects external storage devices automatically." So we did nothing and just waited out for a while. However, as nothing seemed to happen, and because nothing new was written in the logs either, we decided to open the USB memory stick in File Explorer.

Emsisoft Anti-Malware was still quiet, even if we were looking at the infected files. So we tried to run one of the viruses on the memory stick. Only then did Emsisoft react and stopped us from running the malware. Emsisoft did not trigger an antivirus scan for the entire memory stick, and viruses were still there, so we felt compelled to run a manual antivirus scan ourselves. Only when it was ended could we be sure that the stick was clean. Unfortunately, the way Emsisoft deals with removable drives is far from ideal.

The final test we have performed was to install Windows 10 on the computer, infect it with many nasty viruses and some ransomware, and then ask Emsisoft Anti-Malware to clean our mess. Fortunately, Emsisoft Anti-Malware had no issues in cleaning the malware that was roaming on our test laptop, and after a full system check, everything was good again.

One very important aspect in assessing the performance of an antivirus engine is how fast it is in scanning your files for malware. Emsisoft Anti-Malware needed 6 minutes on average to scan our 126 GB Windows 10 partition with roughly 35 GB of data on it. It is not a long time, but it is not the fastest we have seen either.

To get a second opinion, we also took a look at what other independent IT security organizations had to say about Emsisoft Anti-Malware:

• AV-Test awarded Emsisoft Anti-Malware with their top score of 6 points out of 6 for its Protection, 4.5 points out of 6 for Performance and 5 points out of 6 for Usability, in the tests they ran in 2016.

• AV-Comparatives awarded Emsisoft with their Advanced badge in the Performance test and with their top Advanced+ badge in the "Real World" Protection and Malware Removal tests.

• Virus Bulletin awarded Emsisoft Anti-Malware with their VB100 badge and measured a Proactive detection rate of 71.90% and a Reactive detection rate of 91.60%.

Emsisoft Anti-Malware offers an efficient antivirus module: it detected and removed all the samples we used in our tests, and scanning our test computer was reasonably fast. However, the way it handles removable drives is not great. Also, the fact that many of dangerous websites that we tried to visit were not blocked by the web shield is very bad.

Extra features

Emsisoft Anti-Malware does not include any additional tools like those you see in other similar security products. This company promises you "No bloat dual-scanner protection for your Windows PC." We have no issues with this approach, and we like the philosophy behind it. However, some users might expect an extra thing or two, like a Parental Controls module or a built-in VPN service for example. Or, maybe, at least a firewall module?

Default settings you might want to adjust

Emsisoft Anti-Malware is a security product that is well configured by default. However, there are a few things you could adjust:

• If you do not want to see some of the notifications displayed by Emsisoft Anti-Malware, like those about news or software updates, you can disable them in "Settings -> Notifications."

• Emsisoft Anti-Malware has a scheduled scan configured by default, but it is not enabled. We recommend that you enable it and let it run weekly to get a higher level of security. You can schedule scans if you follow this path: "Scan -> Scheduled Scans -> Custom Scan."

Emsisoft Anti-Malware is a security product that is well configured and, as you have seen, there are just a few things we can recommend you to change the way it works.

What is your opinion about Emsisoft Anti-Malware?

Emsisoft Anti-Malware is an anti-malware product that vowed to keep things simple and not to bundle any bloatware. The antivirus module works well and does not affect your computer's speed. We like that, but considering the poor web shield, the absence of a firewall module, and the lack of any additional tools, we feel that maybe Emsisoft Anti-Malware is not worth the price it asks. What do you think? Would you buy it, or would you rather keep on looking for alternatives?