EXE Radar Free Edition Monitors Running of New or Unknown Process

Malicious Software or Malware can abuse your digital experience in many way. You can get a malware from your USB drive or CD or DVD or can get it via shared network drives. Not to mention that still internet is the major source of malware infection. You can easily get infected by visiting an innocent site which have been hacked or get tricked by scam emails. Malware infections mainly occur due to triggering of malicious executable. So, an application that can alert the user about launching of new/unknown executable, can reduce the risk of automatically getting infected by malicious executable. EXE Radar Free Edition from NoVirusThanks does exactly the same thing. According to the developer.

NoVirusThanks EXE Radar is a useful Windows OS utility designed to alert a user every time an unknown process tries to run in the system. The end user is able to whitelist, blacklist, allow once, block once or block + delete the executable attempting to load. Whitelist and blacklist files are securely saved to disk with their MD5 hash, making sure they cannot be hijacked.

With NoVirusThanks EXE Radar you can browse the Internet more safely, for example, if you are redirected to an infected website that tries to exploit your browser and load the payload, NoVirusThanks EXE Radar will alert you prior to the unknown executable executing which effectively allows you to disallow it.

Features & Specifications

Small installer (1.96 Mb), digitally signed by NoVirusThanks Company Srl.
Clean and fast installation. Creates Desktop icon automatically. Opens homepage after installation.
System Requirements; Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7. At present only 32 bit is supported.
In this free version it shows a splash screen with upgrade notification (to the pro version) that stays for 10 second.
The tray icon offers easy access to important areas of the program.

Tray Icon

EXE Radar settings are divided into default and expert mode. Expert mode gives you more control on the software.
It detects any new process launch and asks the user to take actions. It can also play beep sound during the alert.

Prompt on unknown Process Execution

Actions to be taken

There is an option to automatically apply actions at idle time i.e. when user do not take any action to a prompt.

Idle Prompt Option

If any blacklisted process tries to execute at a later time it shows blocked notification. During of this notification window is 10 seconds by default. But this can be changed by going to expert settings.

Blocked Notification

You can add a file manually to Blacklist or Whitelist. You will also be able to Whitelist all running processes, all system processes or all executable in a custom folder.

Main GUI

It also features a Quarantine folder that is placed in the program file directory of EXE Radar [e.g. C:\Program Files\NoVirusThanks\EXE Radar Free Edition\Quarantine]. There is no way of managing the quarantined files from the GUI.
EXE Radar can log events.
You can change the default position of log & quarantine folder and default browser location by going into expert settings.
You can disable protection. But there is an option (expert mode) to auto enable protection mode after certain time. Default is 5 minutes. You can even disable that option.
There is a process manager which lists all running process.

Process Management

It has an option to allow all processes with Valid Digital Signature. That option is disabled by default and can be managed from expert settings.
By default it allows all Microsoft system protected process. But you can also exclusion some items.
It also allows all software from the program files folder by default.
You can upload and scan a whitelisted, blacklisted, logged, process/executable in NoVirusThanks Multi-Engine Antivirus Scanner.
You will also be able to learn details about any logged, whitelisted, blacklisted executable or process and can even search a file hash or process name in Google and can even process path , hash of file/process.
It offers three additional modes of protection: Gaming, Passive and Trust. Each mode is having different levels of protection. By default on Gaming Mode can be turned on from Tray. Other two can be managed from Expert Settings.

Protection Policies

Shows link of other softwares of NVT.
Exe Radar offers behavioral analysis. You can set it to automatically Block or Block + Quarantine suspicious processes. You can even tell it to mark suspicious process in red in the alert window. This can be managed in expert settings.

Behavioral Analysis of Processes

It offers quick navigation to useful Windows utilities.

It shows prompt while exiting from tray.
The software uses minimal resources.

Offline help file is well documented.
In GUI you can find links to other NoVirusThanks Products.

My Verdict
I have been using this software since its release and have given many feedback to the developer which he have gladly accepted and incorporated. There is a pro version that comes with even more features. Although there is no official comparison, I have summed up by my personal experience the advantages of the pro version.

No Splash Screen.
No links of other NoVirusThanks Products.
Offers Self protection.
Enhanced Behavioral Analysis.
Password protection for UI and Process.
Malwarehash.com API Service support.
Malware Signature Scanner support.
Custom Scanners (Command-line Scanners) cannot be integrated.
No Remote PHP Notification.
Can block processes that run from USB, Network Drive, CD/DVD
Can allow processes without MD5 hash check.
Supports more executable file type other than exe.
Can allow processes with specific digital signatures... etc.

1 PC license of the pro version is cheap ($19.95) and is lifetime. But the free version is enough for most users.
NoVirusThanks developers are working hard at developing 64 bit support to this software.
In my opinion EXE Radar Free Edition is a must have additional layer of protection.
Download
Download the software from the following direct link.
http://downloads.novirusthanks.org/files/exeradar_free_edition_setup.exe