Steganos Antivirus is a solid application to protect your PC from spyware. Users will appreciate the complete scan, the backup and quarantine and a regularly updated online database of all existing threats.

Completing a full scan with Steganos will take a good hour and half, but you can still run other applications at the same time without any slow down. The process window can be expanded to view what files Steganos has picked up and the status of the scan. It automatically scans new devices inserted in your PC and you can set it to ignore certain elements like archives or startup objects. Like in any antivirus application, you can set the level of protection and choose to scan particular objects. An eerily shrill noise alerts you whenever Steganos finds spyware, so we actually suggest unchecking it from the additional settings. It’s also very easy to schedule Steganos to scan your PC regularly for viruses. Once the scan is finished, Steganos will prompt you to action, whether by deleting the threat or keeping it in quarantine. If you come across spyware, it’s better to delete it straight away.

Steganos considerably slows down your PC at startup and you’ll need to wait a good 10 minutes before you can actually use your PC properly. This drawback is common with full security suites that include an antivirus, a firewall and a file scanner so it’s a bit disappointing to suffer this with a simple antivirus protection programme like Steganos. Despite this snag, we were favorably impressed with the application’s Real Time Protection function which will send a pop up alert everytime a pìece of adware or spyware is found or if an application is trying to break into your PC. For all the security zealots, Steganos even allows you to create a profile, setting details like what files to scan, where to send suspicious files or what level of protection you want for your PC.

One of the major strengths of the application is that it uses the extensive viruslist.com database to pick up all existing and recently released viruses and trojans. If you come across a suspicious file and you don’t find it in the list you can still send it to Steganos for analysis.

Users who are looking for a solid antivirus application with an extensive virus database and a thorough scanning process should turn to Steganos. While the application does considerably slow down your PC at startup, it provides a very hefty antivirus protection and will find and delete most threats on your PC.