AVAST will have free virtualization in its new 6.0 antivirus

Great news! here

 

Excellent news! another free security tool with autosandbox like Comodo Internet Security. I hope that other vendors will follow this idea of the autosandbox.
Thanks to the huge number of users of Avast more people will understand how to use a sandbox and how it works.

 

Although it's worth noting that unlike Comodo's Auto"sandbox" which relies entirely on D+/HIPS component, a!'s Autosandbox will be like Sandboxie/Avast! v5 Pro/IS sandbox...

 

Great news indeed.

From what I've understood, the Avast sandbox relies on heuristics and whitelisting, and as such it shouldn't be that annoying for normal users (although the protection won't be perfect, but it's a large improvement). Auto-restrictions (or "sandboxes") like the CIS one have been around before CIS, KIS has had one (Application control in automatic mode) for years without giving their users much hassle.

Also, like said, this one is a real sandbox.

 

Anybody know when the new version will be available?

 

Thanks for posting this! Kudos to Avast for taking a great free offering to a higher level..

 

Comodo sandbox does not relies in the HIPS (I'm not sure what you mean with that), is like a limited user account with more restrictions.

Anyway I didn't want to enter in technicalities, I know there are different kind of sandboxes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_(computer_security)), the idea of +130 million of users using a sandbox is what I wanted to point out.

Sorry, I didn't know that you can configure kaspersky have the "auto" part in the sandbox.

But coming back to Avast

It's true that the free version of the sandbox will not have all the functionalities than the paid one? or they will be exactly the same?

So avast sandbox will only sandbox the files detected by behaviour, not just the unknown files or the not known as safe like Comodo?
Apart from the type of sandbox, and that only sandbox the files found by heuristics there is another difference of how it works?
Any date for the release? hopefully soon

 

i just hope they dont go the way of bloat..... PLEASE keep it lean and lite. i also am hoping this will NOT be a default deny type of thing. for myself that is fine but for people like my mom and my mother in law etc that i now have on avast it would drive them nuts and they would have hardly any idea what to answer most of the time which is exactly why i got them off kaspersky with its hips they both kept telling me how much they hated it..

 

The popups depends how well the heuristics will work, if it's too sensitive or not, or if it's well regulated. At the beginning can be a problem but I guess that they will make a whitelist with the "FP's" and trusted apps.

 

They said in a Softpedia interview they were aiming to keep it at least as light as avast! 5. Further this ain't really a surprise, we heard the rumours already. Also we already noticed that version 6 would come really quickly after 5.1, I am looking forward to Beta test it. ESET version 5, Prevx version 5 and avast! version 6, nice time to Beta test software.

Features comparison for the future?

avast! 6 Free Antivirus: File Shield, P2P Shield, IM Shield, Mail Shield, Web Shield, Network Shield, Behavioral Shield (fully functional then) and avast! sandbox (with AutoSandboxing)

avast! 6 Pro Antivirus: Free Antivirus + Script Shield + faster updates + premium support + no ads

avast! 6 Internet Security: Pro Antivirus + Silent Firewall + Antispam

So basically Pro Antivirus will be the one for people who just want to support avast! and don't want firewall and antispam, since it doesn't provide any better protection (Script Shield is not a major part). Therefore it makes more sense to me to include the Script Shield also in the Free Antivirus. So Pro is really for the people who just want to support avast! and IS for the families and as flagship product. Or is there more to come? I thought in the same Softpedia interview they mentioned they were thinking about Family Safety and Backup.

Also version 6 will include search results ranking (like LinkScanner/SiteAdvisor, but not with the traffic light system, but 1 to 5 stars), next to that it will have more cloud support. According to that same interview.

 

And how do you think those restrictions are carried out? Yes, with Defense+. Search the Comodo forums, I'm sure it's been explained. And we're talking about the Autosandbox... Comodo does have a sandbox like Sandboxie/a! but it's manual/via right click only.

My point is that with such types of sandboxes like Sandboxie and a! sandbox (Virtualization, as they call it) in theory there's less chance of an application crashing/not functioning as with Comodo's Autosandbox (due to the mentioned restrictions imposed by it).

And I hope that all goes well, because a! are the first to utilize such a sandbox in such a manner.

 

Wonderful news! I'm starting to reconsider Avast with some of their more recent changes. After briefly using v4 I quit using them but then it seems after v5 came out; they really started making positive changes. I may actually be an Avast user by v6, maybe sooner.

 

better get it while it is still 55% off. 55WILDERS2010

 

The article says it brings AutoSandbox("AutoSandbox identifies and prompts users to run suspicious applications in a safe virtual environment.") to all versions, including free. This does not necessarily mean that the current on-demand/automatic Virtualization of for example your browser is also integrated in the free version.

Still very nice though, looking forward to v6 beta.

 

Thanks for explaining it, I used sandboxie a long time ago and I dont remember the computer impact, this kind of virtualization will not make a huge impact in the computer performace? due to they need to virualize some parts of the OS?
I guess that a! will have that into account to make it almost transparent

 

Zfactor, if you look at the box for it at the bottom you can tic which of the 3 options you prefer and it will save it. So if in the case of your parents you could just tic it to allow everytime and they would never be bothered by it.

 

the way I see this is, you dont even have to keep your browser sanboxed with Avast if you choose not to. But on downloading that is when this box will pop up and offer you this selection. That I like because I really dont prefer to always sandbox my browser.

 

I bet before CeBit.

 

from what i recall VLK saying on the avast forums, free version will only be getting the core sandbox functionality, so the paid versions of avast will be the only ones with full functionality (im assuming that means ondemand sandboxing, etc.)

 

Generally, not a big impact. With Sandboxie for ex. I don't feel a difference between sandboxed/unsanboxed application performance, although it needs to be actively taken care of in development for the sandbox to be so light (as with anything else tbh).

 

the only down side is the ability to commit. After you open something in this mode and find it is safe, you wont be able to commit the changes and will have to download it again. Or so I assume.

 

Here is what Vik said about the autosandbox some time back.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=64382.150

So to sum up, the auto sandbox will be in the free version and it will not be annoying as decisions will be taken automatically. Also it will be real virtualisation and not like the Comodo's one which uses limited access rights.

Regards

 

Bottom line is, for free, Avast is sticking the fork deeper into the paid pipers plate.

 

I think that is only about a month away, and there is not even a beta yet.

 

With regards to Prevx, I think you mean version 4.