IObit Security 360 Free — the review

Browsing today Yahoo Answers, I saw someone recommendation for the users to try IObit Security 360 as an advanced spyware and malware removal tool. Quickly I’ve done a Google search and I found the official site of the program http://www.iobit.com/, a site with a few interesting and useful freeware and commercial tools.

…removes the deepest infections, and protects your PC from various of potential spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers, bots, worms, and hijackers…

they say in the official site. Good, let’s try it then. I’ve downloaded 8.78MB and installed the application. The first impression was of a simple and intuitive interface, nothing to do with “advanced users” features found in other programs which sometimes helps but just confuses most of the users.

A set of indispensable tools is provided by the software creators :

• Hijack Scan supply the details and manipulate every process running in the computer, can locate the file associated with the process, modules loaded by the process (DLLs);
• Security Holes scan the computer for vulnerabilities especially missing Windows hotfixes;
• Passive Defense it’s kind of “immunisation” of  Internet Explorer, preventing the installation of Active-X based spyware, adware, browser hijackers. Website protection block the malicious known sites, while Cookie Protection blocks the tracking cookies in Internet Explorer. All these protections are based on a database with known malware or malicious sites;
• Privacy Sweeper erase the browsing history, cache files and Internet tracks for all major browsers;
• PC Tuneup send you to another free IObit software, Advanced SystemCare, a one-click maintenance for your PC capable to protect, repair, clean, and optimize your machine.

There is also a little utility able to unlock and delete the locked files and another one which generate a portable version of your IObit Security 360 program.

Two Real-Time protection approaches are available and can be turned Off or On :

• Automatic Protection against known malware;
• Advanced Protection against unknown malware;

and 3 ways of scanning :

• Smart Scan;
• Full Scan;
• Custom Scan;

I’ve tried the Smart Scan, a scan model for critical areas of the operating system, however the scanning speed was not so great. After aproximately 8 minutes of scanning, the program was able to find as threats 12 tracking cookies.

OK, time for “real life” tests. I have a program, a Remote Administation Tool publicly available for download on the Internet, which with certain settings has a trojan behaviour and it is detected by the most antiviruses software as a trojan. I run the so called trojan “infecting” the system and expecting an effervescent reaction from IObit Security 360 but nothing, this anti-malware program lamentably failed to detect it, even with DOG (Digital Original Gene), a novel heuristic malware detection method set ON, with Real-Time protection ON, Anti-Malware ON and with virus signatures database up to date.

The conclusion is : don’t rely on this software for preventing or removing the computer viruses, it’s a nice software with nice little “gadgets”-utilities for your computer but flagged by a big inefficiency at malware removal. It can be used for different small tasks as cookies removal or browsing history cleaning but nothing is more false than what they state in the official site :

“Keep your PC 100% safe and secure from various Trojan and malware.”

Good luck and keep safe !