avast! 4 Home Edition 4.8.1356

Price:	$0 (Discounts)
Rate:
Downloads:	334474
Op. System:	Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT 4.x, Windows2000, WinXP, Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic,
Date:	09-25-2009
Size:	7268 Kb
Developer:	ALWIL Software

Editor review for avast! 4 Home Edition

avast! 4 Home Editions a light weight, feature-each Antivirus package, proofed by ICSA and was also awarded with a prize by the Secure Computing Magazine. This is free Antivirus- Software for no commercial use, to be used though mainly at home. 'avast! 4 Home Edition shows a trendy user interface comparable to the style of the Media Player and it Antivirus- Kernel but with a higher performance and extremely good detection features. The users profit a lot from it?s built in features to detect virus which can be hidden on NTFS - drives, viruses, which expand among users and even Trojans. It?s paramount unpack support is another advantage. In fact it can scan in nearly all popular file formats. Additionally avast! 4 Home Edition supports a number of executable packing programs (PKLite, Diet, UPX, ASPack, PeShield, FSG, MEW and so on). It?s efficient memory- resident module is able to recognize a virus before it will infect your Computer. Another interesting feature of this software is the Virus Chest, a save, isolated file for storing infected, suspicions or even file- systems to restore it later on. You can even work with these files in the Chest, even though it is labeled with some security limitations. The installation of avast! 4 Home Edition is done in two minutes time, in spite of the fact that you will be asked to reboot your system to install all it?s features. Be prepared when you start your computer next time after having installed the software to a slower start, because it will scan all your files.
Pros
avast! 4 Home Edition is a user- friendly software It?s simple 'On Demand Scanner'-user interface makes it easy to choose the files which have to be scanned, the scan can be started simply activating the plat button. avast! 4 Home Edition offers also an 'On-Access Scanner' protection for popular e mail clients as also for over 30 different types of popular IM (Instant- Messaging) and P2P (peer-to- peer) programs, wherein it?s Screen Saver Scanner scans your computer during the coffee breaks, it?s web shield supervises and filters al entering HTTP- data traffic, hence offering effective countermeasures against Malware, Adware, Spyware and Dialer. The Web Shield functions as a transparent HTTP- proxy and is compatible with all the better knowing Web Browsers as for example MS Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla and Opera.
Cons
At odd times the performance of avast does not reach it?s promoted features. It shows bad results with heuristic text (e-mail scans), a part of that the program is slow. It seems that there are existing bolt- holes. Also I would like to see a reduction in time that needs the Antivirus - package to check the files on my PC.
Summary
This highly recommended Antivirus- program is worth a try. It profits from the build in automatic Online- Updates which are downloaded fast, without an irritating system reboot. If your internet connection is stable this updates are executed automatically - means without prompts- and at fixed time intervals. If you have a current virus database this is a clever way to protect your computer.

Description for avast! 4 Home Edition

avast! Home is a free and complete ICSA certified antivirus, with Checkmark certified anti-spyware, and cutting edge GMER anti-rootkit software for non-commercial home use.
avast! continues to achieve Virus Bulletin VB100% awards, with an uninterrupted record of wins for over two years, which not all competitors can claim.

avast! Home includes the following components:

On Demand Scanner - with Skinnable Simple Interface - just select what you want to scan, in which way, and press the Play button.

On-Access Scanner - with special providers to protect:
most available E-mail clients,
Instant Messaging - ICQ, Miranda etc.,
Network traffic - Intrusion Setection,
P2P protection for Kazza, BitTorrent etc.,
Web shield - monitors and filter all HTTPtraffic,
NNTP Scanner - scans all Usenet Newsgroup traffic
and of course all operations on PC files.

avast! can scan inside the huge number of different packers including ZIP, ARJ, RAR etc. even Outlook Express .dbx files.

Boot-Time Scanner - scans disks in the same way and in the same time as Windows CHKDSK does (on NT/2000/XP only).
Screen Saver Scanner - scans PC during your coffee breaks.
Virus Chest - safe, isolated folder to store infected, suspicious and even some system files - to restore them.

True incremental updates mean that, unlike some other antivirus solutions, automatic updates are small and therefore quick to download - and most updates never require a system restart: so just set the program to automatically keep you up-to-date, and the it just works.

avast! Home is available in English, French, German, Italian, Japaneese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish... altogether around 30 languages - check avast webiote to download avast! in your language.
You will download a 60 days fully functional demo. You can obtain a FREE license key by E-mail after the registration at avast website.

ALWIL Software

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