AVIRA 8 Release Notes - Now released!

Well, change your notification time. Set it to two days and you won't see the yellow exclamation point.

 

I set it to 3 days to be even much certain. Anyway, if it is set to automatically update there is no problem.

 

That's correct

 

~BUMP~ seemed more boring...

 

Well after two failed attempts to install version 8, I decieded to try one more time.



Third times a charm I guess.

 

3 is the perfect number Glad to see it's working nice for you also.

 

After years of running naked, a recent work project has inspired me to try out anti-virus. This is more out of a sense of fun than feeling the need to be secure, and certainly some of the people on this forum do appear rather paranoid. I run Windows Firewall (behind a home router w/ firewall), Secunia PSI, automatic Windows updates and whatever AV I'm trying out. For me performance is of utmost importance, if I'm going to have a background task it better damn well act like a background task. Thus my first stop was NOD32, a scanner which seems both top notch in detection and fast in its performance. However, I couldn't resist the lure of AntiVir the scanner with great performance reports and fantastic detection, I had to try it out. Alas, thus far I'm disappointed. Not for any reason to do with detection, but simply the fact that the product lacks polish in many, many areas.

I started with an install of AntiVir 7 from the link earlier in the thread, this then promptly updated to v8 and asked to reboot. So far so good. But that's where the good ended.

Firstly, WebGuard isn't installed, WebGuard isn't offered... I see reports of needing two reboots, but nothing of the sort should be required, it should be offered during the update not at some randomish point in the future. I shouldn't need to read a thread like this to trek into the control panel to install it.

The GUI is slow, no question. I want snap from my desktop, and the GUI has the feeling of treacle. If anyone has ever used the ATI Catalyst Control Centre the feeling is very familiar.

Next, it defaults its online protection status to Enabled before it checks whether they're enabled or not!! Should you not linger on this screen for five seconds you will think you are protected even if you're not. Nor are errors here indicated by the status tray icon. My MailScanner is generating an Unknown error, while WebGuard is sitting in Service Stopped status. The manual says I should click the Enable link, except no such link exists. I had to try and start the service manually via the Services MMC to get the error code to report to AntiVir.

Support is really lacking. Where as with ESET I can get e-mail support (the few trial questions I had were helpfully answered), with AntiVir being a home user feels like being a second class citizen, forced to post to a forum which you need to register on! Having a paid for version I would expect something better than this.

The help file is also a little lacking. It tells me that Low priority is the default for Scan... it's not, Medium is. Whether this is to do with the upgrade or not I don't know, but the fact is that the default scan setting doesn't match their own recommendation!

The help file problems continue, though this is a rather subjective problem. They don't tell me whether upping the heuristics will incur a performance penalty. They don't say they will, but whenever a scanning tool does more I expect a hit, therefore the help file should explicitly lay out whether or not this will be the case, if only to lay fears to rest. If there's a hit I would use their recommended Medium, otherwise I'd use High and then rollback if I begin to get FPs.

Let me pause briefly to give a thumbs up to the context help, I like this kind of instant tooltip, we need more of that.

I dislike that I cannot edit my exceptions, and despite having a 6000 character limit for them, and having space beneath the file entry box, the exceptions box is stuck in a corner where you can barely see the beginnings of the file path. I do wish AV scanners would start using the Microsoft recommended Windows exceptions in their default setups, or at least offer the option during installation.

I was surprised to see it is using file extension lists, I thought those had gone out of fashion. I see All Files as the default in almost every product I've encountered recently.

Finally, no matter how many times I check it, Project jobfiles continues to uncheck itself.

At least the product integrates with UAC correctly, even if it keeps refering to elevated privileges as administrator rights, which they aren't.

I was looking at AntiVir as an alternative to NOD32, since it seems to compete with it for detection and speed, and importantly, beat it in price. However, this experience has left me disappointed compared to the much smoother NOD32 trial run I had a couple of weeks ago. A fresh install might prove different, but that really shouldn't be needed when even video card drivers have managed to create working upgrade installers.

EDIT: Had a virus detection (which I believe is either a FP or me being over aggressive with what I want it to find) and so used the Virus Information link. Turns out this is a rather mis-leading label as it in fact goes to the main virus database and the name of the virus is the link to information about it.

EDIT2: Urgh, and you can't restore multiple objects, you have to do them one... by one... by one...

 

Webguard working without issues here on FF 2.14.

Some of you out there, brevity is the soul of wit.

 

Avira Premium 6 month license free... Avira Premium is cheaper than others...
No wonder that Avira Premium is very popular.
What I really don't like, are this nagscreens on reboot or when you open up the GUI.



There is no option within the GUI to deactivate this nagscreens, just commandline junk as a workaround.
This is absolutely unreasonable for a paid program.

Cheers

 

It seems that you'll have to get use to it

 

That isn't a nag screen, it's just a splash screen, tons of programs have that, and it's nothing to be annoyed about. Get over it and focus on something that actually matters....

 

Yeah, a nag screen would be nagging you to buy it.

 

So you mean this nag screens are a preventive measure.
To make sure you will buy it again.

Cheers

 

Not really. There are other AV out there. Avira has produced a horrible GUI in ver 8. Very unintuitive, whereas, 7's GUI was great and easy to use. I spend way, way too much time finding something in the new GUI and then I forget where they stashed it because it is an such extremely dumb interface...so the next time, I have to look all around again. That drop down crap with the administrative tools...why have something so anti intutive like that?

Then there is that horrible splash screen on the GUI that makes the GUI take FOREVER to open. I shouldn't be forced to wait and wait and wait for it open and also have to look at the dumb splash screen every time. I don't mind the splash on boot because I seldom boot the computer and I have other splash screens on boot which I have never wanted to get rid of, but I open the GUI a lot...or I used to ...now with ver 8 I avoid any interaction and use the GUI only if I feel I absolutely must because I hate it and it is so damn slow! It is a real crime to take the almost perfect ver 7 GUI and mess with like this. It doesn't even display properly...stuff runs off the right side on some screens because it is not wide enough now with that ridiculous, worthless drop down junk on the left side.

On top of ruining a beautiful, wonderful GUI, Avira has produced a Vista. I agree with most of what the PC Reviewer says...except, ironically, he likes the new GUI that I dislike so much. But otherwise I pretty much agree with him. His experience with Guard made me laugh. You have to keep Guard killed about half the time, or stop it from starting with ProcessGuard, because it's too difficult to exclude everything that needs to be excluded and Guard goes nuts when you do a search for files and folders and won't stop with the popup warnings even when you repeatedly tell it to. We asked for an easier way to exclude but Avira ignored us.

Avira's beta was a sham. It wasn't a beta. We were just guinea pigs for them to see if the stuff they had done worked right. Nothing we suggested was put into 8 ...look at the wish list. 8 was a done deal before the beta started. We asked for a way to get rid of that splash screen when opening the GUI and, like everything else, we were told no way to that and no way planned. We were lectured and treated as though we were small, naughty children if we actually dared to not kiss ass on the beta forum but say what we thought.

The PC Reviewer should have mentioned that you pay for the product and there is no decent support if you are home user. There should be email support for home users who buy the product. After the weekend here it is Tuesday in Germany and no Avira techs on the forum since last Friday. Was Monday a holiday in Germany?

Guard is great if put on a clean computer. But Guard is the only outstanding thing about Avira now.

 

It's called a splash screen.
A nag screen would nag you.
Sounds like the splash screen just annoys you.
Maybe you can get them to rename it to the annoy screen.

 

Total agreement, this was the concept for the design of my Avira nag splash screen.
"This is a nag screen! Yes, to annoy you!"
Annoyance, that's all.

BTW, I posted the same pic in german section of Avira forums about a month ago and told them about their nag splash screen.
Most of them showed stubborn resistance against my constructive criticism, even ordinary users seemed to love this nag splash screens.
Nearly the same here... Very strange.

Cheers

 

Try this. It worked with version 7.
Open the regeditor and find this key. Put in the nosplash in the end.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"avgnt"="C:\Program Files\AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium\avgnt.exe\" /min /nosplash


Cheers

 

Won't work on the GUI splash screen. Avira told us in the beta it will still work on the boot splash screen but not the one where it is so irritating. At least it is a pretty picture but even pretty pictures that serve no function are not so pretty after awhile.

 

Mele: The splash doesn't delay loading, it is displayed during loading. I'm not sure what gives you the impression that the splash screen just sits there while nothing else is happening. That certainly isn't the case which you can easily check with some process monitoring tools. I for one like splash screens for apps that take longer to initialize, at least i know i properly clicked the link before the fully initialized GUI appears

 

The point is that avira 8 GUI loads much more slowly than avira 7 GUI. Plus, the splash screen is completely unnecessary when booting or opening the GUI. Why have unnecessary junk cluttering up the AV...especially the GUI? I have never seen an AV before that insisted on loading a splash screen before loading the GUI. It's really dumb.

I don't see why Avira didn't allow us to keep the skin for ver 7 if we wanted. It was so superior. The GUI was the main reason I got Avira and now they go and ruin a great GUI for a crappy, nonintuitive, slow one.

 

It works on Version 8 for both the suite and the premium program.

 

I love the Umbrella GUI, it's beautiful.'

 

I agree, the GUI looks great just as the product.

 

Also, you can use a link ony your desktop with "avcenter.exe /nosplash". Of course this won't influence the tray icon.

 

It does NOT work on the GUI and that is where the fix is needed. No need to worry about a splash screen on boot...who boots these days? You only boot on Microsoft Tuesday.