Avast! Antivirus 4.7
First published—02 October 2006.
Updated—07 January 2008.
Introduction
Middle-size or even small security software companies like ALWIL, producer of avast! Antivirus, sometimes can push monsters similar to Symantec and McAfee to shadow and shame just by simply being more flexible and releasing important products on time.
Avast! Antivirus 4.7 is running fine in new Microsoft Windows Vista RC1. And it is not simply running—it is doing its job effectively. What is worth mentioning right away Home edition of avast! Antivirus is completely free, and it is reasonably stripped down in comparison with its Professional edition.
Installation
As I'm not using a virtual machine to get a clear screenshot, let me show this mysterious one, a nmap-matrix-alike screenshot, taken by my Lumix. This is Avast boot scan—something special about this program: once flawless installation is done, you will see this one.
Functions
Avast 4.7 has an impressive set of features for it is On-Access Scanner: besides Standard Shield for checking documents and files it has Outlook/Exchange resident module , Internet Mail, Web Shield, Instant Messaging, Network Shield (“protects the computer from the attacks of Internet worms , e.g. Blaster, Sasser, etc.”), and even P2P shield:
There is another function called Virus Recovery Database (VRDB) generator [Screenshot1, Screenshot 2], which “creates an integrity database, i.e. it stores information about the actual state of the files, doing it three versions back for each file”. Personally, I doubt its usefulness, as it seems to be a substitution for XP/Vista System Restore function. So, I switched it off.
Once installed, avast! started scanning my computer. Although they call it “Quick Scanner”, it literally took 2 hours to scan my 200 Gb of data. No complain though, as the scan was incredibly thorough. Imagine that: by default it went inside msi, rar, iso, bin and other archives and images!
It found some viruses and Trojan horses on my hard drives in the archives. I knew about them, but it is good to check again. Here are some screenshots:
The found infected files avast! puts in so-called Virus Chest, i.e. quarantine. [Screenshot]
As a big and wonderful plus for avast! in Microsoft Windows Vista RC1, as it has a very little impact on resources and runs seamlessly.
Log Viewer is also good enough [Screenshot]. I liked its sound notifications. “The virus has been detected!” tells you this software, I find it’s cool.
Integration with UAC (User Account Control) works fine.
Design & Others
Car-player like interface was never a brilliant user experience environment, but this has put me into a meditation state. Even though there is a big screen with an explanation (“Simple User Interface”) [Screenshot], it is not simple in any way. Where to go? Which button to press? The images for the icons do not tell you much and overhead tips were animating really slow. OK, it just a default skin, but the other skin, “kde skin”, is equally controversial. [Screenshot]
Given that the antivirus itself seems to work like a charm, this visual appearance is really a minor difficulty for a regular user. UPDATE 03 October 2006 I've got a feedback from AVAST! tech support, pointing out a huge family of free skins for this antivirus desktop [link]. That was definitely my overlook. So, I've chosen Vista-look desktop (please see the screenshot below), which is nicer and more user-friendly:
But still, there is a couple of points bothering me. For instance, the first thing you want to do is to press that glowing button (similar to "play" in Win Media Player 11), but nothing happens—it says "select the scan area". Why don't you go directly to the Folder Selection window? Isn't that obvious? Just call that window "Select the area to scan" then.
My advise, guys, may seem stupid, but I suggest if somebody like Artemy Lebedev studio would redesign your avast! GUI, you will have a killer software, almost perfect in every sense! Because, apart from that UI difficulties, I barely see anything to complain. Personally, I do not believe in skins approach, because "customer is always wrong". Although, it is very easy to download and integrate avast! skins (very similar to Firefox themes), Firefox, to say, has perfect default appearance. I just wish you included that "perfect" skin in the initial setup. [end of update]
So, finally I found the Options [Screenshot] and the setting [Screenshot], which are rich in functionality and customization. As you can see the number of interfaces to control the avast! antivirus behavior is pretty big, that is another difficulty for the regular joe-user. [Screenshot] [Screenshot]
Help is good and comprehensive though. [Screenshot]
Conclusion
As a conclusion, I really recommend this antivirus for every Windows Vista user. It is clearly a big achievement of ALWIL company and a good contribution to the Security.
And again Home edition is free.
[UPDATE 03 October 2006] P.S. I'm running this version for a couple of days, and honestly I got very much used to it. Contrary to typical antivirus behavior, it is completely non-intrusive. Well done.
Popular Searches
Windows Vista Firewall Outbound Protection