In the days of rising Internet threats, having a decent Security solution is an absolute must. avast! the most popular free antivirus for Windows PC’s with over 150 Million users worldwide just updated their Antivirus and Internet Security line up to version 7. Since version 5, avast! has transformed dramatically from a clunky, sluggish antivirus to a snappy, robust and dependable free solution. With version 7, avast! adds even more features to the already piled up feature set.
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Why Choose avast!?
Actually there are at least a dozen of free antivirus solutions which does there job fairly well. But we prefer avast! over others because of its non intrusive behaviour and fairly reliable performance when it comes to detecting viruses. Straight from my experience : after the 2 month trial period of Norton Internet Security in my new laptop got over, I installed avast! and was surprised to see that avast! was extremely light weight when compared the behemoth Norton is. I have never faced an issue, be it detection and fixing of viruses on my friends’ flash drives or be it protecting my PC from harmful cookies automatically. If you are one among those like me unwilling to pay for Antivirus on Windows, then avast! is the way to go.
The User Interface
avast! according to me, has the most intuitive GUI’s ever for created for a PC antivirus. The UI is even more smooth to operate in avast! 7, with the left pane’s of the main interface, helping you to navigate all the options with ease, without having to go through hazy menus. You can update your virus definitions and antivirus with one click manually if you wish.
avast! 7 : Brimming with Impressive Features
1. Remote Assistance
avast! 7 lets users to connect to each others PC to provide assistance. This can come particularly handy while helping your not so tech-savy friend. Although it needs to be seen if this feature itself will be exploited by malicious content creators, in the name of remote assistance.
2. Cloud Streamed Virus Definitions
In addition to the traditional database based updates, avast! now includes cloud streamed updates straight from the labs, meaning continuous updates for latest virus signatures.
3. File Reputation System
Previously avast!, already had Web rep add-on for top browsers which basically gathered community security ratings for the sites you visited. FileRep system extends this in avast! 7 and lets you know if the file is actually safe before you open it. Also, this feature is now integrated with the core scanner for better efficiency.
4. Faster and Less Resource Hungry
Any antivirus upon major update obviously markets itself as being faste
r and more lighter. Pleasantly the claims are true for Avast!. In my test it finished scanning about 2.2 GB of data containing, executables, images, audio and other data in about two minutes, which speaks volumes about the improvements.
Also another impressive thing was, once you scan a folder, avast! will monitor only the changes in the files instead scanning all over again if you ever rescan the same folder.
5. Windows 8 Beta support
Avast! 7 now provides complete support for Windows 8 Beta, and taking the step even further it has hot new Windows 8 exclusive features like Early-Load Antimalware which integrates itself with the Secure Boot in Windows 8 to provide additional layer of protection against threats
6. Improved AutoSandbox
Avast! was one of the very few free antiviruses to have Chrome-like Sandbox features to execute suspected unsafe files in a protected environment called “Sandbox”. Avast! 7 builds upon this solid technology and now suspicious programmes are automatically placed in the sandbox, giving you with a choice of actions to be taken including the option to run the program in a sandbox.
7. Improved Scanning Technologies
avast! 7 features lot of under the hood improvements for core scanning technologies like
- Improved Heuristics Technology for better threat detection
- Multi-threaded scan optimization for faster scans on modern PC’s
- Automatic Processing of infected files
Download avast! 7
avast! can be installed along with other security solutions easily, but I personally recommend you to install it as a standalone solution in order to save some money, unless you are on a mission critical system.
Download: avast! 7 Free [71 MB]
Existing avast! users merely need to update their program to get avast! 7. Do this via Maintenance > Update Program
avast! is the messiah! May not be so always
Well just before you start falling for avast! free edition, I would love to bring to your notice that, the amount of advertisement and nagging to upgrade to the paid version has reached alarming levels within the main interface and even via notifications. This is surely not a great way to build goodwill among the customers but sure they need to sell well for being in business.
Nevertheless, avast! 7 is a massive improvement than avast! 6 ever was. If you are looking for a powerful antivirus that costs you nothing, avast! 7 is the way to go.
