The bottom line: Avast continues to push the envelope of
top-shelf free security features with hybrid update tech, file
reputation analysis, and more. It's independent benchmarks are a bit
weak, but more than 150 million people trust Avast to keep them safe.
Review:
Looking to compete with both paid and free security suites, Avast wants
to create a unified approach to your computer security. Long gone are
the days of the quirky interface. Avast is accessible and robust, with
an impressive list of free features and strong, though hardly stellar,
performance benchmarks.
Avast 2012 gets bigger antivirus cannons
Installation
Avast has improved its installation process so it's faster than before.
It's not the fastest on the market, not by a longshot, but a standard
installation took us about three minutes.
Some items of note during the installation that will come up later in
the review: to avoid the new Windows 7 and Vista desktop gadget, or the
new WebRep browser add-on, you must choose the Custom install option and
uncheck those here.
Automatic installation of these features is frowned upon, although Avast
does provide a clear method for uninstalling them. It's just not as
simple as a check box that gets its own installation window, since you
have to go through the Customize menu, which makes the auto-install sort
of surreptitious.
The current versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer both block forced
add-on installation. When you run one of those browsers for the first
time after installing Avast, they'll ask you if you want to allow the
new add-on.
On the plus side, installing Avast doesn't require a reboot, and using
its uninstall tool we detected no remnants in the Registry or on the
desktop. Avast has said that the installer has shrunk for all three
versions by about 20 percent, although it's still a large download at
around 70MB for the free version.
A new Avast installation option, available only from the custom install
menu, lets you sideload Avast as a secondary security program to
supplement your main one. We're not big fans of this option from a
security point-of-view, because it can bog down your system resources
without actually making you safer. However, for seeing if you like
Avast, it's not a bad thing as long as you remember to choose one
security suite to go with.
Interface
Avast 7's interface hasn't changed much over the past three versions.
There've been some decorative changes, a darkening of color here,
lightening of grays there, but the changes have been either lightly
cosmetic or utilitarian. For example, there are big graphics to
illustrate the more nebulous security concepts that only have an
on-or-off switch. This may sound useless, but it's actually quite clever
because it helps you visualize how one of the more complex Avast
features is keeping you safe without bogging you down in jargon.
Highlighted with the familiar security colors of green for safe and red
for dangerous, the Summary tab gives up-to-date info on shield status,
auto-updates, virus definitions, the program version, and whether the
silent/gaming mode is on. There's also an unobtrusive ad urging you to
upgrade to Avast Internet Security 7 if you're using the free version,
and an option to connect an Avast account. (This is for the Avast Web
management tool, expected to be live about a month from when this review
is published.)
The Summary tab contains two submenus, Cloud Services and Statistics.
The former shows you how Avast's servers help protect you, and offers a
Settings button.
The latter is for those intrepid folks who're curious to see how Avast's
shields have been performing against threats. It's where you can get
your math geek on. For each shield, it tells you how many files were
scanned and when, and presents the data in a concise graph.
Avast 2012 includes a hybrid update technology for pushing out security updates to you faster.
(Credit:
Avast)
The scans live in the second tab, where you can choose and adjust four
default scan types plus a custom scan option nestled into the bottom
right corner. Real-time shields live in the third tab, and again the
clean interface comes into play here as navigating what could be a mess
of options and tweaks is instead dead simple. Shields are listed on the
left, or you can choose one from the interactive shield wheel in the
main window.
Click a shield to reveal a real-time chart of what the program's been
defending you against, with a Stop button and settings options at the
top of the window. Another button at the top takes you to the advanced
settings for that shield, and links at the bottom expose the shield's
history as a graph and export a log file.
The Additional Protection tab leads to the AutoSandbox, Browser
Protection, Remote Assistance, and Site Blocking tools. Avast Pro
Antivirus and Avast Internet Security users also get Antispam, Sandbox,
and SafeZone options. The Maintenance and Market tabs round out the
options. As you might expect, Maintenance is for updating the program,
checking out quarantine (called Virus Chest,) and managing your
subscription, while the Market tab is a new option for buying extra
security components.
Features and support
While these tools are clearly non-essential, and some of the prices
struck as high--$10 for a Rescue disc? $50 for an annual backup
service?--we like that Avast gives its fans a chance to stay in its
eco-system. The Avast EasyPass, for example, is an Avast-branded version
of RoboForm's premium password manager and is well worth the $9.99
annual fee.
Avast 2012, aka Avast 7, includes several new features that directly
impact your security. One of the biggest changes is a hybrid update
technology that pushes out updates in real time. Because a full database
update isn't required, Avast users will get their security updates much
faster than before. Full database updates will also be pushed out, just
not as frequently.
Another important security change introduces a file reputation system
for evaluating downloads. This tech has existed for a couple of years in
paid security suites like Norton, Kaspersky, and Bitdefender, but Avast
is the first free antivirus to offer it. It leverages community data
from Avast's enormous active user base to help determine if a file is
safe.
Avast's WebRep browser add-on for instant Web site safety evaluation has
been extended to work with Safari, and it will also now check for fake
certificates.
Faked security certificates were an unexpected problem last year, demonstrating how fragile Web security protocol could be.
In a half-day of testing, none of these appeared to cause any negative
impact on computer or browsing performance. Assuming these technologies
work as advertised, your computer ought to be a fair bit safer from
malware with them.
And although we're more than half a year away from Windows 8, Avast has
included some attention for the forthcoming Windows 8 beta, also known
as the Consumer Preview, gets some attention from Avast as the suite
includes an Early-Load Antimalware Driver (ELAM) for guarding against
system-level rootkits.
Avast's browser add-on now works in Safari (not
pictured), and paid users can force their browsers to always run
sandboxed from a single checkbox.
(Credit:
Avast)
The free version of Avast is arguably the most comprehensive set of
freely available security features on the market. There's a reason these
guys have more than 150 million active users (at the time this review
was written). The antivirus, antispyware, and heuristics engines form a
security core that also includes multiple real-time shields. Along with
the new features, it's got an AutoSandbox for automatically walling off
suspicious programs; a full complement of shields that guard against
scripts, P2P networks, instant messaging, and potentially dangerous
program behavior; a silent/gaming mode; on-demand boot scanning; and a
healthy output of statistics for the data nerds.
Avast's sandbox, by the way, automatically places programs in a
virtualized state when it suspects them of being threats. It walls off
suspicious programs, preventing them from potentially damaging your
system while allowing them to run. As the program runs, the sandbox
keeps track of which files are opened, created, or renamed, and what it
reads and writes from the Registry. Permanent changes are virtualized,
so when the process terminates itself, the system changes it made will
evaporate.
The company hasn't said whether the virtualized state begins after the
program already has access to your system, so it's theoretically
possible that it could be compromised. There's not a single security
feature in any program that hasn't been been compromised at some point,
though, so "theoretically hackable" is true of all security features.
The AutoSandbox will now advise you when you're done using it as to how
best to handle the program in the future.
The AutoSandbox for free users is different from Avast's paid-upgrade
sandbox, and the paid upgrades to Avast Pro and Avast Internet Security
include both the automatic version and the older, manually initiated
version.
You can access the AutoSandbox settings from the new Additional
Protection option on the left nav. It defaults to asking the user
whether a program should be sandboxed, although you can set it to
automatically decide. There's a whitelist option for programs that you
always want to exclude from the sandbox, or you can deactivate the
feature entirely.
In addition to these core security features, Avast has some nifty extras
to help you out. The Troubleshooting section now comes with a "restore
factory settings" option, which makes it easier to wipe settings back to
a familiar starting point, and comes with the option to restore only
the Shields settings, leaving other changes untouched, like permanently
running in silent mode.
There's a sidebar desktop gadget for Windows 7 and Vista, and you can
set automatic actions for the boot-time scan. Available under the Scan
Computer tab, the boot-time scan customizations give you far more
flexibility in managing the lengthy and time-consuming boot scan.
Meanwhile, new in Avast Free is the Remote Assistance feature, for
single-instance, friend-to-friend remote tech support. Part of the main
Avast interface, all the other person has to have is...Avast.
It's a good way to get others to install the program, but this isn't the
only single-serving tech support option around. Still, in our tests, it
worked fine. One person shares a code with the other, and voila!
Instant remote PC access. Simply close the window to break the
connection.
Avast doesn't offer an on-demand link-scanning feature, like AVG and
Norton do, although the company says that the way that Avast's Web
shield behaves ought to protect you automatically from any malicious
URLs by automatically preventing the URL from resolving in-browser. A
page will appear letting you know that Avast has blocked the site
because it is suspected to contain a threat.
There weren't many big changes for Avast Pro Antivirus or Avast Internet
Security users, but there were improvements made to the Safe Zone and
Browser Sandbox features. The Browser Sandbox now lets you force
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari to always run sandboxed
away from your system. SafeZone now automatically asks you when you're
about to perform a browser-based financial transaction if you'd like to
switch to the SafeZone mode.
Performance
As far as Avast's impact on system performance goes, in a real-world
test Avast completed its scans in a timely yet not blazingly fast
manner. A Quick Scan took about 20 minutes, and the Full Scan took 59
minutes. RAM usage was surprisingly light, with Avast only eating up
about 16MB when running a scan.
CNET Labs determined
that Avast has a fairly light touch on your computer's performance.
Avast Free 2012 scored well below the average impact on startup time,
and had the least impact of all suites tested on your PC's shutdown
time. Scans were faster than average, beating big names like Norton,
Kaspersky, and Bitdefender, a tad slower than AVG, but not as fast as
Trend Micro or Webroot.
| Unprotected system | 40 | 6 | n/a | 395 | 120 | 342 | 17,711 |
| Average of all tested systems (to date) | 67.4 | 16.2 | 1,058 | 414 | 125 | 347 | 17,129 |
| Avast Free Antivirus 2012 | 55.2 | 9.6 | 800 | 412 | 126 | 347 | 16,976 |
| Avast Pro Antivirus 2012 | 69.8 | 11.3 | 732 | 402 | 126 | 343 | 17,148 |
| Avast Internet Security 2012 | 63.6 | 12.2 | 831 | 407 | 125 | 346 | 17,060 |
*All tests measured in seconds, except for Cinebench. On the Cinebench test, the higher number is better.
Avast performed better than average on the MS Office test, around
average on iTunes Decoding and Media Multitasking, and a bit worse than
average in our Cinebench test. On the key end-user experiences of its
impact on your startup and shutdown times, and scan time performance,
Avast won't make you want to walk a plank out of frustration.
All the security features in the world do you no good if they don't keep
you safe, and on that count Avast performs well in general. However, as
results from independent efficacy testing groups indicate, Avast
could've had a better 2011.
AV-Test.org gave the
previous version of Avast a passing rating in its most recent test, on a
Windows 7 computer from December 2011. Avast 6 barely passed with the
minimum passing score of 11 out of 18. It reached 4 out of 6 in
Protection, 3.0 out of 6 in Repair, and a 5 out of 6 in Usability, for a
total of 12. Usability includes testing for false positives, which
Avast suffered on.
AV-Comparatives.org also
saw room for improvement in Avast during November 2011. The suite
blocked only 93.6 percent of threats tested during that month, which
could then be kicked up to a more respectable 95.9 percent with some
settings tweaks by the user. Looking at January 2011 to November 2011,
Avast did much better, blocking 95.6 percent outright and bumping to
97.5 percent with adjusted settings.
As far as certification goes, Avast received the Advanced+ certification
from AV-Comparatives for the first half of 2011, but only Standard
certification in the second half. Right now, we doubt that this is going
to cause much consternation among Avast fans, but a full year of weak
scores could smite the ardor of even the most enthusiastic fan.
Judging from these results, Avast has to make some changes to its
detection rates quickly to convince people that its strong feature set
is worth it.
Conclusion
When it comes to your security, Avast 2012 gets a lot right. It's got a
usable, uncluttered interface, solid although not stellar benchmarks,
and a set of features that keeps it at the forefront of Windows
security.
It's true that the changes to the suite better improve its performance
in efficacy tests or there could be serious problems, but for now we've
got three key reasons for enthusiastically recommending Avast Antivirus
Free 2012 as an Editors' Choice for free security suite. First, it's got
the most aggressively forward-thinking feature set of the free suites.
Second, it's very good at protecting you. It's not the best at it, but
it does what it does well, and that leads to the third reason it's
earned its award: it protects you without dragging your PC into the mud.
Few people want security that makes a good machine run like an old one,
and on that count, Avast has your back.
Free antivirus Avast gets new look, features:
Publisher's Description
Avast Free Antivirus is a full-featured product, with the same
antivirus and anti-spyware scanning engine used in our premium products.
Version 7.0 provides even faster protection than its predecessor and
offers a web-reputation browser extension as well as virtualization
technology. Accurate threat updates via avast. CommunityIQ technology
ensure worry-free downloading, surfing, social networking, and
gaming--for over 170 million registered users (and over 130 million
active users).
What's new in this version:
- Fixed "Black screen" syndrome
- Fixed crashes in IE WebRep module
- Fixed random switching to the Safezone
- Improved stability & performance of Outlook plugin
- Double VPS update sounds
- Fixed SNX issues
- Fixed some BSODs
- Fixed some leaks
Read more...
