There’s one antivirus most folks are not using, and probably should. It’s called SmadAV AntiVirus, and it is not designed to be the core protection of your Windows PC, but a secondary for when all else fails. I was introduced to SmadAV years ago by my former web design teacher. This was due to an infection that took hold of my laptop, an infection that came from the school’s computers. It didn’t take long for several persons in the class to fall victim to this infection.
SmadAV antivirus for USB
What’s the name of the infection? Can’t say, but I do know it affected several folders. These folders had important work situated inside, so imagine the fury when we found out the folders were unusable.
The first order of the day was to try and fix the issue with our free anti-virus programs, and guess what? None of them managed to get the job done. This was when our teacher introduced us to SmadAV, and right out of the block, this little thing began to work wonders.
Not only is it good at trapping and killing some weird malware, but it is also useful for scanning USB thumb drives. In fact, this might be considered as one of SmadAV’s main strong points. It can be used for offline scans.
How to use SmadAV:
First, you need to visit the official website to download SmadAV. Now, the language on the website is Indonesian but worry not; the download link is on the right sidebar so you can’t miss it.
Once downloaded and installed, you should come up with something that looks like the image above.
The user interface is definitely not the best, and although it has seen some changes over the years, it is still not up to par with the best free antivirus software, but it works, and that’s good enough for me.
On the left-side, users should see five options. From here folks can get to where they need to scan the whole system, to disable or enable real-time protection among other things.
The Pro tab shows the difference between the Pro version of SmadAV and the free version. Look carefully, and you’ll notice the inability to maximize or resize the window. This can only be done if you purchase the Pro version of the software.
Scanning speed:
SmadAV is not a core anti-virus software, so it shouldn’t take long for it to blaze through your files. For us, it ran through over 300,000 files pretty quickly but maybe a little slower on older computers.
We also like the fact that not only does Smadav scan for viruses and malware, but it checks for bad or corrupt registry files. Yes, this thing will clean your registry in similar ways to CCleaner or UPCleaner, pretty awesome, right? We should also state that since this is the free version, users are required to manually check for updates. We wouldn’t recommend the Pro version unless you’re too lazy to update the virus chest manually.
Overall, Smadav is good enough for what it can do. Bear in mind that it should never be used as a core anti-virus software, but something that can work alongside any antivirus software. Good to have as a second opinion anti-malware scanner!
It is available for download here at www.smadav.net.
Is SmadAV an anti-virus?
Yes, SmadAV is an antivirus compatible with Windows 11, Windows 10, and some other older versions of Windows. Not only antivirus, but also it is a system cleaner tool that you can use to protect your computer from top to bottom. Whether you need to get rid of junk files, temporary files, or malware, you can make use of this application.
Is SmadAV good for Windows 11/10?
If you already use Windows Security, you might not need another tool. However, SmadAV is pretty good and works well on Windows 11 as well as Windows 10 computers. Therefore, if you need an all-in-one application to protect your system or add an additional layer of security, you can head to the SmadAV.
Hope it helped.
it looks like its free version isn’t good on things that simple like editing exception list or autoupdate
I think it’s stupid to recommend against people buying the pro version when you’re endorsing their product as a good tool.
Developers need support to make it realistic for them to keep working on products we love.
You should ALWAYS buy pro versions, or donate to developers who make great products.
I totally disagree with buying pro versions of less useful tools, or tools that don’t live up to their claims. But if a developer has satisfied you, make sure you support them.
I downloaded and am scanning with it right now and it certainly comes up with ALOT of false positives, it is fingering Rainmeter files a viruses. I also use Crypto Prevent by Foolish IT and it fingers it as a virus too….. lol.
If your gonna use this, be careful, otherwise you may wind up cleaning something that is totally safe and you need. It is about half way through scanning my system and has fingered 8 files ….. none of which are malicious malware or viruses by ANY means.
Well, finished scanning, tried to select safe files to be added as exceptions and that’s where you get nailed with the “Buy the Pro version” nag screen.
I can’t even select files and mark them as safe exceptions? I’ve got no use for this. I’ll keep it on a usb drive but I doubt I’ll ever have any use for it.
“Smadav is good enough…”
I don’t know about you guys, but when it comes to virus protection, I’m not sure “good enough” is good enough.
Absolute and utter JUNK….
I agree. You get what you pay for. I understand not recommending a paid retail third-party program, but it is also not a good idea to recommend using dual AV/IS programs. It doesn’t work! They cancel each other out.
Don’t take this out of context though as a really good paid AV/IS teamed with a
Malware/Spyware remover (Malwarebytes AE & AM, ADW Cleaner, Spybot),
Software Updater/PSI (Personal Software Inspectors like PatchMyPC and Secunia PSI), and
Computer Management Cleaner (Crap Cleaner or UPCleaner).
Yes pro paid versions where available. And Yes System Resources. Most of the free versions above are reactive instead of proactive and depending on infection they wont load, install or even start.
But at the end of the day… even the free sh1t is better than nothing.
I will still stick to my current antivirus, ESET Antivirus. Its been proved and tested in my firm as I have been using it for a year now and without any problems at all.
Ive used this one before but sadly the version I downloaded is very limited. Good thing that my brother gave me a licensed ESET Antivirus. Up to now, I am still using ESET.
I have used Smadav antivirus but I think that its free trails version has very limited features and also slow down the system. One of my friend suggested me to try the premium Protegent antivirus software which works well even with a 512 mb RAM and doesn’t slow down the system. Till Date, I am using Protegent and it has been working very fine since then. Also I need to mention that the antivirus software comes with inbuilt data recovery software which is used to recover/restore accidental deleted files from your system.
Completely agree. Even if I can get the free version of different stuff. Media included, I go out of my way to buy to promote their business.
I agree with you for not install two or more antivirus on a singgle pc because it cause a horror situation for you, your friend, or somebody else. Actually Smadav can work “side by side” with your normal antivirus, because Smadav just a complementary anti virus/malware for usb drive, but yes, it can scan your pc too.
But it kills annoying USB shortcut virus, unlike others. Malwarebytes reported the shortcut virus as ‘safe’. But it should be used among Malwarebytes and other anti-virus software. I have triple-layered defense in my PC: Malwarebytes, 360 Total Security, and SmadAV.
Nope, ’cause it kills junk virus (shortcut virus and viruses that can be transferred via flash drives on an infected PC). Shortcut virus are SOOOO annoying… your files will become hidden and can be only acessed (on an infected PC, using the shortcut generated by the PC).
A quote from SmadAV’s website: “Smadav is an additional protection (second layer) antivirus, and specialize in protecting USB Flash-disk to avoid virus infection.”
This one indeed detail review and yes, whether one needs protection for a single device, a smart home, your small business, hybrid infrastructure or Enterprise data center, now best antivirus services have the product that delivers the best security, unparalleled performance and incredible ease of use. Multi-layer ransomware protection to keep files safe is just another achievement that big names have achieved. Most of the heavy scanning takes place in the cloud, so there is virtually zero impact on your local resources. This means your system’s speed and performance remain unaffected. So your files always remain completely private
Uhm, this is a fake antivirus. It just scans and says “you have virus on your computer”, then tells you to buy. Typical fake AntiVirus.