Avast 6 Beta Free Antivirus Protection With Sandbox Technology

I have used till date. So most of the site related work gets done with it. Mind it I had to open it by entering at the Windows start. To my utter disappointment, it too got hung. The last time I had such experiences with browser was with AVG 10 Antivirus. Over the years, I have been reading a lot about viruses, trojans, spywares and stories on phishing... For a moment I was thinking, whether some one had implanted a zoombie in my PC as I receive hundreds of e-mail daily. Like any reasonable guy like John or Mathew, I said to myself "was it a virus infection". But how could it be when I had my antivirus updated to the latest patches (after all Avast updates in background as and when it detects Internet). Sometimes despite the best care and PC still gets infected. Though it feels heady and still I had to console myself saying patience..after all patience you need. Nobody wants a new installation unless it compels you, I tried repairing the Windows by entering in safe mode. I uninstalled few dozen of softwares and restarted the Windows. Yet my worst part of experiences was to come, I tried opening a wordpad document where I had scribbled some lines for a blog post. PC hung up again, I waited for 15 mins but it continued with classic timer symbol running at background and nothing would open, not even the Windows task manager. Manually I restarted the Windows a few dozen times but nothing bore my effort. That was time I finally decided to part away with my old Windows installation.

From my experiences, I feel that its better to stick with the slightly older build of antivirus software rather then jump up the wagonwheel of getting the latest edition of same antivirus untill the new edition is old enough to be trusted. For example, before I switched to AVG 10, I had AVG 9 Free steadily and smoothly running in my PC updated to the latest definition patches without any hitches and gitches. I should have waited for few more months untill I could have upgraded to the new edition of AVG. A suggestion here for Avast 5 (home edition) users, you may update the virus definition but donot upgrade the program build, wait untill the program build steps up to Avast 5.2 or more. The latest edition is Avast 5.1. To do this, you can untick the program update at settings and reverse it as and when it becomes very necessary in future. Though I ain't compelling you, I'm trying to share some experiences here.

Avast 5 has significant improvement in scan speed by nearly two and half times faster than the earlier edition.Of course many ocasion, I did full scan my PC. I have some exquisite collection of inert viruses wrapped up in rar compression preserved in my PC. Normally they can create a havoc in its uncompressed form but in password protected rar compression, there are quite inert. Avast never detected them despite repetitive full scans. Untill recently with new Windows installation, Rising Antivirus sweept away all of them. Here's also a point to ask if Avast 5's new high speed scan engine despite repeated scan if cannot detect those viruses what good use it can be.

As the web is going viral with reports and posts on Avast 6 Beta, I couldn't stop myself from posting an article on it. The Avast team claims that the new edition Avast 6 beta(home edition) would have few new things apart from the earlier features. As promising and as expected, they have added "sandbox technology" and "web shield addon" for the web browsers in Avast 6 beta home edition which was previously available only in the paid edition. As for the sandbox technology is concerned, the concept isn't new. It has been implimented in Comodo Internet Security long before. May be its time for the rest of the developers to fall in line after the Comodo Inc. to impliment the sandbox technology in their products. They say that it creates a virtual environment for web surfing and Internet downloads. Even if any infection occurs, your physical environment ie. the Windows remain safe.

For few ocasion, I had a hands on experience with Comodo Internet Security. It was a tough time managing the settings with Comodo Internet Security installed in the PC, On web surfing, it bluntly blocked my site (www.learnthisblog.co.cc), plaguaring it as a phishing site which pretends to be legitimate. Despite my appeals and series of e-mail requests, none from the Comodo site has replied or rectified the website database flaw. So you see a reason to grumble here. Sadly, in the days to come I hope they'll correct it with the due credentials of being a 100% safe website. So my advice here is, untill you know what beta edition is don't jump up to the latest downloads.

Web shield addon is another feature they have borrowed from others. Like the AVG linkscanner and McAfee site rating, Web shield addon is a browser based addon where you'll see website ratings based on community reports and malicious website database maintained at Avast lab. With back to back two new features, and of course the protection step up from the previous edition it is worth a grab which falls short just because its a beta edition. While there are other things I expected in new Avast 6 Beta like an antispam feature or an online identity protection, though the developers may not giveaway with this. Although the antispam feature is missing in AVG 10 Free Antivirus but it has identity protection (which was missing in AVG 9 Free). So with AVG 10 Free you are modestly protected from online identity thefts that means you can easily do online transaction. For some reason, you won't see this feature in new Avast 6 beta as they'll offer this feature only in paid products for now.

There are some interesting developments out there at Internet. We know Avast is a popular product and Avast 6 beta is yet to come out from the beta phase that the Internet is littered with all kinda cracks and hacks for Avast 6 beta. Avast developers wouldn't be amused with this news. But the shady part of the story is, this are the facts of computer world. Shamefully, here's one site that shares one such hack for Avast 6 beta.

http://www.ddown.org/2011/01/31/avast-antivirus-6-0-934-beta-incl-crack/

How to install it :

Run the setup executable. This version needs to be installed from scratch, i.e. updating from a previous version of avast won't work. This will be fixed relatively soon - however, for now, the only option is to really uninstall the version you're using (if any), reboot, and install this beta.

Also, if you have already used a previous beta of the standalone WebRep, it's better to uninstall it before installing avast 6.

What's new :

Main changes/improvements:

- AutoSandbox – suspicious programs will be optionally run sandboxed
- avast! WebRep – browser plugin for website reputation rating; a combination of data from our virus lab and community voting
- Script Shield now even in the Free AV
- Site Blocking now even in the Free AV
- SafeZone – a special virtualized area for sensitive transactions (e.g. secure online banking) (paid products only)
- Restore factory settings command (Settings -> Troubleshooting)
- Automatic actions in the boot-time scan
- New compression method in the installer makes the setup packages about 20% smaller.
- Script Shield now functional even with IE8/IE9 Protected Mode
- Sidebar gadget
- Improved stability/compatibility of the Behavior Shield
- Improvements in the avast! sandbox

Known issues :

- Help files not updated yet
- Localizations incomplete yet
- SafeZone not yet accessible (Pro AV / IS only)
- WebRep only available for IE and Firefox (Chrome is coming soon)
- Firewall: per-application packet rules not yet accessible
- Firewall: uTorrent conflict not yet resolved

Downloads :

Free AV: http://files.avast.com/files/beta/6.0.934/setup_av_free.exe
Pro AV: http://files.avast.com/files/beta/6.0.934/setup_av_pro.exe
IS: http://files.avast.com/files/beta/6.0.934/setup_ais.exe

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