Avast antivirus pro question

I am really tired about that issue, the issue of choosing a proper antivirus that can give me peace of mind against trojans and viruses V. well so that i can put my trust on it...

I have went from NAV 2003 (V. slow on my 2600+ AMD machine and 512 MB DDR RAM !!! regarding its loading and scanning...etc) to Kaspersky but i wasn't happy either (refer 2 my post here: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=281186#post281186)

I am thinking of Avast Antivirus Pro but can i be enlightened to the answer of that imp. question that i have b4 wasting time in downloading it?

My question is: How much reliability and effectiveness (in catching the most 2 imp. malware: viruses and trojans) does this program have against well-known other antivirus packages such as kaspersky and Norton? and can i really execute files with peace of mind after their scanning by this program?

Thanks 4 reading

 

Well nothing is 100%. Kaspersky might be the only product that is very near those 100%,but there are other trade offs. I'm running avast! Home Edition and i can say its very reliable for common malware and a medium detection of uncommon malware. If you know few basic things to keep your machine virus free,then avast! is a very good choice.

 

It's very rare for esoteric bugs to get into your system. A virus outbreak will generally provide an opportunity for infection. That said, almost all AV proggies will be able to catch the bug within 24 hours. It is imperative that your AV has a robust update virus database engine. Norton's LiveUpdate can be buggy.

I like NOD and Avast update engines.

 

As RejZoR said, nothing protects you 100% against anything... but the avast! is a very good AV.

- incremental updates
- configuration to your needs (this item should be improved...)
- doesn't be a resource hog...
- have an excellent free version

I think you can trust in avast! like me...

 

I trust avast antivirus the most.

 

Thx 4 all the answers guys
and how r u Vampiric - long time no see
I remember u from the old MyIE2 forum with yr unique ID
I bet u use Maxthon now

 

Now I'm not only in Maxthon (MyIE2) forum...
And I'm a bit tired of this... somethings was changed, and...
And I use Maxthon now, and still test the beta versions, etc...

It's a very good browser, but still have a lot of improvements to be made...

About avast!:
See this topic: INTRODUCING: avast! Home/Pro 4.5 BETA
and test the new beta version...

Cya

 

Yup,avast! 4.5 looks really impressive. And were talking about BETA Not to mention Home Edition is still free

 

WOW!!!, I'm very impressed the new avast! 4.5 beta especially the Network Shield and nice skinless.

It's not very light on resources like AVG 7 Free beta does but avast! looks very robust and has more powerful features, simple user interface with skinless looks plain and simple but still functional.

 

Yup, skinless GUI is simply and effective. I like it very much (but i still use skined one )
I also like transparent mail checking which is performed very good.
I'm testing it all afternoon and i haven't found single bug or glitch
I hardly belive that i'm using a BETA hehe.

 

Just curious about the memory usage. Does it use the same, less, or more memory than v4.1?

 

I think that is the same...

 

To magood from Firefighter!

Avast 4.1 Home and Pro are actually very good av:s. Maybe the updates are about a week later within trojan like nasties than for example NOD has but after that it is capable to detect a lot.

I made a new scan against my 3014 infected archived samples and now Avast seems to detect much more trojan like malware than 19 days ago, improvement from 75.0 % to 81.6 %, even when I hadn't submit a single file to anyone. Such kind of improvement I hadn't seen with any other av that I've tested.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

Yes,they have added lots of generic detections few days ago (Win32:Trojan-Gen). There was some false positives,but i belive this is a tradeoff for such detection boost

 

To RejZor from Firefighter!

Avast is very like not identical twins with NOD. NOD has somewhat better protection against trojan like malware, but Avast has likewise better protection against viruses, in fact worms. The common PC protection with Avast and NOD seems to be almost equal.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

Such being the case, & since NOD does what it does with much less resource impact than Avast, & does it faster as well, I would choose NOD over Avast. Have I reached an illogical conclusion?

 

In my opinion, NO! You have all the logic...

 

I am blind. Where on the Avast home page do I find the 4.5 beta version referenced in this thread?

Thanks,
Lon

 

look at the avast forum

 

Try the Avast user forum..

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=11

 

To bellgamin from Firefighter!

Without an AT, I would definately prefer NOD because it has unpackers within. If you have a good AT installed too, Avast seems to have detected so many worms more than NOD from my 702 worm samples, that I would at least collect some more worms and made a new worm test, if the situation remains the same to Avast and NOD, I would choose Avast.

About the Avast beta! Why the beta would detect more if they haven't any more definitions within? I have tested NOD and NOD beta before, but the same results.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

The virus DB is the same but the unpacker engine is not.

 

To Vlk from Firefighter!

It's good when Avast has improved their unpacking capabilities. But to my test, when I don't have repacked or rebased material (only about 20 samples may have things like that), the outcome with the new Avast beta remains about the same! Or am I misunderstood something?

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

Major changes, as far I could notice, in avast 4.5:

- New list of IM applications supported:
AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Gadu-Gadu*, gaim*, ICQ, Miranda*, mIRC*,
MSN/Windows Messenger, Odigo*, Psi Jabber Client*, Trillian, Yahoo! Messenger
(Protection of the programs marked by an asterisk (*) is available on
Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 only).

- New list of P2P applications supported:
Ares*, BearShare, BitTorrent*, CZDC++*, Direct Connect, Direct Connect++,
eDonkey*, eMule*, iDC++*, iMesh, Kazaa, Kazaa Lite, LimeWire*, Morpheus*
Opera's DC++*, Overnet*, Shareaza*, SoulSeek*, StrongDC++*, WinMX*
(Protection of the programs marked by an asterisk (*) is available on
Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 only).

- New resident provider: Network Shield. It protects the computer from
the attacks of Internet worms (e.g. Blaster, Sasser, etc.). It will show warning
messages in the system area (above the system clock) every time it detects
an Internet worm attack. There is a logging feature too: all attacks will be
recorded into a log file so that you can inspect their history, frequency, etc. The
last detected attacks will be displayed on the Last attacks page.

Network Shield provider will protect your computer from Internet worm attacks.
It works similarly to a firewall, even though it does not fully substitutes it.
The Network Shield does not require any user interraction. Note: This resident
provider will be available on Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 only.

- New method of email protection. Mail Wizard Protection will only be
available for the operating systems Windows 95, 98, and Millennium.
Avast! 4.5. won't need any special settings, even for other email clients
than MS Outlook or MS Exchange. The protection on Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003
will be completely automatic.

- Skins: the Home version will be optionally skinless. If, for any
reason, you want to avoid using skins of the Simple User Interface, you can
turn them off very easily. When the skins are turned off, the appearance and
behavior of avast! Simple User Interface is the same as of any
ordinary Windows application.
ashSimpl.exe is the skinned interface.
ashSimp2.exe is the skinless.

Another possibility will be random choose the skin on application startup.
A new skin (chosen from the installed ones) will be selected and used
every time you start the Simple User Interface.

- Enable SMTP authentication even while sending files from Chest for
virus analysis.

 

To Vlk from Firefighter!

I was wrong about the detecting rates of Avast beta. With the same databases the new beta detected 9 new samples more than the original one.


Best regards,
Firefighter!