Avast 2015 releases

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by hayc59, Oct 21, 2014.

  1. russ0408

    russ0408 Registered Member

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    Thank you Rejzor for showing us your configuration of the new Avast. It's been quite awhile since I've used Avast. I've applied your settings to Avast and so far very happy with the outcome.
     
  2. Paul R

    Paul R Registered Member

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  3. entropism

    entropism Registered Member

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  4. Paul R

    Paul R Registered Member

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    sorry,I didn't check it, i get KS via Barclays for free, just saw the offer on another site.
     
  5. khanyash

    khanyash Registered Member

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    Is KS also available free for Barclays India?
     
  6. Mops21

    Mops21 Registered Member

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  7. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Well, I'm exactly a fortnight into running Avast! Free (10.3.2225) on my Win 7 machine and everything seems fine. Even if Panda get their act together eventually this may be a keeper. It is light on the system with no discernible difference to Panda Free. Plus Avast! has the honour of being the only AV I have ever ran that actually found anything other than false positives, when it removed some PUP's from my old Vista laptop, that were a gift from KMPlayer's updater on a routine update. KMPlayer and myself parted company soon after.
     
  8. Mops21

    Mops21 Registered Member

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  9. Mops21

    Mops21 Registered Member

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  10. khanyash

    khanyash Registered Member

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    Avast Free AV - Couple changes I noticed on GUI -
    There is a new option "Privacy" in the settings - 2 options are there under privacy - Participate in Avast community & Participate in data sharing.
    HIPS - Previously there were 2 options - Monitor malware-like behavior & Monitor unauthorized behavior. They have removed the option "Monitor unauthorized behavior".
     
  11. LagerX

    LagerX Registered Member

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  12. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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  13. avman1995

    avman1995 Registered Member

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    I read that and its interesting read as rejz said.I think avast is already using majority of the stuff said in there (correct me if I am wrong Vlk).But 2016 will be a interesting product to test.
     
  14. waters

    waters Registered Member

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    Nice words again, we will see.
     
  15. khanyash

    khanyash Registered Member

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    Avoid Avast ads/popups/craps, etc...

    Latest Stable Avast Free
    Win 10 64

    Win FW - Go to Advanced Settings - Top left side click "Outbound Rules" - Top right side click "New Rule" - Check that "Program" is selected - Click next - Check that "This program path" is selected & paste "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AvastUI.exe" without quotes - Click next - Check "Block the connection" is selected - Click next - Check all the "3" options are selected - Click next - Paste "AvastUI" without quotes in the option "Name" - Click finish.

    Comodo FW - Set CFW to "Custom" - There will be couple popups - Check the popups description - There will be a popup for "AvastUI" - Select 'Remember This" & click "Block" on the popup for "AvastUI".

    Win FW - I am running Win FW. And have blocked "AvastUI" as mentioned above.
    Everything seems fine i.e Realtime/WebShield alerts, databases/streaming updates, hardened mode alerts, etc...

    Comodo FW - I had blocked "AvastUI" as mentioned above. And ads/popups were not there. Forgot to check Avast functioning as mentioned above for Win FW. I think Avast should work fine.

    Note - Only thing I noticed that Avast help links from the GUI mention "You are offline". So online content is not available & only offline content is available.

    UPDATE -
    It seems blocking of AvastUI.exe as mentioned above takes care of all the Avast craps i.e no ads/popups, no upgrade button on the main GUI, no ads on the main GUI, no Chrome/Toolbar offers options during install/upgrade, etc...

    I uninstalled Avast Free. But didn't remove the block rule for AvastUI.exe from Win FW.
    I had a previous installer so installed Avast Free. No Chrome/Toolbar offers options during install. I then upgraded to the latest version & no Chrome/Toolbar offers options during upgrade.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2015
  16. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    I've just updated my configuration file for avast! 2015 R4. It's cleaned up a bit with few extra touches like (in addition to all the existing ones):

    - disabled avast! messages inside clean e-mails
    - disabled data sharing with 3rd parties (CommunityIQ cloud remains enabled)

    DOWNLOAD:
    https://rejzor.wordpress.com/avast-2015-protection-tweaks/
     
  17. khanyash

    khanyash Registered Member

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    RejZor,
    Will blocking of AvastUI the way mentioned above affect Avast anyway?
    I haven't noticed any probs yet.
    You know Avast in/out well so requesting info from you.
     
  18. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    I've updated the config file once again because of this:

    As for the blocking of GUI with firewall, check up with AMTSO cloud test file: http://www.amtso.org/feature-settings-check-cloud-lookups/

    If it gets detected as FileRep, I guess it's not really affecting avast! beyond GUI. If you don't get any detection, it means it breaks avast! on a bigger scale. But I think it shouldn't since GUI is separated component from the scan service.
     
  19. khanyash

    khanyash Registered Member

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    Avast detects all the AMTSO links fine.
     
  20. skp14

    skp14 Registered Member

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    Open the Avast console, Settings, check Silent/Gaming Mode.
     
  21. khanyash

    khanyash Registered Member

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    Blocking AvastUI.exe connection is better.
    Read my full post above.
     
  22. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    Using Silent Mode is NOT the solution, because it also blocks ALL notifications and messages that you do want to see (like malware detection popups). So you don't stare at the screen like retard when you run something and then nothing happens just because it was detected as malware, but you didn't see the detection actually happening other than prorgam/game not executing at all.
     
  23. anon

    anon Registered Member

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  24. GakunGak

    GakunGak Registered Member

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    Just a head's up
    http://news.softpedia.com/news/zero-day-exploit-found-in-avast-antivirus-493958.shtml
    One of Google's security experts found a zero-day exploit inside the Avast antivirus, which the company has recently patched.

    The researcher is Tavis Ormandy, one of Google's Project Zero engineers, the same man that discovered a similar zero-day exploit in Kaspersky's antivirus exactly a month ago.

    According to Ormandy's research, the bug manifested itself when users would access Web pages protected through HTTPS connections.

    Avast was performing a "legal" MitM for SSL connections
    Because the Avast antivirus would tap into encrypted traffic so it could scan for threats but was using a faulty method for parsing X.509 certificates, this would have allowed attackers (if aware of the issue) to execute code on the users' computer.

    The only condition was that users would access a malicious HTTPS website, which is not such a far-fetched scenario.

    Ormandy released a proof-of-concept on Project Zero's Google Group after the antivirus company issued a fix.

    Kaspersky, FireEye, and now Avast
    This is the third antivirus solution that we've seen with a zero-day vulnerability in the past 30 days.

    We previously reported on Kaspersky, which included a zero-day bug that allowed an attacker to easily infiltrate the victim's computer, and gain system-level privileges, allowing him to carry on any kind of attacks without restrictions.

    This was followed by FireEye's antivirus engine, which had a zero-day that provided unauthorized remote root file system access, flaw found in a PHP script which runs on a Web-facing Apache server.

    None was exploited in the wild, and neither does the Avast bug seem to have been.

    Off-topic: If you're looking for advice on what security product to use, in the discussion that followed on Twitter after Avast announcement, Ormandy surprisingly recommended Windows Defender as a good solution to use.

    We have contacted Avast for comments.

    UPDATE: Avast says: "We have released a fix via virus definition updates last week. There is no action required by the user."
     
  25. FleischmannTV

    FleischmannTV Registered Member

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    Heads up? The news is from Sep 25th and the fix has been deployed on Oct 1st.
     
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