Zemana AntiMalware 3.0 Premium Review | Super-Affordable Anti Malware

Let’s cut to the chase here: Zemana AntiMalware 3.0 Premium may only cost $25 a year, but it’s also lacking must-have items like a Virtual Private Network (VPN), firewall or apps for phones and tablets. Rather, it relies heavily on the cloud for analysis and updating.

Zemana is a Turkey-based company famous for its product Zemana AntiMalware. This software is the additional cloud scanner intended for recovery of the computer after infection with malware. Instead of relying on the only antivirus, Zemana AntiMalware provides another option utilizing several professional antivirus software.

Additional cloud technology does not slow down the operation of the computer during scanning. Zemana can detect viruses better than most antivirus tools. And the best thing is that doing all this job Zemana doesn’t impact the performance of the system.

Zemana AntiMalware comes in two options – Free and Premium. The Free version offers users a lightweight tool that will scan your device for malware on demand. Also, it can detect potentially unwanted programs to help users declutter their computers and improve the efficiency of the system.

If you need more from the antivirus software, the Premium version might be just the right fit for your requirements. It shows great results in detecting zero-day threats and ransomware. Also, this software will protect your computer in real-time mode. So overall, Zemana AntiMalware Premium is a great tool, especially considering its low price.

However, with this antivirus provider, you won’t get other features than protection. Also, it won’t protect you from spam and phishing. Therefore, the best way to use it is to add Zemana to another antivirus software you’re already using as a second security layer. Since this tool doesn’t conflict with others, you won’t experience any compatibility issues.

The Free version should definitely be considered as a supporting antivirus tool that can’t be used as a standalone protection measure.

As soon as a threat is identified, the company’s cloud lab springs into action to tear a sample apart, figure out a way to neutralize it, and then distribute a fix to all its users. It’s ironic that with its heavy emphasis on the Web, AntiMalware lacks an online account. Others provide this to track the health of all your systems and distribute software to new systems.

The Free version is basic in the extreme and lacks background scanning. The only upgrade is the paid Premium version, which adds real-time protection with the company’s Neural engine. Lean and light, AntiMalware tries to deliver top-notch protection without slowing the system down too much.

With that said, we put this antivirus program through the paces and tested its performance, so read on to see our full thoughts.

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Type of Protection: Machine Learning 

AntiMalware 3.0 relies on next-generation protection that goes beyond traditional scanning. Based on machine learning, its ability to find new malware should improve as time goes on and it gains more experience with the multitude of threat vectors in use.

One of the key advantages Zemana AntiMalware 3.0 Premium has over its competition is the involvement of machine learning in its code. This allows it to learn new ways of detecting the most recent threats. Over time, this ability should improve, allowing it to become even more efficient from scan to scan.

Designed to stop everything from a slew of known viruses to the latest ransomware attack, AntiMalware is at its best when confronted by a new threat. Others will let it pass because it doesn’t resemble anything seen in the past, but AntiMalware has a good chance of identifying and stopping it based on how it attacks your computer.

Unlike others in its class, AntiMalware is minimalist and lacks several important modern defenses. They range from a firewall to block unauthorized access and browser extensions that warn of dangerous sites to a dedicated defense against the hijacking of a webcam or microphone. There are no parental controls to limit a child’s screen time and keep his or her eyes away from objectionable material.

Thanks to this, Zemana’s service doesn’t have to rely on the existing database of known threats. Rather, it learns how to detect new threats and report them. Compared to that, other malware software would allow the potential hazard to sneak in easily. Reason being that they haven’t seen that exact type of threat before and can’t recognize it for what it is.

Scan Locations: Simple Scans

AntiMalware 3.0 Premium might not have many of the latest features, but it does make scanning individual files for rogue elements easy. The app has a Scan button upfront and lets you check on any file by right-clicking on it in Windows Explorer and selecting Scan with Zemana AntiMalware.

A great thing about Zemana is that it allows you to scan individual files super-easy. By integrating into the Windows’ system shell, the file scanning option is available directly from the right-click menu.

As stated, Zemana lacks in the full system scan department. But its Smart Scan is comparable to a quick scan option readily available in other anti-malware and anti-virus software. Unfortunately, this prevents you from automatically checking each and every file on your system in a single scanning session.

When it comes to scanning, forget about quick- and full-scans. There’s only one choice here: Zemana’s Smart Scan. It’s on a par with the quick scan options of others. In other words, there’s no way to check every single file of the system.

Another downside to Zemana’s Smart Scan is the lack of scheduling options. This implies you won’t be able to tell Zemana to wake up your computer and scan it while you’re not using it. You can also forget about scheduling scans to run when the computer isn’t being used. That’s because AntiMalware lacks the ability to schedule scans.

Types of Malware: Next-Gen Defenses

Because Zemana AntiMalware relies heavily on the cloud for protection, it is not limited to dealing with traditional attacks, such as trojans, ransomware, rootkits, worms, and others. In other words, it has been designed to quickly react to new threats.

As it sources the threats database direct from the cloud in real-time, Zemana can react immediately. When dealing with new threats, Zemana doesn’t only rely on the existing threat definitions, but looks for any piece of suspicious code that could possibly threaten your computer’s security.

This allows it to stay ahead of the game when dealing with trojans, worms, rootkits, phishing attempts, adware, as well as many other threats lurking online. Whenever there’s attempt to install something to your computer, Zemana also checks whether it’s a Potentially Unwanted App (PUA) or not.

The product’s real-time scanner uses behavioral monitoring to keep an eye out for rogue code attempting to break your system’s defenses. It can block adware, phishing attempts, and fraudulent websites. The system stops the installation of Potentially Unwanted Apps (PUAs).

Zemana AntiMalware 3.0 Ease of Use: Simple and Limited

Using AntiMalware can be like a breath of fresh air compared to the competition. To start, the Home screen can run as any size window on the desktop or full screen; others don’t allow full-screen operation.

About as simple as it gets, the main screen has a large green checkmark up front to show that everything is protected. Below, the app’s major protective tasks are in your face and ready to help. In addition to Realtime Protection and Browser Cleanup, there are links for how much time is left on your license and a link to the support staff at Zemana. On the left is a column of major defensive categories, like Quarantine (for captured malware), Safelist (for marking items as safe), and Reports (a list of recent activities). Safelist might be marked as Whitelist, although that is an outdated term.

When looking at the interface, the most noticeable thing is the system’s health check icon. In the menu to the left there are the usual options, such as quarantine, whitelist, and reports. As the name suggests, quarantine isolates any potential threats your computer might come into contact with. By whitelisting some of them, you can indicate which of these you actually want to run on your machine.

Another great thing about Zemana AntiMalware 3.0 Premium is the clean and simple interface. True, it lacks in options others might have. But unlike others, it allows you to customize the app’s window size. By manually resizing the window or even maximizing the app across the entire screen, you’re able to set it up exactly to your needs.

The Settings section provides some customization of the program. It includes things such as Scan details, the current version of the software, and the ability to check for new software. Its Tasktray icon is rudimentary at best with the ability to see the software version and open the main program.

Missing are things such as setting different scan intensities, a slider control to adjust the program’s defensive posture, and something as simple as a full scan option.

Installation: Quick Work

Zemana AntiMalware 3.0 is simple and quick to install. After getting the 12.1MB installer file from the company’s website, the program automatically loads the Free version. If you have an activation code from purchasing the full version, you’ll need to enter it in the upper right corner of the main screen where it says Activate. It took only four minutes to install and start protecting a new computer.

While it was quick and easy, there’s a major limitation. Most of the competition have online accounts and portals for not only monitoring the security of systems but often allow the e-mailing of the links to the needed security software to install it on a new system. Zemana lacks this.

Update Frequency: Cloud Updates

The big benefit of having AntiMalware’s intelligence in the cloud is that it can react quickly to a new threat or vector. Once a new attack is defined, Zemana sends out an update to its program. The updates are automatic and are invisible to the user. On the downside, it lacks the ability that Avira Prime has to update key apps as well as its own program.

Performance: Quick Full Scans

Zemana AntiMalware is unique in the antivirus world by lacking the differentiation between a full and quick scan. Its Smart Scan took 1 minute and 14 seconds to plow through a two-year-old Asus P2520L with a Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, which had 119GB of files.

That’s much shorter than the competition but it only looked at 1,950 files, leaving the vast majority of the system’s files unscanned and vulnerable to attack. Other malware programs examine upwards of 1 million files in each scan of rogue code.

While scanning the system remained usable. There were no slow-downs, freezes, or problems.

Additional Tools: Browser Cleanup & Keylogging Protection

While the competition loads their security suites down with everything from performance optimizers and password managers to VPNs and firewalls, Zemana keeps it simple with just one included add-on. The Premium version adds a Browser Cleanup feature that can not only keep your Web journeys clean but sites from adding extensions, adware, and unwanted toolbars.

The one additional Zemana tool is its AntiLogger program, which can foil a keylogger program that’s out to steal your log-in passwords. The good news is that it includes a lightweight scanner, real-time protection and costs $34.95 a year or $69.95 for three years. The bad news is that you can’t use AntiMalware and AntiLogger at once.

Type of Support: Day-Night Help

While the AntiMalware Free edition comes without personal support, the paid Premium version adds support options. The company has staff standing by 24/7 to answer your questions. All you need to do is start a support ticket by describing the problem or question. Feel free to send them an e-mail or log into the support forum, but Zemana lacks phone support.

Over a week we sent them five questions about the product and how to use it. Only four were answered five days later. Most of the replies came the next morning but one arrived in a matter of minutes. The answers were authoritative and helpful.

On the other hand, compared to its competitors, Zemana’s support section is disappointing at best. Its forum has only eight current items, two of which were months-old and never answered. There’s also a small list of FAQ questions, but not much more. There are no videos to help with installation and getting the most out of the program and many of the examples the company uses to explain the product are from the program’s previous generation and just different enough from the current software to confuse.

Price: Cheap to Keep

If all this sounds like it’s the right amount of protection at the right price, Zemana has two versions of AntiMalware 3.0. The Free version has a simple scanner that can block the most popular and dangerous threats but not much more.

For $25 a year, the paid version of AntiMalware 3.0 Premium adds a real-time scanner, ransomware protection, and Browser Cleanup. If you have five systems, the price of protection is $70.95 but Zemana doesn’t offer any unlimited plans for those with large digital families. There’s a 30-day money-back satisfaction guarantee.