Yesterday evening we got the latest results from Virus Bulletin comparative test of over 40 antivirus solutions for Server deployment.   It is the first test of the new business product we launched before summer and it is definitely worth publishing.  AVAST is known for distributing a very good free product – and some competitors look down their noses at us as being only good for home users.  Well, this could change their minds. Read more…

The content of VB 2011 programme provided an excellent amount of information from the security industry in the last three days. It came packed in an interesting and humorous way. Here is some more pictures from conference to present the atmosphere and we looking forward on next conference!

Greetings from Barcelona. The conference is in the middle and here are few pictures from the first day. Everyone seems to be satisfied with the conference, and especially with the free beer offered by AVAST!

The Virus Bulletin comparative test from last Friday was the first to include our latest version 6.0 and compare it to other security solutions. AVAST submitted as always our avast! Free Antivirus version against other companies’ paid-for security suites and even business solutions, to endorse our vision that when it comes to malware, free security can and should be delivering the same protection as paid-for alternatives.

All together there were 69 products in the test which – I have to say – is a bit of surprise to me because one keeps thinking there can’t be that many. If woken in the middle of the night I would be able to name 5 brands. Right now I could summon 14 names. Of course there is a little bit of inflation with some brands testing more products (like Kaspersky for example). And then there are a number of products that use the scanning engine or multiple-engines of other vendors. Several multi-engine products scored as always very high on detection (G-Data, Trustport, and others) but of course using more than one engine has an impact on the scan speed and use of computer resources.

So how did avast! compare to the others? Excellent indeed! Read more…

Source: AV-Comparatives Security Survey 2011

The AV-Comparatives Security Survey 2011 (pdf) released by AV-Comparatives.org in mid-March reveals that, from a list of 70 well-known security solutions, avast! ranks second in terms of which products respondents wish to continue to see reviewed.

Notably, 5 of the top-7 requested brands are based in Central and Eastern Europe. Read more…

In 2009, Symantec ran a full-page advertisement in PC Magazine explaining to readers that because Norton has the most virus definition updates (222 per day) they also have the best detection score of 97.9% compared to all others.  We at AVAST liked the ad for a better reason:  we had only 1 update per day and were second best after Norton in detection. Look at the advert snap shot.

However, driven by curiosity I looked up the actual test from AV-Comparatives.org and to my surprise learned that Norton has used a decent dose of creative-results interpretation by ignoring Avira and G-Data, both of which scored even better than Norton in detection!

I thought this level of creativity would be difficult to beat but I was wrong!  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…

VB2009 took place at the Crowne Plaza Geneva, Switzerland (September 23 – 25). VB conferences always offer a opportunity to meet people from IT security sphere and share the knowledge. Some interesting news were already mentioned on our forums. This post is not intended to discuss technical topics, it should rather show you the beauty of Geneva and Swiss Alps and let you see the ambience of some special VB events (cabaret etc). The galleries are located here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sejtko/Geneva01#

http://picasaweb.google.com/michal.trs/SwissTourVB2009#

other galleries (or some slight changes) may follow in near future.