About Avast home protection

What do you say abaut avast protection, ı need free antivirus software.

 

its one of the best freebies and provides excellent protection and has a great use of generic signatures.

 

I see you use avast pro version, what is the difference between paid and free versions?

 

If I could chime in here. Not much. They use the same engine except I believe the pro version has a script blocker, scheduler and you could get updates at anytime, I believe. I'm using MSE right now but Avast free is a very close 2nd for realtime protection IMHO. They are also one of my favorite forums besides here of course.

Ice

 

not much diff really, script protection, PUSH Updates, and scheduling i believe, if u check out their site u will see exactly the diff.

 

What is push updates?

 

i dont remember the exact details, all the info is on their site

 

One of the most stable programs around.

 

Avast is one of the better antivirus programs if you consider detection tests and the real-time shields available in the free version.
And the version 5 beta should be coming out soon so Alwil is actively developing Avast.

 

It's great and gonna get greater.

 

.
The only thing I don't like about Avast 4 is the odd GUI, which I find a little hard to navigate. Version 5 is going to be a big improvement in that regard based on the screenshots.

 

Have you tried the skinless GUI?
http://forums.spybot.info/blog.php?b=24

When I used to use avast I would turn off the skins.

 

am using it now, if your getting it now then change the skin, the original mp3 ~Snip~ is awful IMO.
v5 has a good looking skin and should be out soon..
good av, among the top free avs for that matter, but be careful not to cause a a vs b

 

Hi !

This thread could easily become A vs B . Everyone has their own opinion .

My experience with Avast shows that it is not good one . I personally don't like it . Kind of slow even on modern computer , old-fashioned GUI and most important - it has always proved to me to be useless in real world . As an IT guy I clean infected computers on weekly bases and I find computers with Avast very infected . A fresh very drastic example I could give from about two weeks ago was a computer with Avast Home 4.8 - updated version , which was severly infected by USB threads (worms and trojans) . It was visibly very slow , had pop-ups . Avast was just sitting down there , "turning round and round" and doing nothing . I disabled Avast , installed NOD32 , rebooted in Safe Mode and even with old definitions , NOD32 found 103 different infections (yes , I counted them) and cleaned the machine . Back in Normal mode , all was fine .

And this has happened numerous times before . Not that NOD32 hasn't missed threats but my Avast cases are just all of severe infections .

I wouldn't recommend Avast to anybody - it is just not enough protection .

 

Maybe it's good, some people like it, others don't.
It's said to be a 'light AV'. On my 5 years old system (Windows XP) it was sluggish. A trial would shed some light on the use of system resources on YOUR SYSTEM.

 

I'll agree,hopefully with Version 5 things improve,because in real world useage,with people who have used avast,I'm not impressed at all with its detection abilities.

 

The view of ASpace is very interesting since the last on demand AV Comparatives shows Avast with a slightly higher On Demand detection percentage that Nod32, but both virus checkers are among the elite for detection in that test.
However in the real world ASpace has found Avast to be something less than elite certinly by comparison to Nod32.
Is anyone else out there finding that Avast fails badly against malware. ?

 

If you were local to me,I'd be glad to take you down to our local computer repair shop,where you will find many computers using Avast antivirus. You would see exactly what ASpace has said.

Tests are tests people,the real world is where it counts,period.Way too many people on this forum rely too much on tests.

 

yes everybody has their own opinion, but when this guy asks if its a quality product, facts are more important than opinions.
ok how exactly did you come to the conclusion that avast is slow even on modern machines? mines modern but its not the best, 3gb memory and dual core. and look at this, and that is with the settings open, does that to you, look like a slow program, if so then i will not bother posting again after this.
http://img33.imageshack.us/i/avast822009.jpg/
also i would like to point out to you that avast does score very highly in tests, it isnt the best but it definately is a quality product contrary to how you are discribing it.
also this little story you made up is too over the top, if you said 3 infections then fair enough, but 103? really, ok
cut the ~Snip~ and stop bashing a particular company, i dont know what your motives are but you obviously have one.

 

Avast Home has always been one of my favorites, and my fall back AV.

I often see claims regarding some AVs and infections based upon the "real world." As I have used it, and have put it on friends and family machines without any infections over a period of years I just do not believe it does so well in tests, but not in the real world.

The tests by AV Comparatives using thousands of malware samples indicates that Avast is one of the best. If one is careless, does not keep it updated, and goes to risky sites then he might get infections with any AV.

I am a long way from being a computer expert, but I know what has worked in my personal experience, and I know that Avast Home is an excellent AV in the real world. I have found it to be light and effective. Regardless of some expert's experiences in the real world, I say that in that real world it is an excellent AV.

Why am I not using it now? I don't even know myself, but it is not because I do not believe it is as effective as any, and I am considering putting it back on my laptop for a long time.

Regards,
Jerry

 

Just talked to the guy who works on customer's computers here in town. You think 103 is alot? Not hardly. Consider this what I was just told on the phone. He fixed a computer last Wednesday,with a fully updated Avast antivirus. Total infections,not including spyware that was also found was 86 infections. Take it for what it's worth,but I'll never recomend Avast until their product impoves.

I will not respond anymore on this topic,facts are as presented,therefore,no more reason to respond to this topic.

 

wait wait, facts are presented? i see no facts here.
i see a guy bashing avast and thinking of the first number that comes into his head and saying that avast missed it. im guessing when you say 103, you mean 100 tracking cookies and a few missed real infections.
dont respond then, its obvious why though.
EDIT: spelling mistake

 

Avast isn't bad, I waiting to see how they do with Avast 5, but until then it average. Right now Microsoft MSE Beta and Avira PE are neck and neck for protection in AV/Spyware/Malware/Adware/Trojan etc.. Best advise is to download Avast Home Edition and try it out then try MSE and last Avira and see which one you think does a better job?

Avast Home Edition is free
Avast Professional has script block feature I ran both to me they do the same thing. Protect. I had Avast Home Edition installed once on a laptop the laptop got it with CI.cmd malware cloak pest. I can say that Avast picked up the malware dump of pest and blocked them, it was noisy with alerts but you does protect the system. You get updates daily and it will talk to you and say Virus Database has been updated. It use to say Virus has been detected also. I guess that feature is gone.

Avast Home Edition has to be registered after the 60 days, but that's free they'll give you a license key good for number of systems.

 

It's tough to find a single AV that will hold up against a 'click-happy' user who opens all email attachments, downloads every animation and surfs the net for free ringtones and mp3s but seems to download unknown zip files instead.

I've seen friends, and work colleagues with McAfee, Norton/Symantec, Nod, Trend, Avast, AVG (the list goes on) installed who've had all sorts of problems. Most pay for a security program with their PC and later ask why they should pay even more money to have their system fixed/cleaned.

Personally, just in my limited experience, I have found those with Kaspersky have had better success, but then again, these users can complain of being asked to answer pop-up questions from time to time and need to ask someone for advice on these alerts.

Regardless of the program used, most average users require more than a simple AV, and although suites aren't the preferred option on here (as we tend to choose various programs), these 'click-happy' users do benefit from an upgraded firewall - for example instead of the stand alone Nod, McAfee, buying the one packaged with the firewall version. The reason being these versions start to get these users to think about 'outbound' and 'inbound connections', and starts to educate them on what should be running on their system.

So to the original poster, who would have an understanding of what should/should not be downloaded, Avast will do just fine.

People can argue one AV is better than the other, but none will deliver better success than simple user education (what to download, what not to download).

To the regular user who has no browsing education/experience whatsoever, yes they will need another layer (upgraded firewall, or an antispyware such as windows defender or superantispyware, or something running alongside avast such as ThreatFire which provides simple but effective alerts).

Then again, this is what avast 5 should improve on (providing another layer).

 

Very well said. This post makes a lot of sense.

Ice