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Avast Internet Security Review
Avast an acronym for “anti-virus advanced set” was first designed and developed by Czech researchers. They envisioned a company called ALWIL software which was recently transformed into Avast Software. The free avast! antivirus is popular around the world. Based on current fact file from Avast, they have a whopping 128,896,194 active users today. If you had used their free anti-virus then you might have appreciated their product. We have no doubt that it is the most robust FREE anti-virus software in the world. In today’s world, our PC is exposed to all kinds of threat and to meet these demands AVAST has advanced security suite based on User’s requirements and likings. Every anti-virus company today are providing security suite to cater internet quirks and viruses. Avast Internet Security 7.x is a step forward version of Avast Pro Antivirus which has been rated among top most security solution as well as the added security of a firewall, anti-spam and protection from hackers and identity theft.
We’ll admit that when did Avast Internet Security review last year we were disappointed on few fronts. The interface was unattractive and difficult to use, and we had conflict with the Windows Security Adviser. Avast!’s 2011 product is a major step forward, however, both in terms of usability and functionality.
Scope Of Protection
We’ll admit that when we reviewed Avast! last year we were disappointed. The interface was unattractive and difficult to use, and we had conflict with the Windows Security Adviser. But at times, the product was not intuitive enough: When scanning your hard drive, for example, you’ll have to tell the suite what to do every time it finds an infection, and you can’t proceed with the scan until you tend to the alert message. While this gives the user control, it can get annoying on a truly infected drive.
Avast!’s 2011 product is a major step forward, however, both in terms of usability and functionality. It offers all the basic PC protection features and does a reasonable job at traditional malware detection. It underwent a dramatic interface redesign and the addition of a heuristic scanning engine, Avast Sandbox and code emulator to Avast Antivirus. avast! Internet Security 6.0 ($69.99 direct for three licenses) adds firewall protection, spam filtering, and innovative virtualization tools for enhanced privacy and protection.
Avast Internet Security 2011
New Features For Avast Internet Security 7.x
- Avast! SafeZone:Avast! SafeZone: Avast has introduced an additional security layer in its latest release version 6.x implements a practical safe zone for you while accessing internet. The concept is somewhat similar to private browsing feature offered by many internet browsers such as firefox but it is certainly more advanced and safe. Many spyware and key logging software tries to steal, hack and monitor your personal digital information while you do online shopping or banking transactions. Safezone is built to keep all threats away and it really does it in exceptional way.
- Avast! Sandbox (Process Virtualization):Another brilliant feature that has been introduced in latest version 6.x is sandboxing. Lets say you are browsing web and land up on an un-secured website. A new virus peeps in and your antivirus is not capable in dealing with it. It will directly impact your PC processes and resources. But with Avast’s sandbox, you can nullify impact on your PC. It helps run programs and applications virtually thus detaching all together from PC’s resources. So if something happens, none of your process or resources is impacted.
One more advantage of this feature is that you can run all suspected software and program within it to certify if they really are secure or not.
- Auto Sandbox: Avast has made sandboxing completely flexible and customizable for end user. It provides an option of Auto-Sandboxing where suite decides the authenticity of program and pops up a suggestion to user to run it inside sandbox. If anything goes wrong, sandbox will prevent catastrophic effects of it. You can set this feature for specific applications too and exclude some to run normally too.
- Avast! WebRep: Avast has not been just another antivirus software but it has now developed into a massive community of 1.6 million die hard, fanatic users. Since Avast has this luxury, it decided to use it for good and that’s where Web Reputation came in. It provides a seamless web solution for you to rate the content and security of all websites you visit. These rating statistics will then help all community users to see them thus improving the total browsing experience for yourself.
It increases online security for computer users and it combines CommunityIQ data on the infected website along with information submitted by Avast users to create a web site reputation service that provides safety scores for different sites. WebRep presently works with IE and Firefox and Avast has plans to come out with a Chrome version too. One of the drawbacks of the earlier Avast versions had been poor internet protection. But Avast Free Antivirus 6.0 has added on new features in order to remove this disadvantage. This included features like Web and Script Shield as well as Site Blocking. Web and Script Shield protects users at the browser and http level. When the Web Shield detects a threat from a malicious URL, a page will appear stating that Avast has blocked the site because it suspects a threat. With Site Blocking, Avast users can block selected websites.
- Avast! Gadget:A new widget panel for Windows 7 and Vista which shows protection status for your computer. It notifies its users on three states such as secured which signifies that everything is up to date, fully protected and running as expected. Its attention mode notifies you about old virus database or protective shield turned off. It also acts as one-click shortcut to open Avast user interface.
Major Improvements In Latest Version
- Improved Silent Firewall:Avast has improved its silent firewall for latest version 6.x. The firewall is more robust in denying un-authorized communication for your PC and has excelled in terms of its execution too. Our test this time is far better as compared to its previous release.
- Fully Integrated Anti Spam:Smart anti-spam module takes care of shielding against all malware communicated through incoming emails. Avast anti-spam flags emails based on certain criteria such as suspicious URL, big attachments and then maintains two queues: blacklist and whitelist containing email address of senders. It constantly updates these lists and matches all incoming emails against them to analyze and reject any spam emails. This module works in conjunction with all popular mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook, outlook Express. Though it would not work against web based email accounts such as yahoo, gmail or hotmail, they have their own anti-spam filtration process.
- Anti-Phishing Protection: the combination of the avast! Antispam and the integrated URL blocking feature in avast! Internet Security 6.x provides sufficient anti-phishing protection.
It can also be used to run any other applications which you think may be suspect – you can run the program inside the sandbox to determine whether or not it is safe while remaining completely protected against any malicious actions that it may try to carry out.
Feature Set
Antivirus and anti-spyware engine
Avast Internet Security free download trial software comprises a unique combination of its core antivirus and antispyware engine which is regarded as one of the best any antivirus can offer. It has the capability to wade of all kinds of threats. Let us dig deep and see what it offers in terms of all round protection.
There are many antivirus software today which offers holistic protection suite but we’re more than convinced that avast internet security provides one of the most exhaustive protection shield.
- File System Shield – Real time scanning and vigil monitoring of every file and programming active in your PC.
- Mail Shield – Heuristic implementation to track and scan all incoming and outbound email activity and prevent potential threat via emails.
- Web Shield – Web has become one of the biggest repository of floating viruses and this layer intelligently scans various downloads you do, all html/script code downloaded on your PC and provides safe access for various websites. Great thing about it is that it never impacts performance of your PC while shielding your PC.
- P2P Shield – File sharing inspection for more than thirty popular peer-to-peer application.
- IM Shield – Potent interception, scanning and prevention ability for all downloads that takes place via Instant messenger. Avast supports more than 24 messenger clients, quite an exhaustive list.
- Network Shield – In house network intrusion and detection system that blocks all malicious URLs
- Script Shield – Scans all online and local scripts to ward off hijacks
- Behavior Shield – cts as an anti-rootkit process which tracks all suspicious activities and uncover new threats.
Compare Avast! Vs TOP 5 Security Suite
Ease Of Use
Avast Internet Security 2011
Avast Internet Security is sleek and practical. Avast Internet Security has an easy to use and modern user interface. It is visually distinct so that it easily catches the eye. The tabs on the left of the screen make it easy for the user to navigate through the various options available. Information is provided with the regular color codes of green for safe and red for dangerous. The full-featured internet security suite is effectively organized and includes powerful options. Avast has made a conscious effort in designing this software in a flexible manner such that it has many advanced features for professional users who can custom configure based on their criteria but at the same time easy enough for amateur or beginners who wants a set-and-forget internet security solution.
Being an internet entity, this suite has provided intelligent silent gaming mode, specifically designed for online and social gaming audience to offer uninterrupted gameplay without sacrificing security for their PC/laptop. Simply turn on the game mode and Avast suspends any pop-ups or alerts so you can enjoy any full-screen application (games, movies, presentations) without annoying interruptions.
Avast! has given its interface a full makeover when we last did Avast Internet security review. It’s miles away from the previous version which looked like a retro 90s music player. The new interface is easy-to-read and inviting with just enough charts and graphs to make it useful without being overwhelming. Basic functions are found in a navigation bar on the left side of the control panel. More advanced options are accessed through the settings menu. In addition to Avast!’s visual notifications, there are audio alerts when virus updates are installed or suspicious files are quarantined. This can be turned off or set to one of twenty or so different languages including an English variation tinged with pirate lingo.
Effectiveness & Performance
Avast Internet Security 2011
There is no doubt this suite employs exhaustive feature set but it won’t be of enough use if it doesn’t perform as expected. Avast internet security puts in a good performance as far as detection of threats and malware is concerned with some tests quoting it as detecting 94.8 per cent of the samples in the malware scanner tests. It also has excellent scan speeds, implying that the software can efficiently and effectively scan for malware when files are opened or saved. It is also light as far as demands on the computer’s resources are concerned, though its performance is pretty heavy.
According to statistics quoted by the company, Avast Free Antivirus stopped 1.2 billion viruses in January 2011. The company’s loyal clientele is also a big asset. They give the company a massive database that provides it with the largest list of infected websites that the computer security industry has seen. We also tested its firewall by running a common NetBIOS exploits and full port scan. As we expected, all ports ran in stealth mode and all BIOS were successfully found and logged.
AV-Test.org had done detailed analysis on previous version of Avast Internet Security 5.0. It had given a passing rate of 13 out of 18 (minimum being 12) after doing its testing on Windows Vista in fourth quarter of 2010. Let us now breakdown all test and see what it attained: veteran site ranked it highest (5.5 out of 6) for its usability, 4 out of 6 for repair and least (3.5 out of 6) for its core protection. I need to emphasize the other part too, many well known security suites such as F-Secure, Norton and Panda scored in similar range too. It is interesting to note that AV-Test.org had rated Avast more for Protection metrics than Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 but on the other hand, fitted it worse against Avira 10.0 and AVG.
If we look at tests done by AV-Comparatives.org, it had tagged Avast improving over a period of August 2010 through November 2010 in terms of its whole product test. On similar lines, it had compared Avast with Avira and AVG for rate of blocking threats where it scored 96.4 percent opposed to AVG’s cumulative 97.1 percent and Avira’s 98.7 percent. One good thing highlighted by AV-Comparatives.org was that Avast had been on the right track and improving its core protection and threat module. All in all Avast has attained ADVANCED certification along with seven others, including AVG.
Dennis Labs is another prominent resource which test and rates security products. It had reviewed Avast last year (August 2010) and gave 93 percentile score to it. The average percentile was way behind at 87.5%. It pointed out an interesting fact that no antivirus which scored above average offered free anti-virus such as Avast. This clearly shows that the core anti-virus & anti-malware protection of Avast is much better than all free software in the market.
Help & Support
The product is backed up by professional help & support documentation, as well as specialized staff ready to offer remote assistance at any time of the day. Online you can find support through a search enabled knowledge base, tutorial videos and documentation. User can open and submit online tickets for their problem. Avast technical support provides good turn around time of 1.5 days (on average) to solve any issues.
One of the great asset for Avast is their massive dedicated user base. You can literally find good information and instant support answers from user forums.
Avast provides phone support too in case you want an immediate response, users can ring the tech support lines free of charge (USA and Canada only, other countries pay a small charge).
Summary Of Avast Internet Security Review:
Pros:
Program control in avast! Internet Security 6.0′s firewall is more intelligent than all but a few of the competition. It now offers innovative features like sandboxing and a secure browser. And its WebRep toolbar will become a useful site rating tool once it accumulates enough user votes.
It offers credible MONEY BACK guarantee, hence it is always eligible for your trial.
Cons:
On the other hand, avast! doesn’t offer any parental control or privacy features. Its antivirus and antispam components, while decent, aren’t top-notch. AVAST Software is definitely making progress with this suite, but it’s not yet ready to challenge the best suites.
Bottom line:
Good, Not Best Avast!’s suite offers most of the expected suite components plus some unusual features like virtualization, Web reputation rating, and a secure browser. When it comes to your security, Avast Internet Security 6 gets a lot right. It’s got a usable, uncluttered interface, solid although not stellar benchmarks, and a set of features that keeps it at the forefront of Windows security. Though it still needs few improvement on efficacy benchmark but well worth a free trial.
Next Steps
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Pros:
Program control in avast! Internet Security 6.0′s firewall is more intelligent than all but a few of the competition. It now offers innovative features like sandboxing and a secure browser. And its WebRep toolbar will become a useful site rating tool once it accumulates enough user votes.
It offers credible MONEY BACK guarantee, hence it is always eligible for your trial.
Cons:
On the other hand, avast! doesn’t offer any parental control or privacy features. Its antivirus and antispam components, while decent, aren’t top-notch. AVAST Software is definitely making progress with this suite, but it’s not yet ready to challenge the best suites.
Bottom line:
Good, Not Best Avast!’s suite offers most of the expected suite components plus some unusual features like virtualization, Web reputation rating, and a secure browser. When it comes to your security, Avast Internet Security 6 gets a lot right. It’s got a usable, uncluttered interface, solid although not stellar benchmarks, and a set of features that keeps it at the forefront of Windows security. Though it still needs few improvement on efficacy benchmark but well worth a free trial.
Next Steps
