EMCO Malware Destroyer is a free antivirus that is frequently updated and has a lot of antivirus signatures. In fact, as of 9/26/2010, the program has over 13707 virus definitions with protection against some of the most prolific worms and viruses.
I am personally very pleased with EMCO Malware Destroyer. It recently, came to my knowledge that my system was running slowly. I scanned with Norton Security Scan, E-Scan, Prevx, MalwareBytes, and ActiveScan which found only tracking cookies. However, for this review, I ran a scan with EMCO Malware Destroyer. To my surprise the program detected CHIR, LOOKED, INMOTA, and VTUB worms. I went to confirm the locations of the detected worms and they actually existed! While not fully intact this was quite alarming that mainstream free antivirus had missed what EMCO Malware Destroyer detected. I even cross referenced the detections with Google and could confirm that the worms were on my machine.
EMCO Malware Destroyer is contained in a 42 megabyte setup file that includes everything to run a scan. After installing the program, I tried to update it but was told it has the most recent signature version. Virus scanning is extremely fast. A full system scan only took about a minute and used about 17 megabytes and 12 percent CPU power. Malware Destroyer has very conservative resource usage when compared to its other free competitors.
EMCO Malware Destroyer has a few nice extras. One is that the program is equipped to scan remote computers on a network. Simply enter the networked name and scan. Next, the program has a WinSock/TCP stack fixer if a virus has affected ones internet and they cannot connect. I personally like how EMCO Malware Destroyer displays its virus encyclopedia right on the main page. It’s almost as if the company isn’t bashful about what viruses it can detect. Finally, the program comes with a nice settings and configuration area to set a number of things including registry locations to be scanned and even scanning for p2p software etc.
