AntiVir Premium

Has anyone upgraded from the Classic to the Premium version of AntiVir?

I am particularly interested in whether Server availability and speed is better than with the Classic ones, since the Premium Servers are supposedly "Exclusive".

I am on dial-up here in the UK and consistently with the Classic version I am seeing download speeds of only 1-2kB/s.

Overall, is it worth upgrading to Premium.

 

Speaking only about the servers: I can max out my connection (~240kB/s) with the premium... i'm always timed out with the classic. I live in the UK.

 

OT:
BC-- How do you deal??
/OT

Sorry I have no experience with the premium, but I never have a severe problem with the free servers here in extreme south east virginia.

 

Here in Canada there is a big difference in the speed of the servers when comparing premium to classic.

As for being worth it to upgrade...I am happy with the purchase. The product is easy enough for my wife and kids. Avira updates very frequently. Best part is I find it as good as any other and it only cost me $28 canadian (about $25 USD).

 

Yes, the download servers seem to offer better speeds with the Premium version.

 

South Florida, usually on Dialup WiFi when traveling) and last update (Dialup) was 5 seconds to connect, 5 seconds to download "product info file" then less than 20 seconds for internal file comparison, 15 seconds to download new files and 3 seconds to stop and restart AntiVir; 44 seconds total, WiFi might cut that by 15 seconds.

That first 5 seconds might go over a minute during 'peak Central Europe time' and that would be when Premium should be faster, but I never "time-out" on it. The "Kb/sec" shown on the Update GUI includes the waiting time and the "Checking Versions" time, open Task Manager to see that when data is flowing, it is at its usual 46-6400 "bytes per interval" (56K).

HERE is a link to "Traffic Rank" info on Avira's free-av.com

 

It is worth it.. I have mine set to 60 minute update checks, and it updates almost instantly, so fast, I can't really measure the speed. No timeouts or any other issues I have noted in the last 3 days.

So far, I am extremely pleased with this product. It seems every bit as light as VBA32, which I really enjoy as well - but was forced to switch from due to the 50% reliability issue.

 

I cannot tell how much it costs in US $.
Jerry

 

About $24.00 when I use a conversion table.

 

I live in uk.On broadband i get instant connect,and download,have done for weeks.Only advantage would be spyware detection.I have dedicated program for this so why bother.Free antivirus with with good detection, and heuristics nearly on par with nods,30 percent better than alternative free program,updates quick and frequent for broadband users,what more could i want.

 

On average, how frequently does AntiVir update and are there updates at the week-end?

 

At present, I am using the Scheduler in AntiVir on dial-up, BUT it appears to check at the update interval specified even if I am NOT connected to the Internet.

Is there a way around this problem apart from switching to manual updates?

Further, what are appropriate update intervals to schedule with AntiVir?

 

Actually restarting the guard service after an update takes longer than downloading the files most of the time. For VDF and engine updates this is not necessary so the behaviour of the updater will be changed in the future.

 

nice to hear that Stefan.
That restarting was annoying

 

I use the free version that checks for updates on each and every dialed connection, when no update is needed, it takes an average of three seconds to say so.

Average seems to be three to four updates each weekday and two to three on weekends.

Here is a link to AVIRA's VDF History.

It lists five updates released yesterday and three more (so far) this weekend.
"Published date 1. 6.34.01.183 Sun, 04 Jun 2006 13:53 (GMT+1)"
Would DST make it GMT+2

You can also see from that list, that if you were configuring your AntiVir Free for many updates on your DSL connection, that they are issued between 06Z and 19Z (East Europe Time zone is GMT+1 {or Zulu+1}) so a dozen 'jobs' would cover you for the period of releases with hourly checking.

Blackcat; You say you use dial-up, it should check update on each connection, With your schedule it will try weather connected or not, I used to have Norton dial itself up for updates an you could configure (Expert) your AntiVir to do that.

Also, I notice that you 'edited' a default 'job', used (recently) to need to create a new job as editing existing default job caused problems, perhaps that bug is gone now.

edit:- Just did a manual Update and it took 22 seconds total and loaded antivir3.VDF V6.34.1.189
and it said "Local file: C:\Program Files\AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic\antivir3.vdf v6.34.1.188" so I don't know about that "VDF History" site

 

id use 60 minutes/1 hour which is typical for many AV.

 

This probably off topic.

How does "AntiVir" pronounce in English? "An-ti-were" or "An-ti-ware" or "An-ti-vai"?

I'm just curious because I don't speak English as the official language.

 

Is it supposed to check ON connection. I am used to my other AV's waiting for the connection and THEN checking for an update! I would have thought that my setting "Start Job while connecting to the Internet" would have waited for my dial-up before checking for an update.

Maybe this is why I am not seeing what I thought I should be !

 

I have only just seen this for the FIRST time when I edited the update interval to 60 minutes!

 

pilotart, the VDF history currently lists single file VDFs (AV6), that version number can be different from the incremental VDF files - but they have the same content. If you look at the start of ANTIVIR3.VDF there is a text header telling you which single file VDF was the origin of this iVDF file.

 

In avira's homepage, users could also see the version number for different vdf format(mono/incremental).

 

Great to hear, as this is the only thing that really bothered me about Avira.

 

If someone in the U.S. wanted to purchase Antivir Premium, how would they go about it? The last time I visited their site, all I could find was the price in Euros. Do they have a special site for people in the U.S. to purchase it?

 

Same as in the U.S. Plastic.
Your credit card issuer will make the currency conversion (only gouging you a couple percent).
Per Antivir's web site:

It's typical for these types of transactions, but cost increase is generally not excessive.

 

The way you have your Scheduler configured, {Blackcat's screen shot of schedule 'Wizard' interval page}
it is going to connect to AVIRA and check for update as soon as your dial-up connection is complete,
it will do this even if it was updated 10 minutes ago, this is from the check in the box for "Start job while connecting to the internet"

Also from your setting, it would automatically check again for Updates 60 minutes later, and if you had disconnected, it would just be un-successful,
unless you want to configure it to dial itself in and I do not recommend doing that at all.

The way you have it set will cause no problem, just unsuccessful updates after sixty minutes, if not connected.

The need to "create new job" bug must have been fixed, as I recall reports that would cause it to not update at all.

When I had used Norton, after they finally offered auto "LiveUpDate", there was no "schedule" to create,
but if you were in the middle of a large database download and the Norton Live Update decided it was 'time'
then it could slow or stop the download for you.

The "Check for updates" at 60 minutes has value for an always connected high speed line,
for dialup I prefer it to just check upon connection, if I have a large database to download (can be an overnight affair),
I do not want it 'checking Update' during that task.

On a WiFi or DSL connection, I could do that same download in less than 60 minutes,
and would do a manual update to give me 60 minutes un-bothered by UpDates.
________________________________________________

That would be all you will see until early Monday morning, after AVIRA wakes.