Gridinsoft Anti-malware Review 2023 — Is It Good Enough?

I’ve got my hands on Gridinsoft Anti-Malware – a reasonably promoted personal security program that appears quite effective. Developers trade-off add-on features to provide less resource consumption and an overall decrease in program size. However, the key functionality of any anti-malware program – detection and malware removal – is well done.

Among other software, Gridinsoft company offers its flagship product – Gridinsoft Anti-Malware. It is a full-fledged anti-malware program that promises background and on-demand protection. Detection and removal of malware are complemented by features like quarantine, scan scheduling, and system repair. The program, though, is free of add-on services, like VPN¹ and cloud storages, but it is beneficial for the program’s price tag. My overall opinion of the program is pretty good: It effectively protects your system in both modes, even from the most recent malware samples, and allows some fine-tuning of your experience.

Compatibility

Here, Gridinsoft Anti-Malware has something to boast about. It supports all Windows versions from Windows XP to Windows 11 – an impressive range. Hardware requirements are pretty low – it asks for the SSE2-compatible CPU (Pentium 4/Athlon 64), 2 GB RAM, and just over 100 MB of free space, Another requirement that is not specified to me is the stable Internet connection – though it is non-mandatory. The program uses cloud databases, so connecting to the Internet will improve the results. But overall, it is imposing and looks like a claim for being a security tool for obsolete systems.

Such low requirements continue after the launch as well. The program is not resource-hungry at all and can easily coexist with other antivirus and anti-malware programs. At least they were never conflicting on my path. Sparing resource consumption is also great for systems with HDD, which are distinctive by speed. However, as with any other antivirus, the program will use a lot of your CPU time and disk speed during the scan. It is inevitable, as otherwise, the scan may take much longer.

Interface

The first place where users begin their acquaintance with the program is an interface. In Gridinsoft Anti-Malware, things are made pretty simple. Scanning options – the main thing for any security tool – are located exactly on the main screen. On top of the window is a bar that guides through all other program elements. Below the scanning options are four functional buttons that allow the user to quickly switch scanning and update behavior and notifications from the program. You cannot disable database updates by having the notifications disabled – a pretty strange behavior.

In some places, the interface looks a bit overwhelming, especially for people who are not familiar with typical anti-malware functionality. I’ve encountered such clutter in the Tools menu and the settings section responsible for scheduled scans. Still, most of them are explained, which eases overall understanding. To the main screen’s right is a summary of the program’s protection results.

Functionality

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware offers a basic functionality for a modern anti-malware program. It has a row of options for on-demand scanning and some for proactive system protection. Scans differ by the places they check and the time needed to accomplish them. Clicking the Custom scan option, however, calls for a window where you should specify which folder or archive you want the program to check.

Scanning Options in Gridinsoft Anti-Malware

Three scanning options in this program appear to have a pretty distinctive difference, though I’d like to show you my observations on how they work. Quick scan is, obviously, the fastest one because it checks only the most common places where malware can be. Standard scan is a balanced solution applied to an entire system disk but will not touch all other disks. Full scan, on the other hand, scans all the disks present in the system. Depending on the size of disks other than C:\, it may elapse gradually more time than a Standard scan.

Speed of scanning generally depends on disk and processor speed. RAM is not a definitive factor there, though the program uses around 500-600 MB of it during the scans. The developers do not uncover how it detects threats, though some signature names are self-explanatory.

Proactive Protection

Settings for proactive protection, coined On-Run Protection in the Gridinsoft program hide in the Protect tab. It is enabled by default, but there are two other options you need to enable manually. Those are Internet Security and Removable Device Protection. The former is a network monitor that weeds out suspicious sites. Meanwhile, removable device protection forces the program to scan any device connected via a USB interface.

The very concept of proactive protection supposes that it runs in the background and watches all processes running in your system. This is supposed to take a bit of CPU time, which may rise at the moments when you try to launch something. Gridinsoft program also performs access control: as soon as either the user or a program tries to access a certain directory, Anti-Malware will check it for malicious items. Aside from the analysis of program activity, this proactive monitoring also slowly checks all the files in the system – as far as I can tell by the information it shows.

Protection Testing

What can prove the security tool’s effectiveness better than tests with modern malware samples? I’ve collected the pack of new threats for the last couple of days and gave it a try. There were droppers, spyware, ransomware and backdoors.

All the samples are dated 19/05 – the same day as I did the tests. Using such fresh malware packages is an excellent way to understand the frequency and quality of database updates. The ability to promptly respond to new threats is invaluable when it comes to protecting against modern malware. Additionally, it is useful to show the program’s capacity to detect and neutralize threats using a heuristic engine. We will also evaluate this aspect. The resulting archive contains 816 samples.

On-demand Scan Testing

First, I will initiate a custom scan. It doesn’t differ from a regular scan regarding methods, but you specify one or several directories for the program to check. This scan is quite useful for inspecting uncertain archives.

Remember: all malware tests must be conducted in a specific environment, such as a virtual machine or a dedicated system. Dealing with malicious software is as dangerous as playing with fire. Therefore, taking precautions is never excessive.

As you can see, it detected all 816 samples. The scans took some time because the uncompressed size of this archive exceeds 700 megabytes. Let’s click “Clean Now” to eliminate everything and determine if the program can handle all this malicious content. But that was a passive detection system, which works when you call for an on-demand scan. What’s about proactive protection?

Proactive Protection Tests

While this system requires some computational power in the background, it compels the program to monitor every file and folder accessed by both users and running programs in the system. This enables dynamic detection of malware, even when static analysis falls short. However, proactive protection relies on heuristic detection, which means it may occasionally miss something or, conversely, flag an innocent file.

Now, let’s attempt to open the folder that duplicates the one we scanned with a custom scan. The program immediately began detecting all the threats. It took approximately 2.5 minutes and detected all 816 files as well. You could have seen some missed files in the video above – it appears that these missing detections were corrected. By its nature, a behavioral analysis may encounter difficulties with static files. The fact that Gridinsoft Anti-Malware managed to catch almost all the malware using heuristics, even before we tried running it, is impressive.

It is futile to launch these samples, as the proactive scanning mechanism can detect the files even before they become active.

As you can see, most malicious files are effectively dealt with. I had no doubts about the effectiveness of Gridinsoft Anti-Malware, but the remarkably swift response to modern threats is truly astonishing.

After-scan Actions

Not all anti-malware software allows choosing what you would like to do with detected items. In Gridinsoft, there is the “Advanced mode” that activates a menu where you can select an appropriate action for each detected item. It may be either removal, quarantining, one-time, or even constant ignorance.

Though, when you have a ton of detections, it may be quite hard to understand what the detection means and take the appropriate action. There, I’ve seen another pleasant feature of this program: You can click the detection name to open the Gridinsoft Threat Encyclopedia page that tells you more about the detected item. It has a lot of interesting things to read even when you know the threat well enough.

One more thing – frankly unobvious – is the ability to send the information about the scan immediately to the support team. Clicking the “Let us know” button in the lower left corner calls for a ticket creation window. Though, it eases your life a lot – when you have a questionable detection, you can send a query to the support team even before taking action. It also saves time you can spend searching for the corresponding scan log.

Quarantine & Exclusions

The malicious files you could have seen in the video above are moved to quarantine by default. It is a special memory area, protected from any external intrusions, that is meant to keep questionable things. In Gridinsoft Anti-Malware, accessing the list of quarantined items is done through the Tools tab.

Quarantine in this program offers a pretty basic set of actions. You can either remove the detected file completely or recover it. There is also an option in Settings to remove all quarantined files after the timeout – 1 day, a week, 2 weeks, or a month. You can manage the items in quarantine manually, by clicking on the checkbox and choosing “Remove” or “Restore”.

The exclusions menu, named Ignore List in Gridinsoft Anti-Malware, is accessed from the same Tools tab and hides in the lower right corner of the program’s window. The set of functions there is pretty much the same as in the Quarantine, with the only difference being that you can add new items without the scan. However, contrary to some antiviruses, you can ignore the threat once or forever directly through the post-scan menu.

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware Updates

Update tab mostly says for itself. In my experience, the program receives database updates quite often – almost every hour. Though program updates happen around once a week, and require the program to restart. The Update Panel is quite simple to use, as it has only one button – Check now. Typically, updating the program takes several minutes to accomplish, though most of this time is for downloading. The program remains usable until the update is downloaded.

Additionally, the program will perform a database update before each scan. It may delay the scan a bit, but be sure, it is what you need to retain the program efficiency. The program also offers some fine-tuning of this area in Settings. You can specify whether you want to update the DBs before every scan (the default option), every hour, or every day. It is possible to disable updates completely, but I don’t think it will be a great decision – unless you are doing it for a clear purpose. Another option available in the program is downloading updates via proxy, though I did not test it.

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware Settings

The program cannot boast of a unique set of settings. Nonetheless, you can influence the scanning results using some of them. Setting heuristic rules to maximum will make the program much more sensible to the behavior patterns, but it may sometimes trigger false detections – that is an unavoidable flaw of any heuristic system.

Another useful option is the ability to set up scheduled scans. A few clicks will force the program to start at the specified day and time and perform the scan type you need. For ones who don’t want to rely entirely on proactive scanning, it may be a good choice.

Other settings, hidden under the General tab, allow to change the program launch and scanning behaviour. Depending on the parameters set, you can enable or disable starting the program with the system, and performing a chosen scan on the startup. Those are pretty trivial for pretty much any anti-malware software.

Languages

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware offers a pretty wide selection of interface languages. It is not the biggest one, and some translations contain errors or are simply not finished – as far as I was told by people from other countries who used this program as well. However, they also told me that the support team accepts any corrections to existing translations. On the other hand, the program can hot-switch languages, without the need to restart it – a pretty convenient option compared to other programs.

Gridinsoft Support

Probably, the most underrated thing about any anti-malware product is its tech support. See, problems may occur even with the most mastered programs. Gridinsoft Anti-Malware offers 24/7 support that may be called from both the application interface and member area. The response time of the support is pretty average – 30 min to 1 hour. I tried to send requests at different moments of the day, but there was not a lot of difference. Tests made by my colleagues showed the same result as well.

The Support team may ask you for different diagnostic information, depending on the problem you’re trying to solve. Log names mostly say for themselves, though Collect System Information is not obvious. As far as I understand from what I’ve seen in this log file, it contains all the information about the system, including running processes, registry keys, configuration files, and so forth. This data is invaluable when it comes to troubleshooting or locating the hidden threat.

Pricings

There are quite a few license options offered by Gridinsoft, sorted by two factors – license duration and the number of covered PCs. The company has fixed options regarding the number of PCs one license can protect – from 2 in Standard to up to 5 in Extended. Pricing, as you may expect, depends on these factors as well.

Program also has an option of 6-day free trial, which unlocks all the abilities of a program. Proactive protection (called On-Run Protection in the program’s interface) will be available only in the two first days of the test drive.

Conclusion

I’ve made enough tests and, actually, worked with this program for quite some time. It made a good impression, despite having some minor issues like an entangled interface. Some users also complain of poor support – well, I did not encounter such problems, despite having the same Standard license as most of the other users.

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware is a great choice for users who want to have reliable anti-malware protection without dozens of add-on functions. Affordable prices together with high efficiency and low resource consumption make it exceptionally versatile. For low-end or obsolete systems, it may be a go-to option, and for powerful systems, it will have even better performance.

Brendan Smith

IT Security Expert

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

When we talk about the intrusion of unfamiliar programs into your computer's work, the proverb "Forewarned is forearmed" describes the situation as accurately as possible. Gridinsoft Anti-Malware is exactly the tool that is always useful to have in your armory: fast, efficient, up-to-date. It is appropriate to use it as an emergency help at the slightest suspicion of infection.

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