SecureAPlus: A Free Cloud-Based Antivirus Program

In this post I will introduce SecureAPlus antivirus program that uses the power of twelve antivirus engines (Universal AV) to offer the best protection against the latest malware threats.

Quick Overview

SecureAPlus is a cloud-based antivirus program that uses your Internet connection to work properly. It sends data to twelve different antivirus engines including Avira, Bitdefender, ESET, McAfee and other popular engines. So you basically get the power of twelve antivirus software in one place. If twelve antivirus programs can’t catch it, then nothing can!

It also has an offline antivirus program that may protect you when you have no connection. However, it works best when it is connected to the Internet and can use the twelve engines. The best part is that it is created to work alongside other antivirus programs, so you can get double the protection without any conflicts.

Free or Paid?

All the features of SecureAPlus are included in the free version. The paid version (costing $2/mo) adds some convenience features, including Email alerts for detected threats, location tracking of a device, priority scanning (faster scan) and the ability to track the status of multiple PCs in one place.

For an average user the free version should be more than enough. However, the software is only free for the first year. After that you can either extend the free license using SecureAPlus points or upgrade to the premium version (paid). The SecureAPlus points can be earned by creating a SecureAPlus account and completing the few tasks there.

Downloading and Going Through the Initial Scan

Go to the SecureAPlus website and download the appropriate version of SecureAPlus. There are two versions:: Full Installer (194.4 MB) and Full Installer without Offline Antivirus (150.94 MB). The first one is perfect for users who want to use SecureAPlus as their main Antivirus program offering offline protection. But if you are planning to use another antivirus program for offline protection, then you can use the second installer.

When you launch SecureAPlus, you will be promoted to go through the “Initial Full System Scan. This is the most important part of SecureAPlus, and without the Initial Scan there is no point of using it. It might seem like a forced scan that you have to do (unlike other antiviruses), but you will be pleased to know that it is the only long full system scan that you will ever have to deal with.

In this initial scan SecureAPlus goes through your PC’s full system and creates a whitelist of all the applications, files and folders that are installed. After that this list will be scanned for any malware and viruses by Universal AV. This ensures your current system is free of malware, and SecureAPlus will only have to focus on newly-added programs/files.

For me, the initial scan took approximately two hours and was very light on the resources compared to Avast’s or Malwarebytes’ full system scan. The scan window has a slider button to adjust how much of the resources you want to allocate to the scan, perfect if you want to do something alongside. Furthermore, during the scan, SecureAPlus will still be protecting you against newly-added programs, and you can also launch the main app to play around with the interface while it is still scanning.

My Experience with the Full System Scan

Once the Initial Scan finishes, you can do a “Full System Scan” to scan the whitelist created by the Initial Scan with Universal AV. When I did a Full System Scan (took hardly 20-30 seconds), it found two malware and a few false positives. Both Malwarebytes’ and Avast’s (free versions) full system scan didn’t find these two malware, and Avast only detected them when I actually launched the malware’s executable file. Thanks to SecureAPlus, my system is safe from two types of malware that I didn’t even know about.

Additional Information and My Experiences

Below are some SecureAPlus features and a few of my experiences with SecureAPlus.

All future system scans will take just a few seconds or minutes thanks to the whitelist created by the Initial Scan.
All the scan types can be disabled from the SecureAPlus settings, such as offline scan or real-time scan.
You can add custom extension types to scan them as well if you think SecureAPlus is not scanning them.
From SecureAPlus Interface you can also scan an application with Virus Total if you need more confirmation.
It easily passed the EICAR (fake virus) test. It detected it as soon as I downloaded it and also when I launched the file.
If it prompts you that a file is harmful, it will keep blocking it until you take action. If you find a false positive, simply closing the prompt will not unblock it.
The interface is really simple with complete control over software behavior.

Conclusion

SecureAPlus can be a great addition to your current virus protection system. It should be kept in mind that it will only protect you from the latest malware threats, no additional features or protection is provided unlike some other antivirus programs. For example, Avast protects against network threats, malicious browser add-ons, vulnerable outdated software and a few other threats in addition to malware protection. I recommend you use SecureAPlus alongside another antivirus program and only use it for protection against malware in your PC.

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