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Avast Antivirus Review
If you are reading this page you probably have heard about AVAST. Let me present you a mind boggling statistics related to them. It goes like this……Avast now has over 162 million users worldwide. Wow! That’s some number. The real reason behind this success is that when you tend to give away good service for no cost then you ought to become popular, very popular. Avast has adopted a business model where they provide robust, good basic anti-virus software for free. If their users are delighted with the service and want to upgrade their security, Avast had developed an enhanced security suite known as Antivirus Pro version and Internet Security.
We are sure you’ve been hit by Avast wave sometime or the other but for now we are going to present Avast antivirus review. Avast made great strides in its previous update (version 5). It had brought in radical new improvements for its visual interface which placed it in reckoning with other top products within this genre such as AVG, Avira. Taking it one step further, Avast 6 is now ready to rock with many big and small improvements to its core anti-virus and anti-malware solution.
Scope Of Protection
Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Avast Professional Antivirus provides multi layered protection against many security threats. Its innovative anti-virus and spyware engine keeps your PC safe from spyware, Trojans, rootkits and malwares. Ideally it guards your system against all major security threats. One great asset of its core engine is real time anti-rootkit protection. There are many anti-viruses which are anti-rootkit certified but they do not deal with stealth malware in-case they are loaded by computer’s operating system. But with Avast Pro they are totally detectable.
Real Time Shields
Avast has a whooping powerhouse of 7 distinct shields to protect any new malware infestations. File system shield is a real goodie which blocks all infected files. Mail shield takes care of scanning all incoming/outgoing emails for any malware. It provides a special plugin for MS outlook to integrate it with your favorite email client. Its new behavior shield snoops for rootkits and unknown malwares. While testing this shield against malware, Avast popped up rootkit detection but when we chose to delete it, the threat in question was still running despite avast claiming its successful deletion, a low setback.
Web shield makes web browsing virus free by scanning all visited web pages, downloaded files and other web related files such as java script code. IM Shield scans instant messages. Network shield takes care of blocking URL for any malicious websites and deploys an intrusion detection system which is responsible of analyzing all network traffic, scans it for malicious content and prevents them to affect running processes in your PC. Script Shields main objective is to examine all local and web based scripts for malicious code and prevents to damage your computer.
SandBoxing – Free Virtualization
Big new feature in Avast Pro 6 is sandboxing support. The debut of AutoSandbox makes Avast only the second antivirus to offer this option in its Free version. The sandbox is an extra layer of protection which makes great sense as it works differently than the other layers, and therefore has different strengths and weaknesses. Avast Pro provides an option of Auto-Sandboxing based on heuristic suspiciousness of the executed file.
During our tests, it did a good job at stopping (or shall we say shielding) many samples that could be missed by the other layers. But at the same time, there are still weaker spots inside it but we understand there are no silver bullets when it comes to perfect anti-virus.
Advanced In-Cloud Heuristic Engine
Many anti-virus till date employ standard technique where they perform “exact match” with an already recognized and classified threat, though Avast has a latest, robust heuristic engine which takes an educated guess of what files are potential threat to your PC. This mechanism is simpler and a quicker way of determining that an unseen file has resemblance to other dangerous files.
Avast 6.x has in-the-cloud heuristics based on the age/prevalence data as well as new stuff related to the use of our sandbox. Prior to Avast 6.0, outcome of a scan is either file is called clean or infected (thus stopping it from execution). But from Version 6.0, the outcome could also be “potentially infected, use extreme caution”. In this case Avast will run it inside sandbox to ensure your PC is not infected. We performed a test in our lab to certify their claim. Here’s a brief look on what we did. We tried executing a malware program with Avast scan set to on-exec ution. Avast immediately sandboxed the file and detected that it was indeed a malware, it worked as claimed.
With a combination of features, tools and technologies, Avast Pro Antivirus is equipped to effectively protect your computer. One thing we’d like Avast Pro to have is an anti-spam feature and robust silent firewall. As a matter of fact Avast has included these 2 features inside their elite Avast Internet Security suite.
Avast Safezone:
This feature allows you to browse the web in a private, secure environment, invisible to the rest of your system. It has now become a necessity to access sensitive information and transact online. There are grievous threats which can record your personal data using spyware or any key logging software but with Avast Pro safezone you can easily keep everything else out. This surely makes your banking and online shopping safe and sound.
Avast WebRep:
Another new tool worth highlighting is the Avast WebRep browser plugin. It is a security plug-in which will tell you about any website’s reputation. This has been introduced in version 6.0 and will rely heavily on global Avast community. It supports a search result ranking and Web site reputation service represented in Color-coded ratings to void clicking on risky sites. Plugin uses a combination of data from Avast’s virus labs and user voting, to determine a safety score for a site. User voting has a long-standing word-of-mouth reputation, so Avast known for its vast passionate user base has done well to transform their feedback into useful feature for all. WebRep works with IE and Firefox out of the box, and Avast says it plans to release a Chrome version soon.
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Performance & Effectiveness
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Kaspersky Antivirus 2012
Avast Professional Antivirus is speedy as well: It had the fastest scan speeds of every paid antivirus product we looked at, and its impact on overall system performance was relatively low. When put to test, Avast Pro’s quick scan took 20 minutes and 59 minutes for Full scan. This signifies that it is not blazingly fast but good enough to challenge any paid anti-virus. Good thing about it was that its RAM usage was surprisingly low (16 MB) during the scan which certainly certifies its good performance.
Avast Pro was tested by Virus Bulletin which certified it with VB100% (signifying, it caught all in-the-wild viruses). They recognized Avast Pro’s proactive and reactive scanners to be quite effective, with impressive scores to prove it.
AV-Comparatives, another reputed firm slated Avast Pro as top-notch and rated Advanced A+ for very high virus detection rate. An interesting fact is that AV Comparatives was not too impressed with its malware removal but still rated it comparable to better anti-virus.
Its previous version scored 93% percentile with Dennis Labs last year in August 2010. The average score was 87.5 percentile, thus performing excellently.
If you’re looking for an antivirus program that’s quick and easy to use, Avast Pro Antivirus 6 should be your definite answer. Avast Pro is undoubtedly one of the most effective antivirus suite with combination of all features, tools and technology.
Ease Of Use
In reality, Users do not want to mingle around anti-virus settings and with Avast Pro 6.0 they got what they want. While doing Avast Antivirus review, we interestingly found out that this software was designed to work behind the scene whether it is scanning files in real time or on access, you won’t even notice it. It has been marked under Green Computing since it leaves minimal footprint due to its efficient technology. Major rework for Avast 6 interface has been the removal of Windows Explorer-style forward and backward buttons, changing color scheme to lightish gray. For users new to Avast, the sleek user interface is a change that came at the end of 2009. The gray-and-orange color scheme stands out well on the screen, and the tab-based navigation on the left makes it easy to navigate between features.
Avast employs a silent gaming mode which will automatically detect your gaming and disables pop-ups and other quirky notifications to allow you seamless gaming experience. This comes in handy for watching movies or slides presentation too. Avast Pro anti-virus has now been successfully tested on 64-bit operating system. It has the ability to configure itself efficiently based on number of processors. We tested it in different configurations and observed that it managed resources under multi-core processors to enhance its speed and effectiveness.
Ease Of Installation
Installing Avast Pro is a painless process. It takes all the head ache of creating a restoration point before it even starts installation. After its successful completion, it asks you to run a preemptive scan to locate any deep rooted viruses which could pose problem in customization of your antivirus setup. Another new tool inside Version 6.0 is Avast Gadget. It is an information panel for Windows 7/Vista which displays protection status for our PC and helps quick access to the full application, SafeZone virtual desktop and immediate updates.
Good thing about Avast installation is that it does not require Reboot. In future, if ever you plan to un-install it, cleanup tool is handy in detecting any remnants inside PC or its registry. Avast latest version 6.0 has more compact installer (nearly 80% of its predecessor), although download file is still large (56 MB).
Antivirus Updates
No matter how good the features are but if your anti-virus does not have timely update then it will surely affect your PC. Avast Pro Antivirus are deployed with smart virus definition mechanism which does an incremental updating, thus reducing the size of regular update file. Avast antivirus software actually has a special format for virus definition files, specifically designed for faster, more efficient updates that will keep you more protected and reduces demand on CPU/memory, for uninterrupted computing.
Help & Support
Needless to say, its support truly rocks. Avast has virtually biggest fan base on internet so you can get tons and tons of advice on any problem you find on their support forum. Their users are real fanatics and will get you up and running in no time. Avast provides user guide and has an awesome online documentation (knowledgebase, video tutorials). As an owner of their PRO Version, you can direct specific questions to the support department via email, but only after registering. The company now also offers toll-free phone support provided by iYogi to help you with installing or trouble-shooting.
Summary Of Avast Antivirus Review:
Pros:
Avast Pro Antivirus 6 has undergone a major re-work and it has literally pushed it closer to top rated professional security. It’s got a usable, clean interface, solid although not exceptional benchmarks, and a set of features that keeps it at the leading edge of Windows security. We recorded excellent scan speeds and its impact on system performace was light for startups and shutdowns. We are totally excited about the innovative new features like WebRep and SafeZone making it serious contender for TOP anti-virus software.
It offers credible MONEY BACK guarantee, hence it is always eligible for your trial. Click below for Avast Professional free download.
Cons:
Needs improvement for malware removal and efficacy benchmark ratings. Though PRO version has couple of new features compared to its free sibling, Avast can pull in more features to justify its cost.
Bottom line:
Most improved software in recent times. We recommend it. Overall, the new 6.0 version of Avast Pro Antivirus is a great choice, and it is certainly one of the best antivirus software applications available. We are hopeful that Avast PRO 6 will soon streamline its minimal drawbacks and challenge Rank #1 in its genre.
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