Customer Reviews

avast! 4 Professional Edition Antivirus

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been using the Home version of Avast for the past month and have come to appreciate its unobtrusive, rapid, thorough performance. Equally helpful has been the personal attention I received from their security software expert. My PC had been taken over by a virus that had fouled up its operation and managed to block access to downloads from security software sites I tried. Or when I managed to download some antivirus program, it would not install correctly. The Avast expert sent me a handy tool (Hijack This) from another company that spotted the infected files and removed them. He also offered to investigate the log and advised me. Now the PC is totally clean and protected by Avast--all at no cost whatsoever for the Home edition. I must assume that the avast! Professional Edition has even more to offer. Hard to beat the combination of a quality product and service beyond the call of duty.

I downloaded Avast a year ago after Norton froze my computer (again). Avast (Pro is just the paid version) works seamlessly in the background. Menus are easy to understand and follow, and so far I'm very pleased. It does what it's supposed to do.

Easily installed, and full featured under Windows XP x64. Purchased as a temporary measure until our IT people have something to recommend. Our standard issue is the corporate version of Symantec AV, but under 64 bit Windows, it only offers a small subset of features.

One quirk is that you cannot teach it to recognize non-standard file extensions. Every time I go to edit a script file with the extension .prg, I have to open it through a dialog box that offers warnings about the unknown file-type.

The only reason I can think of that people pay for antivirus, is that they saw an advertisement for Norton etc,. and simply are unaware of Avast... I am using it on my Windows XP SP 2 system and all is well...they have a nice little web site, check it out. I used Norton for 5 yrs, but only b/c it came free with my system, and it was a pain to update. What happened with Norton is that after the first 2 years the updater broke, and I had to manually update once a month... not fun...and all Norton's fault.

I just love this anti virus, it detects everything, I've tested it "million" times and it catches every single virus,spyware,adware,trojan, etc...
I installed it on my 3 computers, very light and efficient for all of my computers. I really do appreciate avast team for such a great product.
Question is: can you find anyone who does not like this product? If you do then (someones not bright).
Thanks

(and it has auto-updates, which are also inobtrusive, and done when idle, ...hmmm- - and , also, it creates an adjuustable shadow copy of all of your files that you can turn off or on at will that operates when screensaver is running or when the pc is idle)... BUT, apparently, the integrity of this company is severely questionable and shady because they (have decided to specialize in professional/ business/ servers and have) decided to sell-out the common individual home-user to SPAM in exchange for your email address (to sell it to EVERYONE) to have access to a year of free dat file AV updates from them for an individual home user edition (they used to merely offer a 4-month trial free, in the past/ 2006, but are now trying to garner some users away from the successful and also another Czech company too, Grisoft (r) and their AVG Free (r), who is one of their competition, by offering it free for a whole year, and letting us keep automatic updates, & all the other features too), but hiding the fact that they sell your email address to everyone to pay for it.
Performance? An A+. (But) Integrity? An F. They simply were not up-front about this. No one ever reads that fine print when it is free. Caveat Emptor. These smart Czecks made a software program that performs beautifully, and (far) outshines Grisoft's AVG in performance (Alwili's AVAST (?from the words for AntiVirus="AV-," and "-Austria??") & it easily adapted to DSL when i left behind dial-up, unlike their competition,) --and it works faster (!) and catches more "bugs," trojans, & bad stuff (-- only it is not compatible with CA/ E-trust (r) AntiVirus, because that was a sweet one to use too).
"AVAST A/V" scans like lightening, and is COMPLETELY automated (inobtrusive), AND adjustable at multiple levels of security, and very sleek-looking, pretty easy to fugure out for a novice, it "plays nice" with other software, is easier to setup than tinkering with cantankerous software keys if you use a 3-pc copy of CA Antivirus, their competitor (which seemed "overly-fluffed" like the grand-daddy of (non-functional, shady-working, unstable "fluff" McAfee, and I encountered none of the silly subterfuge like i had with McAfee, like McAfee installing a permanent, undelete-able file that makes it impossible to completely uninstall or re-install, or change versions, or how McAfee turns itself off every time it updates itself without telling you-- why do u think it's so cheap?-- or how McAfee lets you tink you need to buy 2 copies for 2 pc's when u can use the same disk and different emails, but never change that email even if you get locked out of it or close that address, and then get cheated out of those-so-many months... No, sir, none of that silliness here.
Installation was smooth, and fast, unlike a few inexplicable glitches when trying out competitor, CA (Computer Assoc's?). Until last week, AVAST was my favorite. It uses virtually no resources, and yet is still amazingly effective.
It also uninstalled easily at the end of my free trial period, which is swell. It did ask if i wanted to install a current-dats-only of Antispy, which turned-out to be an impressive, likeable program too.
It is so wonderful, and so rare these days, when a program tells you once you are expiring, and to renew once (and not a bunch of advertising, like McAfee is notorious for). No unwanted , extraneous, extra stuff was installed (like McAfee has been notorious for, too). A Very quiet program. A pleasant smile will stretch accrosss your face when it quietly announces "database has been updated" and you didn't even even know it. "WoW," I said. "It talks, too. Cooooool."
Phone support? I don't know (but would hope it is good?). I never needed to call, or ever tried to call them. (McAfee is impossible. TrendMicro is a non-existant recording that terminates in a click after 2 min., but I was able to get through to their competitor, CA. By the way, Trend/TM is a lump of coal, a useless doorstop, and some kind of evil malware that prevents internet access, at least pre-XP... TrendMIcro was THE worst! --F.Y.I.).
DISCLAIMER: Maybe, on the outside chance, the few spams i got each day that soared to 40 or 50 was merly a coincidence when I gave these guys, Alwil Software, my (real) email (on 12-19-07 & renewed my licsense). If I had not trusted them , i would have been prudent and used the Mozilla Add-on that generates a random temp. email instead. ...AND, secondly, the 4-month AVAST trial altered its program to "special", rather than the high security I had it set on, and AVG Free running in the background was current, with 3 firewalls (...everyone should use Ghostwall freeware, b/c it's easy to do so, "hands-free," like AVAST, and b/c WindowsSP2 fw only protects incoming stuff, but does not alert one to outgoing stuff, unbeknownst to most people, which is a noticeable, sure sign of infection!....)& w./ Javacool SpywareBlaster (3.5.1) protection on [vs. active-X & java Applets- Danger, Will Robinson!],(and i also had Spybot S&D , by Patrick M. Kolla, and its immunity function was active [in m browsers], with current XP updates, plus Win'Defender, and all other software up-to-date, too.....And so, why, of all the 6 programs that scanned, after I noticed this Avast anomoly, and some other OS "lagging" delays (sluggishness), why was AVAST the only one that caught these 2 trojans, and eliminated them (?) on the 3rd try? Suspicious? Or just a good hacker out there at work? You tell me. It just seemed too coincidental. And yet I never had (NO WHERE NEAR) this much problem with spam when i signed-up for AVG (free) as when i signed up for 1 year of Avast , Home Ed. (which is the only way I saw it offered. I found out about them on here, so it is onlty fitting i review tham on here. (Touche?). Is this maybe how they pay for it (to be able to offer it free to the home-user)? Hmmm, I wonder....Where might have the "win32trojan.gen" & "win32addware.gen" have come from, and WHY did neither Lavasoft's Adaware, nor Win'Defender, nor Stinger (Ntwrk Assoc), nor SpybotS&D (nor AVGfree) detect these (two things), but only AVAST did? Curious.

I love my avast as do many people I know...however, one friend recently installed it and is having a bunch of problems and we have come to find out that they have no USA phone support...have to make an overseas call and then you don't know what you will be charged...just a head's up.

Avast cannot check email that uses SSL. If your ISP will only use it, you got a problem. Avast does not report a problem if SSL mail comes in, it just ignores it. It's only if you look at Avast's Email Provider screen statistics will you see it report zero emails scanned, so it's easy to think it's working when it's not. There are 3rd party ways to work around this, but they are a pain to implement. Keep this in mind before you buy. Run the trial version and see if it works with your email provider. I understand getting it to work with GMAIL is a problem as well.