Avast 2014 Released

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by khanyash, Oct 15, 2013.

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  1. clocks

    clocks Registered Member

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    I know they are there. My point is many other AV programs "shield" against the same stuff, they just don't break out every layer of protection as a "shield". I think that was a marketing by Avast.

    For instance you can say Norton has a web shield, a file shield, a network shield, a antispyware shield, etc... on and on and on. It is just marketing.
     
  2. geekatlarge

    geekatlarge Registered Member

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    Still working for me on Chase, Bank of America, Huntington, but not PayPal.

    Just took this screenie:

    http://i44.tinypic.com/351g5so.jpg

    I don't have the option to attach, sorry. Guess I need more posts first?

    Most definitely is the Free version, updated from 8 last night.

    It's a head-scratcher. :)

    ETA: Also, as I type this, Avast Free 2014 is performing an install of Google Chrome on another computer after I unchecked the option to install it. That's not cool.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2013
  3. SirDrexl

    SirDrexl Registered Member

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    Has anyone used this along with the MVPs hosts file? I installed both of those on a fresh installation of Windows on my netbook and could not connect to anything. It wasn't just in a web browser; I couldn't even ping in the command line. I thought something was wrong with the wireless driver, and I knew it wasn't a hardware problem because it worked with a Linux live disk. It turns out it was the hosts file (which I had used with Avast 8 without problems).

    Changing the hosts file back to default fixed it, but I'm curious about what is in that file that Avast 2014 needs to contact to work.
     
  4. TomAZ

    TomAZ Registered Member

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    Yes. Using both here on XP and haven't noticed any problems yet.
     
  5. Escalader

    Escalader Registered Member

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    FWIW, I'm beginning to think that multiple "sandboxes" riding along with various security products or browsers are as bad as multiple AV's on the same setup.

    I run my av and my fw outside SBIE version 4.05 64 bit. Neither of those outside the box have sandbox features.

    Inside the SBIE I run the browser.

    I then have zero conflict issues.
     
  6. Victek

    Victek Registered Member

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    It would be good if you could document that. I've installed Avast Free many times and Chrome was never installed after I unchecked the option.
     
  7. geekatlarge

    geekatlarge Registered Member

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    Agreed on both points. Honestly, I wasn't expecting it. I've never seen it happen before today either, after many installs and upgrades. I definitely unchecked the Chrome option before proceeding, but maybe I managed to insert a stray click somehow that re-checked the box. Stranger things have happened. I've got 4 more household computers to update. I'll take screenshots each time just in case. :thumb:

    I'm going to try a clean install of Avast Free 2014 to see if the mysterious SafeZone issue goes away on this computer. I did notice that the SafeZone option is unchecked each time I close and re-open Firefox. When I re-check it, SafeZone returns.

    Avast is still my go-to choice for almost every situation, nothing I'm reporting changes that.
     
  8. geekatlarge

    geekatlarge Registered Member

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    OK, complete uninstall and a safe mode cleanup using the latest version of avastclear.

    Then a reinstall.

    No change in the mysterious SafeZone/Avast Free behavior.

    http://oi44.tinypic.com/bduzi0.jpg

    Note the website, the SafeZone banner, the Avast Free GUI and the time/date.

    o_O
     
  9. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    Ok, i'll try with this Chase webpage. But it would be pretty weird not to activate this feature on PayPal webpage considering it's probably the widest globally used financial site in the world...
     
  10. tgell

    tgell Registered Member

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    Am I wrong or is that pic showing that it wants you to switch to Safezone and Safezone is not active yet. What happens when you press the "Switch Now" button?
     
  11. geekatlarge

    geekatlarge Registered Member

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    SafeZone opens. The option to "Bookmark new application" is on the bottom taskbar. I added Firefox. In fact, I am posting this message from SafeZone now. That answers my question about how to add sites to SafeZone in Free. :)

    I found that the SafeZone prompt triggers on Chase Bank, Huntington Bank and Fifth Third, among others. It does not prompt on PayPal.

    The Internet Explorer version doesn't prompt on any of these sites for me, only the FF version.

    I took a picture with my digital camera while composing this in SafeZone earlier: http://i39.tinypic.com/4jn5za.jpg
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2013
  12. tgell

    tgell Registered Member

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    Okay, thanks for the info.
     
  13. geekatlarge

    geekatlarge Registered Member

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    You're welcome.

    Yes, it is puzzling. I'm hoping you or someone else can duplicate this. I tried some banks in the UK (I'm in USA) to see if it was somehow tied to region. Barclays UK does not prompt, but HBSC UK does.

    Wells Fargo, US Bank - Yes

    CitiBank, Banamex, Credit Suisse - No.

    Google Wallet, Intuit Online Payment, 2Checkout, WePay - Also all no. o_O
     
  14. ellison64

    ellison64 Registered Member

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    The enable safezone in fiirefox plugin for financial sites gets disabled everytime firefox is shut down and restarted on this xp installation.??
     
  15. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    The selection of webpages is REALLY weird and half of global important ones are just skipped and the "Chase" one i never heard of before is enabled. Also when i clicked Switch to SafeZone, nothing happened. It was just that window with no browser. I had to add Firefox myself and even then it was horribly slow.
    Not sure about this feature, seems horribyl unrefined and unfinished.
     
  16. FreddyFreeloader

    FreddyFreeloader Registered Member

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_(bank)
     
  17. geekatlarge

    geekatlarge Registered Member

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    Thanks for testing this further, RejZor. Now I know it's not something isolated to my install. This exactly matches what I'm seeing, and same as ellison64 reported above, the SafeZone option disables each time I close and restart Firefox.

    My thoughts exactly.
     
  18. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    I haven't heard about them since i'm in EU and they don't even operate in my country (as far as i know). We mostly have French, Austrian and German based banks around here...

    It still puzzles me why Chase is included within the SafeZone protection and PayPal isn't. I don't think there is anyone who hasn't heard of PayPal yet, but i don't wonder about Chase. Yet, they are included and PayPal isn't...
     
  19. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    gotta say the gui is growing on me since ive been using it since its final release. WAY better than avast 8 was imo.
     
  20. internet addict

    internet addict Registered Member

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    Yes. I love the sleeker, minimal design.
     
  21. Solarlynx

    Solarlynx Registered Member

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    to my taste 8th gui was smarter
     
  22. 93036

    93036 Registered Member

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    Agree. My family can understand what they're looking at with the new gui.

    I tried to get them to switch to FortiClient; but they keep asking me about missing update notifications and "slowdowns". I actually like Forticlient because of the built-in filtering that can be done.
     
  23. FOXP2

    FOXP2 Guest

    :thumb:

    Something that remains of little discussion in the forumverse is the connections status is now buried in Settings > Update. Gone is the nice graphic of the two clouds and the animated connections to the PC in the middle.

    Apparently they suffered some heat a short while back with several days-long outages and felt the need to keep the status, um, not so easily observed. Especially as VLK commented here connectivity is "critical to protection" even tho the GUI reports "everything is OK" even after days of "not connected." That said, since that time connectivity has been solid.

    I now have a taskbar pin to the defs folder and I occasionally check the time stamp of _stream particularly prior to conducting any business.
     
  24. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    Seems to be a lot of issues with avast according to their forum.
     
  25. LagerX

    LagerX Registered Member

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    Well it can be expected from such a new product. Has been running fine here on several machines from beta 1, so I can not complain :/

    I like the simplicity of the new UI. No long tiles etc, short and accurate.
     
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