Avast 2014 Released

This is a bit of wishful thinking nowadays. I still remember in 2005-06-07 there were no AVs free with ads, toolbars, etc marketing was based on the premises that you mentioned - happy with the free, buy the full version -. Since 2008 overall income must have dropped significantly for most AVs: the global financial crisis has affected a lot of people in the US first and Europe later, these are the most profitable geographical areas and markets never really recovered to pre 2008 levels. Psychologically when most people get in the mood to save, they start cutting unnecessary overheads, free versions of AVs were not sustainable anymore hence the current situation...

 

Thanks for the heads up!

 

Seeing a recurring problem with the Avast Browser Protection add-on in IE10. Browser loads to a white screen, regardless of web site. Nothing but uninstalling or disabling the browser widget resolves the problem. That means a big chunk of prophylaxis is missing.

Also had two more reports of two false positives - one on Outlook 2000 caused by EVO:gen detection. Apparently not an infected email, but a key Outlook component required for the program to open and run. I'll be looking at it early next week.

Second was a Deep Scan of legitimate Realtek networking setup program on a new Lenovo M82 desktop. It doesn't release the driver components fast enough for the install to complete correctly. A reinstall fixed it.

I appreciate Avast's attempts to keep us all safer, but c'mon now...this makes three big false positives for me alone, on QuickBooks, Office and a Realtek driver - not exactly obscure stuff. In fact, very common programs.

It's beginning to become annoying.

 

People confuse DeepScreen analysis alone as "false positive" just because it interrupts the install process. That's not false positive, it's just an analysis process. False positive from DS is when it analyzes and positively detects something as malware even though it's not. I think that is a far less possible scenario...

 

Let's say that I enable Hardened mode.
Does that turn off Deepscreen analysis?

 

We've just done a review of Avast! Premier and Mike has given me an indication of how it's going to pan out - he can't recommend it due to the IE (and other) issues.

Should be online shortly.

 

In my experiences yes it does.

Supposedly hardenened mode on moderate stops programs that woukd normally be deepscreened

Hardenened mode on agressive blocks all non whitelisted programs.

In my setup i have hardened.mode set to agressive and deepscreen turned off and i love it.

 

Thanks, buddy!
I hope vlk can confirm this.

 

AVAST 2014 Program update 9.0.2008:

Here is the list of major fixes:
* Fixed issues with Metro apps (after update to Win 8.1)
* Fixed occasional problem with playing sounds on the VPS toasters
* Fixed issue with Outpost FW warning („unsigned“ driver)

 

Your welcome, i would.have responded earlier except i didnt see your post. My bad

 

Yes Hardened Mode supersedes DeepScreen (i.e. with Hardened Mode ON, files that would normally be DeepScreened are automatically blocked).

Cheers,
Vlk

 

How about a fix of Avast IS 9's Sandbox not allowing YouTube videos to play? It just gives a black box w/an error message. That's on Windows 7 using IE11, Firefox 25, Chrome 30, Maxthon 4, Opera 17.

 

Thanks, vlk!
Do you have any news about Deepscreen?
I know you said that some progress is expected within few weeks...

 

And here's the review. 2.5 stars:

http://www.softwarecrew.com/2013/11/review-avast-premier-2014/

 

Some years ago I migrated to Avast! because of its simplicity. The big Extra was you had different themes to choose from. Now it has become quite large and slightly complicated to keep track of all the features. Most of the features work for me but do I really need them all? Can a person get an AV any more?

 

surprisingly avast fans and dev-team people had little to say on fp relating panda cloud av. one look at the forum and you know the bsod problems of last 2 versions have been replaced by evogen now......

 

I have excellent impressions of the new update - no IE 11.0 crashes with the Avast plug-in enabled, no conflicts with Adblock in Firefox 25.0, smooth install, very tiny edges that have to be smoothed still (like the option to add exclusions for processes in the Web shield doesn't work - clicking on the ADD button does nothing.). May be installing it afresh has helped too. A little delay on start-up but nothing that bothersome. Let's see how it will behave further on.

P.S. I guess I spoke too soon. Now IE 11.0 opens blank and doesn't respond to anything besides being minimized or closed. Also I saw under the Start-up column of my task manager 2 instances of Internet explorer under the Avast antivirus tree process.
Suddenly IE 11.0 started working again - nice but I guess there is still interference and compatibility issues with Avast plug-in.

 

Anyone here running with Program Updates set to Automatic? Everytime I check a relatives PC with Avast they're not running the latest version, but I have set Program Updates to Automatic and if I go into the Settings -> Update, it does recognize there is a newer version available. This is not new btw, I have seen this long before v2014.

 

I guess it has something to do with synchronization or something. I see that some of my friends' PCs are still running on build 2006. They push program updates little-by-little as far as I understand.

 

Noticed the same behavior and it's stupid. I set those machiness to Auto because i want them to automatically update. But they don't. WTF

 

I'm gonna keep my v8 until reported issues are fixed.

 

Also, how about a fix for the SafeZone browser - it won't work in a non-administrator account.
That, and the browser Sandboxed won't play most videos.
The two things I paid money to get don't work.
Wonderful.

 

Pop a thread in the Avast Forum re: SafeZone!

I've so far posted 3 regarding SafeZone with not a single reply!
I wanted to get the config tool to reveal sandbox folders realtime, snxconfig I think it is/was because although it has an option to allow trusted downloads in sandbox it depends what mood it's in as to whether it'll actually oblige!
I also wanted to know why give the option of re-locating sandbox only to find there was no way of clearing it once the change was made. Reset etc. does nothing and only way to zero it out is to leave it as default (where it is invisible)?
Other one was simply asking how to have the safezone browser back to full screen (not F11!) instead of making it look like I'm browsing on a cinema screen c/w black borders top/bottom.

Not a dicky bird!

 

PUP can not be detected on manual scan as "Explorer Scan Setting" does not work properly.....the case has also been presented on Avast's Forum.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=139506.0

 

OK, thanks! Just wondering if some of Avast's features are just smoke 'n mirrors marketing tools?