avast! Antivirus 8 is the avast's next-generation security package, which now comes with a new interface and more extras and options than ever before. Avast Antivirus Home Edition is free for home users. However, registration is required to use Avast beyond the 60-day trial period. Registering grants users a 14-month license key, after which users must register the software again to keep using it.Free license keys for all the products can be found here: Avast License Keys Free!
Features
Avast promises pro-active protection from online threats including viruses, spyware, and rootkits while guarding traditional (Internet, disk media) and nontraditional (network and P2P/IM traffic) infection vectors. Avast's resident shield claims to be able to detect a virus before it infects a computer. Avast also has built-in measures to prevent itself from being shut down. Additionally, the program includes various scanners for e-mail and news feeds.
Avast Pro Antivirus has an advanced heuristic scanning engine to proactively detect malware that tries to bypass traditional virus scanners. While the files may look harmless, if they show malware-like behavior, the heuristic scanning engine can stop them.
Another notable feature is Avast's Virus Recovery Database which creates a file integrity database that can repair virus-infected files to their original state.
Download and Installation
Avast Pro Antivirus software is easy to install and set up. After download, the install is painless and takes less than ten clicks and three minutes to complete. Before installation, the software creates a restore point. After the application is installed, you are encouraged to run a preemptive scan that will help locate and remove any deep-rooted viruses that could interfere with set up. Installation is straightforward. A restart is required to complete installation. Most other antivirus suites did not require a restart, but Avast has some very low-level components built-in, which may require the restart.
In Use & Effectiveness
AV Comparatives reports a high virus-detection rate, one of the best in the industry. AV Comparatives deems the software as one of the best solutions.
We evaluate the performance impact and system resource usage of using anti-virus software in three ways:
1. Overall system performance measured before and after installation using PCMark
2. Memory footprint
3. Time it took to perform a full system scan
Our test system is an HP Pavilion dv5t.
Overall System Performance Impact Measured with PCMark Vantage
The PCMark benchmarks as measured before (left) and after (right) the Avast install are shown below.
Somehow the benchmark actually had higher numbers after running the suite so system performance impact is a non-issue!
Memory Footprint
Avast took up about 12 MB of system memory, which is about a third of what AVG requires (35 MB), a little more than half what Avira needs (20 MB), and three times what Microsoft Security Essentials uses (4 MB). That said, even 35 MB is practically nothing by modern memory standards; Firefox will often take up 100 MB all by itself.
Time it took to perform a full system scan
Avast took 34 minutes to scan our computer's hard drive with 122GB of data; this is a short time and faster than most paid solutions. It bests Avira's 45 minutes but doesn't quite catch AVG at 23 minutes. Note that this is using the default scan settings; there are more in-depth scanning options available.
Conclusion
Avast is one of the most impressive antivirus solutions we tested, even including the paid software. It is extremely pro-active, provides many layers of protection, is easy to use after learning the icon-driven interface, and has virtually no impact on system performance. We highly recommend it to home users searching for an antivirus solution with the above-described features.
PROS:
- FREE of charge
- Simple interface
- Highly pro-active, extensive protection
CONS:
- Quirky interface launcher
- Icon interface takes some learning
- Requires registration
best antivirus I use it on my pc
ReplyDeleteI am using Kaspersky protection for many years now, I would recommend this antivirus to all you.
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