Latest version of Avast Antivirus

I really like the new update a lot! The interface is a lot better now, and things are more clear on what each setting does. The new avast web rep is great as well.

Really liking this new update.

I'm just happy to be rid of Happy Harry - that smiley drove me nuts.

I think you're looking for statistics [Realtime data, Historical data, Component Status]

I can't find a 1 click way, the GUI does remember the last main screen [status, scan, about, but not secondary/popup screens]. If stats were opened in the main GUI window, you could navigate to that and then the next time you clicked on the tray icon, avast would present stats to you.

There's no reason for stats to open on a new window, as far as I can see.

DavidW7ncus said:

I don't like the new UI.

i.e.
In Ver. 8 I can click on the Notification tray icon and open a Current Status window and quickly glance to see if things are working, and what activity...

In Ver. 9 when I click on the Notification tray icon, I get a window that just shows "Everything is OK", and no detailed info of status...
MEH!
Fortunately I don't look at AV screens often, so I'll just have to trust things are OK if I update to V9.

I'm tired of re-learning a new UI Every Year for Avast program updates, so I don't recommend it for non-tech users...
I do use it myself, but I don't want to try and explain to non-tech users how to use a new UI every year...

If someone here knows how to quickly see a Summary Status in Ver. 9 please tell me - I haven't found an easy way...

Also just noticed that sandbox is not in the free version. I don't think it was supposed to be in the previous version of Free, but it was available to configure (I guess it was functioning).

The statistics->Component status is a bit wonky.
scans are only updated if you launch a scan, scheduled scans are not counted in the count
perhaps they will be after the 1st manual scan is launched.
The average scans per user per month doesn't help - it looks as though I've run 9 scans. The actual count for my scans shows above the average in a blue bar.

viruses blocked is only a count, you can't click on the count to see what was blocked, Logs and quarantine don't provide the blocked virus information (probably web protection)

updates - received in the last 24 hours is not updated: mine says zero

In general I like the new interface, but I'm still poking around.
The stickiness of the interface threw me off (I kept getting the about screen when Avast was launched)
I'll have to get used to the side ribbon, but I do like that you can minimize it.

The full system scan (scheduled) shows no virus, but when I highlight the scan log, it shows 1 folder, 6974 files, 3.3 GB tested. This is not a full scan of my system. I'm running a manual full scan now and will see what it tells me (folders, files, GB tested)

I thought I had limited the shields in the previous version, but Mail shield shows up in the new version. I'll have to see what a fresh install offers for shields (the previous versions seemed to have some overlap - web/internet/browser) so maybe Avast collapsed functions.

Settings (gear) -> active protection only shows 3 shields: file system, mail, and web.

It looks like they combined all the shields now and just make 3 simple shields.

andrew129260 said:

It looks like they combined all the shields now and just make 3 simple shields.

Yep, I should know better than to think before I read:

avast! said:

FAQs: avast! 2014
The number of real-time shields in avast! 2014 is reduced by merging some of them to another.
The P2P Shield, IM Shield and Behavior Shield are now a part of the File System Shield,
while the Network Shield with Script Shield are a part of the Web Shield.

Also want to add I noticed they added support for windows live mail. For scanning emails and attachments. You can configure it slightly as well in the mail shield settings.

I set it so it now adds a clean message to my emails. Pretty cool for free.

I used to exclude mail shield during an install because I considered it redundant. I tried turning it off, but avast! nags about an error. It's not an error... I turned it off! So I'll have to see if I can exclude it through setup (CP->change).

Hmmmm, I'm not sure where you see Windows Live Mail, more correctly Windows Essentials Mail (I know I'm being anal The support for mail protocols and message flagging (although not creating a clean message as the flag) has been around for a few releases.

Are you saying there is a specific setting for Windows Live Essentials Mail?

andrew129260 said:

Also want to add I noticed they added support for windows live mail. .....

Yes, you can use the custom install to avoid any shields you do not want. (Although with them making it 3 shields now, its a tad not as customizable as before.)

I'm just stating (i use windows live mail 2012 on win 7) that For once my email is actually being scanned and has a message added to it. I have used windows live mail before and my email was never scanned. For instance in past versions it would say 0 emails scanned so I assumed it did not work with windows live mail.

Now it does. And the setting I was talking about under the mail shield is you can now add that attachment to the bottom of your email stating it was scanned by avast and is safe. Avast shield is also now reporting it scanning my emails, where before It did not scan any...

I hope this makes sense.