avast! v7.0.1461 BETA Released

[hayc59]

avast! v7.0.1461 BETA Released
08.06.2012

Hi all,
At first, I would like to thank you for giving us feedback for version 7.0.1456. We are sorry if we caused any
problems to you. We spent weeks of analyzing & fixing the most important issues. This beta of Free/Pro/AIS (version 7.0.1461) contains following fixes:

What's New:
• Black screen syndrom (1) - unable to log-in
• Keyboard disabled (1)
• IE webrep crashes
• Random switching to safezone
• Welcome screen opening after each reboot
• Outlook plugins does not work & crashes of Outlook (2)
• Cannot add new packet rules
• Double VPS update sounds
• Update screen closes without clicking on finish button
• SNX fixes

(1) If you still have these issues, please follow https://support.avast.com/index.php?...articleid=1356
and give us as much information as possible. Thanks a lot!
(2) We have still problems with unregistering old plugin on some configurations. If it's possible, please
unregister old one (e.g. through aswClear.exe) and then install avast! plugin again. We will fix this issue
for next beta refresh. Sorry for that.
If you experience any other problems, please let us know. Our wish is to give you a stable and user-friendly program update.
thanks a lot!
Pavel


Download Forum: avast! BETA 7.0.1461

[Jim1cor13]

Thanks for the info hayec I used Avast free for years up to V. 7.0.1426 which was fine, then all of the sudden, a conflict showed up one day a few months after clean install of .1426 and it was causing BFE base filtering not to start properly.

The forum mentions this problem, but it seemed to only affect x64 systems, but my laptop is x32, but same problem. It just seems to me that they have had a lot of issues after 7.0 came out, but for my experience, .1426 worked great, until the BFE issue, which I assume was their Network Shield module as I had had some trouble with that before with some firewalls.

I hope they get things resolved, they are a great package for free, but sometimes I think a lot of the issues some report on their forum are due to remnants of other security apps that many do not clean up properly. When I test an AV, I always image to a clean state without any AV. Some conflicts can really be strange though.

[hamlet]

I am going to give this a shot. I have been using Avast! for a good amount of time on both a desktop and laptop and bought a two year license for AIS about a month or two ago. The very latest version really brought both of my Win 7 64 bit computers to their knees ... lots of blue screens, browser freeze ups, etc. That was after having been so happy with Avast for the past few years that I bought a license. It is just really strange how a new version can totally change an applications usability on a computer.

So, I really hope the beta version works for me. I tried numerous fixes but have had to roll back two versions and use the free Avast! while I wait for a new version to come out. I am excited to give the beta a try. Thanks for posting the news. I may have eventually seen it at the Avast! forums but you have helped me by a few days at least.

[Legendkiller]

I know people may not like it but avast is off my radar unless a good solid build which can go around for weeks is out.
Last time also beta came to fix BSOD and still i had them....sorry but its not as reliable as it was.

[trjam]

I still think most issues are related to their sandboxing and virtualization module. It has been buggy since day one.

Avast is killing itself, and it doesnt have to. Great product and solid team but they need to focus on forgetting the sandbox crap and making stronger the behavior side.

I honestly feel by doing so this product would be more stable, and just plain better.`

[Romagnolo1973]

Originally Posted by trjam

I still think most issues are related to their sandboxing and virtualization module. It has been buggy since day one.

Avast is killing itself, and it doesnt have to. Great product and solid team but they need to focus on forgetting the sandbox crap and making stronger the behavior side.

I honestly feel by doing so this product would be more stable, and just plain better.`

+1
Not only sanbox is crapware, Avast is full of "marketing" useless modules for noobpeople
The AV-BB core is one of the best but other things are not

[PC_Pete]

Originally Posted by Legendkiller

I know people may not like it but avast is off my radar unless a good solid build which can go around for weeks is out.
Last time also beta came to fix BSOD and still i had them....sorry but its not as reliable as it was.

7.0.1426 is "a good solid build" IMO. I haven't felt the need to move from it yet.

[hamlet]

Yep, the latest beta worked no better for me. I am pretty sure all of my problems are related to Chrome and sandboxing. I am going to roll back to version 7.0.1426. My computer runs extremely well with that version. Actually, it looks like Google has a beta version of Chrome that fixes some problems with Avast!. I suppose I will give that a try.

[vlk]

Yes, Google created a fix.
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/is...tail?id=140982

Originally Posted by trjam

Avast is killing itself, and it doesnt have to. Great product and solid team but they need to focus on forgetting the sandbox crap and making stronger the behavior side.

+1

[atomomega]

I installed latest stable release on a fresh XP Pro. The only bug that I've noticed is the Double VPS update sounds, anyhow, that's not a problem for me.

[Securon]

Good Evening ! Had to uninstall Avast I.S.2012 because of the Sandboxing...and during the uninstall the Sandbox wouldn't un-install forcing me to shutdown and re-boot and then using the Avast removal tool. Avast is a superb product...my thought's on the subject is sometimes less is more...stick too detection and removal improvement...the rest if needed will follow. Sincerely...Securon

[Jim1cor13]

Indeed. Avast and others are running into trouble with all the bells and whistles, when the main goal is to detect and remove and to do it well.

I do not need facebook connectivity, or twitter, or all the fads companies are jumping into. I do not need all the bells and whistles, but I do miss the Avast that once focused on what mattered. I used it for 7 or 8 years, but not any more. Maybe after they take a breath and refocus, but that is not likely in today's AV market. it sure can get out of hand with all the constant "improvements" that really cause more bugs and instability far too often. As mentioned, .1426 worked fine for me since May of this year, until it began to hang up BFE filtering. I have been trying out too many AV's and still cannot decide, but it is hard to believe how bad some of them function as far as performance , etc. i guess if one wants all the trinkets, and do not mind a computer that crawls, it is ok.

So far, latest I am trying is Avira Premium. Nice, well mannered, but not sold on it yet. I still need to try roboscan at some point.

[act8192]

Originally Posted by Jim1cor13

So far, latest I am trying is Avira Premium. Nice, well mannered, but not sold on it yet. I still need to try roboscan at some point.

Avira Premium works great, but they, I think, hard code update server IPs so if you've disabled DNS service, you have to add the servers to the hosts file otherwise there might be update errors. It catches up on the next scheduled time, but is a bit of a pain. Memory use is enormous.

Avast! free works great for me. It is so efficient! Uses 1/4 of memory resources and does the same thing really. The logging is not as good as AviraPremium and there is no such thing as "reports" that you can view. Instead one gets a screenfull of a not-very useful graphs and an ID of one, last, file scanned or last web page, last javascript - not good enough.

Both: I too wish they'd just stick to what they do best - AV.

ooops - I don't recall whether we're actually allowed to mention two in one thread, A vs B thing ... well, if not, the moderator will delete and no harm done

[Jim1cor13]

Good points act. Glad Avast works well for you, it also did for me until the BFE conflict.

I did notice Avira is memory hungry, but I find that too common, mostly due I think to how some apps cache the RAM, but I always liked that Avast was fairly easy on RAM usage. Overall though, seeing that Avira uses even less disk space than Avast, but more RAM, that is ok, even though my system gets down to 100Mb or less of "free" RAM as the day wears on, no performance hit with Avira and it is about 200MB in space fully updated.

Compare this with something like BD, and I will take Avira or Avast any day over BD or its clones just because a good quality app does not need 800MB - 1GB to do the job.

I tend to detest bloated software, no matter how good it is, but that's just me. I have the space, I just cannot justify that amount being used.

[vlk]

Guys, thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.

But saying things like "focus on forgetting the sandbox crap", with all respect, is really somewhat opposite to what we're trying to do.

The new autosandboxing module (in this beta, and further to be developed in the upcoming versions) is not really what it used to be in v6 or even the first builds of v7. For us, this is one of the most important strategic initiatives for this year. You will see what I mean in the coming couple of months (if you choose avast, of course).

The new avast autosandbox is pretty much invisible to the user, and is genuinely related to detection, as opposed to isolation of user-selected binaries (like in the case of a traditional sandbox).

We have spent a lot of effort on this (and have a bunch of people still working full-time on it); the results are just starting to make a difference (we of course constantly measure these things).

Yes, some of its aspects are still a bit rough and it still needs some work. But we're very positive that this is a great technology that we want to further pursue moving forward.

Thanks
Vlk

[Legendkiller]

Originally Posted by PC_Pete

7.0.1426 is "a good solid build" IMO. I haven't felt the need to move from it yet.

Not IMHO sadly.

[RejZoR]

Vlk, i really hope you'll soon fix idiotic Auto Sandbox looping on random named installer files. And after you exclude them they get sandboxed again since they are named differently. It's what made me stop using it. I'd like to return to it someday but not until this nonsense gets fixed or done properly...

[vlk]

RejZoR, I replied to that threat of yours on the avast forum.

Vlk

[act8192]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

Vlk, i really hope you'll soon fix idiotic Auto Sandbox looping on random named installer files.

Yes. That's right. That is a nuisance. Firewall alerts every time defs\<date>\sf.bin comes in and I have to allow. That's the file you're refering to, right? It's not as frequent as it used to be before I updated to 7.0.1456 free.

[act8192]

Originally Posted by vlk

RejZoR, I replied to that threat of yours on the avast forum.

Vlk

Link?
Does all this about the file apply to the free version or just standalone sandbox or the suite?

[i_g]

Originally Posted by act8192

Yes. That's right. That is a nuisance. Firewall alerts every time defs\<date>\sf.bin comes in and I have to allow. That's the file you're refering to, right? It's not as frequent as it used to be before I updated to 7.0.1456 free.

Nope, that is something completely else - that's a problem with your firewall, I'm afraid (if it's not possible to set up the appropriate exclusions there).