avast4 vailable !

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by minacross, Dec 19, 2002.

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  1. Paul Wilders

    Paul Wilders Administrator

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    Welcome Ed.

    We did have conversations using PM - glad to see you here. Would you mind registering, in order to avoid spoofing?

    I for one am aware of that ;)

    Goes without saying - you're welcome.

    This appeal might help.

    Agreed in essence. What's Avast stand on zoo?

    I applaud you for being frank here - and do wish avast! the best in evening the score.

    That's a good request - your expectations seem a bit harsh.

    I do wonder who is "you" in this quote. Once more: in essence that's true indeed.

    Anyway: we will test avast! new version. In case you want us to test the commercial version as well, drop me an email.

    All the best,

    paul
     
  2. controler

    controler Guest

    Ok guys , get with it. I mentioned Avast 4 a couple months ago and tried to mention it was cool and only worked on XP.
    I still have the Beta ;)
     
  3. eyespy

    eyespy Registered Member

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    Well,
    I tried it for half a day, but found the memory usage to be a little high.
    Also, on my Win2k box, Avast 4 didn't want to uninstall.
    As a matter if fact it wouldn't uninstall ! :mad:

    Anybody else have this problem ??

    regards,
    bill :)
     
  4. Technodrome

    Technodrome Security Expert

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    Well the final version of Avast! 4 is out... So u don't want to stick with beta! ;)


    Technodrome
     
  5. controler

    controler Guest

    eyespy

    Yep I had the same uninstall problem. Had to remove it by hand :(
    It id however seem fast.
     
  6. notageek

    notageek Registered Member

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    It looks like it uses too much memory for me. :) From some of the screenshots it looks like some of the stuff is still in German. I think That if there is an unistall problem they need to pull it back in and fix the problem. ;) Good luck to all who's testing Avast!4.

    Would any one care to share the AV that don't fair pretty good against Zoo Viruses? I'm hoping NAV isn't one of them. ;)
     
  7. minacross

    minacross Registered Member

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    I did with ver.4 (not beta). just received a bsd so I have to delete it manually (folders and reg. keys).
     
  8. Technodrome

    Technodrome Security Expert

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    Full English version is available. Pictures are linked from Czech site.

    Yes, indeed! Avast can't be uninstalled from add/remove, and doesn’t include its own uninstaller.


    Technodrome
     
  9. eyespy

    eyespy Registered Member

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    Here come the screen shots...
     

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  10. eyespy

    eyespy Registered Member

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    another...
     

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    • menu.jpg
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  11. eyespy

    eyespy Registered Member

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    Memory usage !
     

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  12. javacool

    javacool BrightFort Moderator

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    Hmm - that memory usage is rather high...is it constantly increasing? If so it might be due to a memory leak.

    NAV 2002 on one of my test systems only uses 6.5 MB of memory.

    NOD32's AMON uses barely 4 MB.

    Best regards,

    -Javacool
     
  13. eyespy

    eyespy Registered Member

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    Yes it is rather high !
    But it didn't seem to increase.
    That uninstall glitch didn't make my day either !! o_O

    regards,
    bill ;)
     
  14. Ghost

    Ghost Guest

    :D Yes, perhaps the 'Un-install' function is one that should be checked right off-the-bat, before anyone goes about different forums singing the praises of any given program?
     
  15. notageek

    notageek Registered Member

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    Anyone know how good it picks up on viruses?
     
  16. controler

    controler Guest

    It seemed to pick up on a bunch a virii.
    I think I will check it out a bit more.
    I really didn't check for memory leakage.
    but in my mind 4 or 6 meg of memory isn't that big a deal these days.
    memory is dirt cheap now so anybody not upgraded to at least a gig a RAM is doing themselves harm.
    Best Buy has been selling it cheap and am sure the Ebay has it even cheaper ;)
    Get that computer screaming !!!!!!!!!!!
    Buy MEMORY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! as your own X-mas present.
    MERRY CHRISTMAS all :D
     
  17. vlk

    vlk AV Expert

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    Hi,
    I work as a program manager for Alwil, the maker of avast. I'd like to comment on the memory consumption of avast 4.

    I was pretty surprised how much emphasis you guys put to the 'Mem Usage' column in the Task Manager. I'm not saying it's totally pointless to look at this columnn, but the truth is that it *is* highly inaccurate, and in special cases it can be totally bogus. For more information, I recommend a good book on the topic, like 'Inside Windows 2000' from David Solomon and Mark Russinovich.

    If you'd like to know how much virtual memory an app is taking, it's much more sensible to use the 'VM Size' column (it's not shown by default, but you can enable it in the View menu).

    If you sum up all 4 avast resident processes' VM Size values, you get something like 12MB - not little, but imho definitely not a memory hog (not 39MB!!!).


    Thanks,
    Vlk
     
  18. Technodrome

    Technodrome Security Expert

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    Thanks for your response Mr.Vlcek!

    Yes you are right! The problem is, people tend to look at physical memory more often then VM! This obviously does not help you or any other program developer!


    P.S. Would you or somebody from Alwil team address “uninstaller problem”!



    Thank U and Happy New Year!
     
  19. vlk

    vlk AV Expert

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    Actually, the uninstaller problem has already been solved. :)

    The current version (build 144) that's on the web (and that you can easily upgrade to if you have the original release, build 143) fixes the problem and can be normally uninstalled. It also fixes several more bugs, such as the instability of Internet Exporer if logged on as a non-administrator.


    Thanks
    Vlk
     
  20. Technodrome

    Technodrome Security Expert

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    That's great news! Thanks for your quick respond!



    Technodrome
     
  21. minacross

    minacross Registered Member

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    I wonder how can I update its vps file manually? I think this vps file at http://www.avast.com/latest.htm is for ver 3.
     
  22. Technodrome

    Technodrome Security Expert

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    I believe that VPS files are the same for 3 and 4 versions!

    Why not update thru the auto-update program
    feature?



    Technodrome
     
  23. eyespy

    eyespy Registered Member

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    Vlk,
    thanks for responding !
    You do have a very good point concerning the "Mem Usage" in the Task Manager. I will definately keep that in mind.
    Having said that, sometimes the VM Size is less than Mem Usage. Sometimes it is more.... and none are the same ! (none in my box)
    I check Mem Usage for general or vague values of program Mem usage. I will now use the VM size as well, but as you stated and as other posters noted, the VM size was "not little".
    I must say, and other posters will probably agree, that we (and probably millions of other users) appreciate the fact that you (Alwil) put out a product, free of charge ! And I was not trying to show disrespect towards your AV in anyway. We just share views and thoughts. And by doing that, I would like to think that it helped make your AV better, and gave Posters another viewpoint of how Avast uses Memory resources.
    I'm also glad you repaired the "uninstall" bug as well !


    Respectfully,
    bill :)
     
  24. vlk

    vlk AV Expert

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    > wonder how can I update its vps file manually? I think this vps > file at http://www.avast.com/latest.htm is for ver 3.

    Why do you need to update it manually? Manual (I mean "real" manual) updating is not supported any more. You must use our new updating mechanism, provided you're connected to the net. If you're not, we have a special program that you can use to do the update. Please let me know if you need such a tool (although I really think 99.9% of users have, at least a temporary, Internet access).

    >I believe that VPS files are the same for 3 and 4 versions!

    Definitely not, they're different ;).
    The VPS file for v3 is about 2.1MB, whether the v4 file is about 850K (we now use compression). The internal format has changed, too.

    > Having said that, sometimes the VM Size is less than Mem
    > Usage. Sometimes it is more.... and none are the same !
    > (none in my box)

    OK, I'll try to explain little more the difference between these two values. Actually, their names are very misleading - in fact these two guys correspond to the 'Private Bytes' (the VM Size) and 'Working Set' (the Mem Usage) NT performance counters.

    This is what MS says about these values:

    Private Bytes (Task Manager's "VM Size"):
    "Private Bytes is the current size, in bytes, of memory that this process has allocated that cannot be shared with other processes."

    In other words, this is the memory the program has allocated (therefore, this is quite reasonable value to compare, and it normally does not fluctuate much)

    Working set (Task Manager's "Mem Usage"):
    "Working Set is the current size, in bytes, of the Working Set of this process. The Working Set is the set of memory pages touched recently by the threads in the process. If free memory in the computer is above a threshold, pages are left in the Working Set of a process even if they are not in use. When free memory falls below a threshold, pages are trimmed from Working Sets. If they are needed they will then be soft-faulted back into the Working Set before leaving main memory."

    In my opinion, this value really has a meaning only to the developers. It's totally useless for the end user as it is trivial to make an application that e.g. allocates a single page (e.g. 4K) and still has a working set of, let's say 400MB - just by mapping this single page 100,000 times, which is perfectly legal (and in fact, this is, roughly said, what avast 4 is really doing - not 100,000 times, but let's say, 10 times, but that's a detail - the point is that this has nothing to do with real 'memory consumption', just 'address space consumption')...

    There are programmatic ways how to artificially lower the Working Set value, and there are programs that use these techniques, but we find it stupid to use them just to make users think that our application is taking less memory than it's actually taking, not to mention the fact that tampering with the working set can have severe performance consequences...

    Hope this helps,
    Vlk
     
  25. minacross

    minacross Registered Member

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    so I think you will not provide an update file for ver 3 soon ( or even tech. support for its users !!)!!! o_O o_O
     
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