Avast 2014 Released

I think it was the perfect av a few years ago without all the bells and whistles. Avast has become bloated and it's annoying to renew licences for the "free" version.

Avast team should be sent to Panda labs, they know how to create a simple, light and good free AV.

 

Talking about tests, AV-Comparatives has just awarded Avast Free with an Advanced + rating, the maximum. And it was in their real world test, the most important one. Avast Free is the only free product that got the award as Fortinet was tested with Fortigate (cloud behavioural analysis), only avaliable within the enterprise version.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/avc_prot_2013b_en.pdf

What-more-could-you-possibly-ask-from-a-free-product?

 

couldn't say it better.

 

How is the requirement to register the free version in order to get a one year license any more annoying now then it has always been? It is actually much easier since they've made it possible to do right in the UI instead of having to wait for email.

 

On one hand i'm impressed by what avast! is offering for free, but then again i'm slightly disappointed, because they don't fully utilize its potential.

Lack of seeing DeepScreen active more often and still not ready DynaGen makes it a bit worse than it could be. We had great hopes for it, but avast! has a (in a way) nasty habit of adding functions that aren't actually functioning from the get go, but they always need few months to mature.

It was this way with Network Shield, with Auto Sandbox, the mentioned Evo-Gen also took quite a while to become reality, now DeepScreen and DynaGen. The main problem with this is that they create the hype and there aren't (yet) the expected results. Only part which totally disappointed me was Behavior Shield, which was never what we hoped it would be (behavior blocker).

 

Whatever..... you obviously have a dislike for me for whatever reason and are simply looking to argue. Grow up and move on.

 

Despite all the bloat and borderline crap they try to force on you, we still have the option of a custom installation. If you take that into account, you can get a product that is actually much leaner than most of the top internet security suites, if you so wish. On top of that you can still fine-tune its components to your liking. I really like the fact that I can choose to not install a web- or mail-av component and that I can configure the fileguard to scan on execution only among other things.

Other security suites may not come with borderline crap like Avast and thus seem to be much leaner at first sight. Yet they actually force their stream- and e-mail scanning on you and the fileguard is set to scan on access without the option to change it. In comparison to a custom-installed Avast I actually consider products from Kaspersky and Bitdefender to be much more bloated.

 

There you go, you've just proven everything I've said. Quite an unhealthy imagination, combative attitude, unsubstantiated claims, playing victim, and dodging the subject.

And now back to Avast. I find it's new UI not much of an improvement over the old one, just something to get used to. DeepScreen can be annoying, especially with anything that modifies the system that has to run again. I think they should at least stop the program or virtualize it while analyzing.

 

Exactly, as long as the custom installation is an option and easily found I don't see what all the complaining is about, I don't think it's forced upon you, some programs do make it difficult to opt out of things but avast is pretty straightforward. Many programs that I use and recommend have added junk during the install but are easily opted out of, you have to remember, it's FREE and they have to generate revenue from something.

 

What's with the childish responses these days?

BTW J_L, some AV vendors asked the AV testing organizations to max out (or at least customize) the settings in their products, right? Now that is kinda unfair because the default settings on some products are not quite good.

On one side, I agree with mnosteele about the max settings in the tests, although I'm not saying those tests are invalid. On the other, max settings can be superfluous for daily usage on some products.

I guess to make it fair, either max them all or don't accept any customization requests from AV vendors.

 

Looking down on others as childish is no better, if even accurate.

That is their choice, and if shown as such, can be done. They own the product after all, unlike what people think it should be done.

Really, max settings aren't exactly fair either. First you have to determine what that is by changing sliders, checking and unchecking boxes, etc. Then there are products that pretty much whitelists on max settings, making the test that much harder and questionable.

You could do that, but I'd say default settings should set the baseline. Why else would they be defaults?

 

Yeah, yeah, that line. Sounds much better to hear it from someone who is not trying to throw an object at me.

Which makes default settings to be pointless.

Customizations will give different results than what most people will get out of the box, as you said earlier. I agree with that. My point is to make the tested products to be in the equal level of configurations they might have, be it max possible settings or default settings. It's really unfair to see one product is maxed out while on the other it's left as it is.

Equal.

 

I agree & hope Deep Screen & DynaGen dont go BB way especially DynaGen, it has potential.

By the way, I tested Avast 2014 stable.
No DynaGen detection still, this is known. DeepScreen also popped up very few times, any info if it is being tweaked or something is going on with this?

Why that low reputation popup is disabled by default? I mean that big yellow popup which we get when downloading files that have low reputation by Avast. I find it good for protection. I enabled it for test. It appeared few times. I also tried by downloading & running the files that gave low reputation popup. Few times those files were detected by AV & few times were not detected by AV. I find it good & it increase/improve protection. I think it should be enabled by default & PUP too.

I think low reputation popup enabled will give very very very few FPs on average users system & increase/improve the protection in a way.

 

Man...you guys are making me want to switch back to Avast...I must be missing something, all of this passion!

 

Proof of accusation?

What can you do against ownership rights? No, seriously.

I believe most vendors test default settings while some request for changes, which are noted in the report. That is the best testing organizations can do until they have more power.

 

What accusation?

The case is the products are being tested against each other. You see, customization requests will make the results to be rather unbalanced. A reader says "oh Avira is better than Avast! according to x testing organization" but that reader didn't read the part which said Avira requested the testers to set the heuristic sensitivity to high while Avast! is all in the default state.

 

"Yeah, yeah, that line..."

True enough, but what can we do about it?

 

But no one is preventing Avast from making requests for their product or any other vendor for their product for that matter. Avira is not the only vendor that is allowed to make requests, any vendor can do that afaik.

 

Oh that one. Well, usually when people say that kind of line they are ready to throw something at me. In fact I've got a broomstick thrown at me without a single word. Just some part of my life.

What? I wasn't talking about you.

Nothing. But at least we can tell people that we can't judge a product is good or bad just by looking at the tables and not to worry if their AV of choice wasn't at the top.

It was just an example. Some vendors don't request any changes for whatever reason while some others do.

 

Sure, but if we look at it from the other side, is Avast's defaults "better/stronger" than Avira's wich is why they feel confident leaving them in the defaults knowing they are strong enough already. (I don't know how the defaults are set in either product it's just me thinking out loud )

Regarding setting everything on "max" or enable scanning of more during real-time operations it can decrease the system performance so the product can cause more slowdown than if a user would let the real-time scanning settings be at the defaults.

 

Don't forget about FPs. That's why I said max settings are superfluous for daily usage. Sadly, AV testing organizations can't deny requests from AV vendors if they wanted to customize the settings for the tests. Then they got good scores from the tests due to their products were being maxed out, then they put all those badges in their websites, and claiming the products as award-wining while leaving the users to be misinformed unless the users look for more information. Final result, we get the stereotypical "antivirus X is better than antivirus Y" but no one really mentions that they were configured in the different ways the AV vendors want.

 

Guys,there is NO dyna-gen right now.I am sure It will be announced when it is ready.

I tried it and guess what grime fighter is a standalone product so it will NOT be there in free version and already they have changed the way it works in free.It doesnt start by itself in free version anymore there is just a simple pointer of it in free version and nothing else.

I dont think this is in anyway bloatware...You can always opt-out for it in custom install if you dont want even its tail to be there and that will be it.

No reason for a pointless argument...I dont see any bloat in avast free product atleast for Now.

 

This really should be the final word on the subject of testing.

 

Seriously, I've heard the same no bloat argument of custom install (that was countered in multiple occasions not too long ago) repeated way too many times. Enough, it's not as if we don't get it, especially when I can argue the other way around.

 

You can't tweak the Avast heuristic settings because it doesn't use something like heuristics as far as I remember.

+1