Two weeks ago, we released the new avast 5. Although there were some minor hiccups in the beginning, I’d say it was a fairly successful launch, and the number of avast 5 users is now quickly growing – even though we haven’t really started the official upgrade campaign yet.
As most of you already know, we released 3 new products: avast 5 Free AV, avast 5 Pro AV, and avast 5 Internet Security. However, there seems to be some confusion about what will happen with the other editions of avast. This article would like to explain the situation in a bit more detail. Read more…
Since the release of avast v5.0, we have heard quite a few times the question “where do I set up the automatic actions for the boot-time scan”? As a matter of fact, we decided to remove this feature from avast 5 and this short post will try to explain why. Read more…
Javascript or HTML encryption/obfuscation “may” help to protect web designer’s work from stealing their know-how. But this statement is very controversial – obfuscation or encryption mainly belongs to malicious scripts. Such a technique may fool automatic antivirus scanners, but anyone can look under the obfuscation because the decryption script is usually distributed alongside with the script itself. We have released today the detection for very strange script we’ve found yesterday, it’s name was JS:LoverCrypt-A [Trj].
Read more…
If you have seen the new Avast website (available only in English and French right now) or products, you have surely seen our new logo:
Read more…
Today is the big day—the day we (and many of you) have been waiting for—we are starting the release of the Version 5.0 products today. This is a pretty complicated roll-out so we are staging it. Today we will be releasing the new products (and the new website) in English and French. Over the next 10 days or so, we will be releasing the products and website in additional languages (German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, and possibly Korean, and Arabic). Other languages will then be added as we have them available.
Three products (Free Antivirus, Pro Antivirus, and Internet Security) and a new website are being released today. Even though we have expanded our product portfolio, our philosophy of having and promoting a top-notch free antivirus is paramount. This philosophy has enabled us to achieve 100 million users and we are continuing it. As you read through our new website and launch information, you will see that not only is the new free product easier to use and more visually appealing than the old product, it provides even more security protection. And it is still free and free from annoying pop-ups and requests for money.
These products are not minor updates from the existing products. They are all new. Some of the changes—such as the new user interface—are obvious. Some are not obvious at all (such as the new scanning engine). All-in-all we think they are a vast improvement from the current products—modern, light, fast, and very effective. For details, see the product detail pages on the new website. Read more…
Virus Bulletin, one of the most respected reviewers of security products, wrote a very detailed review of the Avast 5.0 beta products in their January issue (http://www.virusbtn.com/files/Avast-Jan2010.pdf). This is a lengthy review but to me the best line was their summation of the new free product: “the free version being available to all without charge is nothing short of a miracle”. There was also a review of it in the recent AV-Comparatives test of performance/system impact. The product scored the highest rating: A+.
With the new Free Version 5.0, we attempted (and we think succeeded) to raise the bar on free security products. We decided that our new free product needed to be the best antivirus product in the world—not just the best free product. We think we have succeeded, or come darn close. Now you the users (and of course the reviewers) can let us know…. Read more…
As we get ready to launch our new Avast! Free Antivirus Version 5, we are proud to announce that Google has chosen this product for inclusion in Google Pack. Google Pack is a package of free software that Google assembles and distributes to its users around the world. Google Pack includes Avast for the following languages: French, German, Italian, Czech, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and Polish. Read more…
Hello in 2010. I would like to wish you all the best in this year and I hope that our upcoming v5 will be your good fella starting from this January. Let me resume the previous article “Buggy file infectors” - as the release date for v5 is getting closer and closer, I think it would be good to inform you what to expect regarding the file infectors cleaning. Version 4.x was sometimes criticised due to its lower ability to cure most recent file infector families (more on this will be written later in this text). Good news for you – v5 will perform better.
Read more…
We did it. We reached the 100 million user milestone at 10:59 Tuesday morning. We have been anticipating this event all year. We started the year with about 70 million users. We had a little celebration and promotion for 75 million users. Then we watched 80 million and 90 million go by. By October it was clear that we would cross 100 million in December. So, on the morning of 8 December all of our staff crowded around a large monitor to watch the registration counter tick upwards to 100 million. We had a little self-induced tension in the event—just 30 seconds before the 100 million mark, someone hit a button on a remote control that switched the display away from the count—some seconds of mad scramble restored the picture. Read more…
First, I want to thank everyone that left comments on my previous blog entry and on Ondrej’s forum entry. We appreciate all the comments—positive and negative. And, if you are still having problems, please do contact our support and they can help you. You can reach them via http://support.avast.com/index.php?languageid=1&group=eng. From that page you can get help on our forum—just post a question and someone (an avast employee or a community member) will help you. Or send a trouble ticket directly to our support staff.
As I had promised in the earlier post, I am giving an update on steps we are putting in place to protect against such an occurrence again in the future. Three key elements of the current process are that: Read more…