avast! 8.x: Frequently Asked Questions - New Features

avast! 8.x - New Features FAQ

• What are new key features in avast! 8.x?
  
  
• What is improved in avast! 8.x?
  
  
• What is avast! Premier 8.x and why should I need it?
  
  
• What is avast! Software Updater?
  
  
• Why avast! Software Updater doesn't update my applications automatically?
  
  
• What is avast! Browser Cleanup?
  
  
• What is the difference between the buttons “Remove” and “Disable” in avast! Browser Cleanup?
  
  
• What is avast! Data Shredder?
  
  
• What is avast! AccessAnywhere and what is the difference comparing to avast! Remote Assistance?
  
  
• Why I cannot configure avast! AccessAnywhere to have my computer remotely accessible?
  
  
• What is avast! Ad Blocker?
  
  
• What is avast! SecureLine?
  
  
• I have inserted a valid license in to avast! 8.x, but avast! SecureLine tells me that the license is expired. What can I do?
  
  
• Why should I use avast! SecureLine?
  
  
• Can I use avast! SecureLine with any type of Internet connection?
  
  
  

What are new key features in avast! 8.x?

avast! 8.x introduces following brand new features:

• avast! Software Updater monitors version status of 3rd party applications you are running and assists you to keep them up-to date.
  
  
• avast! Browser Cleanup allows you to remove well-known unwanted 3rd party toolbars from your Internet Browser or to disable them in the Browser specific tabs on the list.
  
  
• avast! Data Shredder, included in our new product avast! Premier 8.x, allows you to irreversibly erase hard drive partitions or individual files with sensitive data (user data, licensed software, etc.), when you want to be sure that there is no way how to restore data back in case of e.g. selling/donating your computers or hard drives.
  
  
• avast! AccessAnywhere is a remote control alternative to existing avast! Remote Assistance, but with our new product avast! Premier 8.x you can configure it in a way, that you can establish a remote session always when your computer is turned on and connected to the Internet with no time limitation, and therefore you don't need to exchange a security code between computers every time you need to establish a remote session.
  
  
• avast! Ad Blocker is a new add-on for Internet browsers which lets you block banner ads and pop-ups from appearing on the websites you visit, and therefore it should make a much cleaner web session.
  
  
• avast! SecureLine is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which allows you to connect to the Internet via encrypted tunnel in order to protect your online identity, downloaded and uploaded data from eavesdropping. It's integrated in avast! 8.x as an extra service and requires a separate license.
  
  
  

What is improved in avast! 8.x?

avast! 8.x comes with these major improvements:

• avast! Behavior Shield has more precise detections of unusual behavior within applications and utilizes sophisticated logic to check processes of running apps to identify unusual requests.
  
  
• Malware detection capabilities with new machine learning algorithm (in-house) is able to scan two databases and identify anomalies/differences and reports them as shortly as possible (8 bytes).
  
  
• Global Exclusions for all applications/files/processes which you want to exclude from scans are now unified in the main Settings tab. You are also able to make exclusions by file location, file type, or process.
  
  
• Enhanced reporting of false positives and suspicious files for further analysis to AVAST Virus Lab. If some file or a web page is improperly flagged as suspicious, you can click a link “Report as false positive” on a displayed warning message and send a file or link directly. Suspicious files can be also attached and sent via the SUPPORT section, and not the Virus Chest only.
  
  
• User Interface now has reduced number of widgets on the main screen which gives you a clear overview about program status, and allows you to quickly access to the major program features. The Current Status screen has single view of all Shield's statuses with ability to activate/deactivate each of them in one place.
  
  
• avast! Screen Saver Setting allows you to disable background scans when the user notebook is running on battery power to save the battery life.
  
  
  

What is avast! Premier 8.x and why should I need it?

avast! Premier 8.x is a new premium product to our existing antivirus product line for home and small-office/home-office use, which provides complete antivirus, anti-spyware, antispam, and firewall protection as avast! Internet Security 8.x, and add in some extra features:

• avast! Software Updater with Auto-update support. While all other avast! 8.x products only informs you whenever any of your 3rd party applications is out of date and you need to maintain all updates manually, avast! Premier 8.x can be configured to perform these updates automatically.
  
  
• avast! Data Shredder included in avast! Premier 8.x allows you to irreversibly erase hard drive partitions or individual files with sensitive data (user data, licensed software, etc.), when you want to be sure that there is no way how to restore data back in case of e.g. selling/donating your computers or hard drives.
  
  
• avast! AccessAnywhere is a remote control alternative to existing avast! Remote Assistance, but with avast! Premier 8.x you can configure it in a way, that you can establish a remote session always when your computer is turned on and connected to the Internet with no time limitation, and therefore you don't have to exchange a new security code between computers every time you need to establish a remote session.
  
  
  

What is avast! Software Updater?

Patch management systems are widely in use in medium and large scale enterprise environments. These environments are mostly controlled by an administrator with appropriate knowledge. However, in small office and home office environments patch management is virtually unknown. Most home and small office users simply do not care about patching and updating their computer, because they are usually not aware of the risks. As shown e.g. in Microsoft Security Analysis Report 1H201, the vast majority of malware does not spread via 0-day exploits but via social engineering or already fixed issues in 3rd party software. This means if the users would regularly update their software base most malware would be unable to spread. In short, users have a strong need for patch management also in home and small office environments.

avast! Software Updater is a completely new feature in avast! 8.x which monitors version status of 3rd party applications you are running and assists you to keep them up-to date. While all other avast! 8.x products only informs you whenever any of your 3rd party applications is out of date and you need to maintain all updates manually by clicking the 'Fix now' button next to each conflicting application, avast! Premier 8.x can be configured to perform these updates automatically.

Global status indication in avast! Software Updater is determined by potential vulnerability risk level of each application in the list. For easy understanding the following states are used:

• GOOD (from 100% to 91%) - Your computer is fully protected or is at low-risk against vulnerabilities. But you can still check the list and update remaining applications, if any exists.
  
  
• BAD (from 90% to 51%) - Your computer is not fully protected against vulnerabilities, because you still have some medium-risk applications outdated. It's recommended to check the list and update remaining applications, like viewers for some not so often used Internet file types, photo editors, etc.
  
  
• CRITICAL (from 50% to 0%) - Your computer is at high-risk, because some critically vulnerable applications are outdated. It's strongly recommended to check the list and immediately update all applications directly connected to the Internet content, like Internet browsers, e-mail clients, news readers, etc.
  
  
• DISABLED - avast! Software Updater is disabled. Please click 'Start' to turn it on, and 'Rescan' your applications to check their current status.
  
  

Note:
Please be advised, that the number of 3rd party applications supported by avast! Software Updater is limited and they might not be supported in all languages. We cover basically only products which are essential for computer security, and it might change over time.

Why avast! Software Updater doesn't update my applications automatically?

Please check your avast! 8.x product version, because only avast! Premier 8.x allows you to configure avast! Software Updater in order to perform automatic updates. All other avast! 8.x products only informs you whenever any of your 3rd party applications is out of date and you need to maintain all updates manually by clicking the 'Fix now' button next to each conflicting application.

Note:
Please be advised, that the number of 3rd party applications supported by avast! Software Updater is limited and they might not be supported in all languages. We cover basically only products which are essential for computer security, and it might change over time.

What is avast! Browser Cleanup?

Nowadays almost any free software for Windows comes with some more or less unwanted add-ons which are mostly the cash cow for the product vendor. In most cases a Internet Browser add-on (a so called a Toolbar) is installed. Some of these toolbars claim to be somehow useful. However, in general they are used to analyze the user preferences and behavior and send this data to other vendors where it’s used to present user specific ads. A lot of these toolbars are annoying for the user:

• Tracking data is being sent to some backend servers.
  
  
• Annoying ads are displayed, search results are manipulated.
  
  
• The Browsers homepage is changed.
  
  
• Multiple toolbars get ‘normal’ and require a lot of space inside the Internet Browser.
  
  
• Users mostly don’t know how to get rid of the toolbars.
  
  
• Some of these toolbars prevent the user from uninstalling them.
  
  

avast! Browser Cleanup lists all these add-ons for the 3 major Internet Browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome) and allows to disable or to remove them. An automatic rating system allows the user to immediately see how other users like an add-on. Using avast! Browser Cleanup will allow the user to get rid of these toolbars with a single click.

What is the difference between the buttons “Remove” and “Disable” in avast! Browser Cleanup?

avast! Browser Cleanup allows you to remove well-known annoying toolbars or to disable them in the Browser specific tabs on the list. “Remove” means here uninstall and remove the toolbar and all its components completely from your computer. This action cannot be undone. However, removing an add-on sometimes might not be desired always as you might not be sure what’s really behind this add-on. For this reason avast! Browser Cleanup also offers a button “Disable”. Disable just switches off the functionality of the add-ons. The add-on itself persists on disk. You can undo this action just by clicking “Enable”. This will re-enable the add-on and all functionality is back. Probably you need to restart your Internet Browser, however.

What is avast! Data Shredder?

avast! Data Shredder is a completely new feature which comes in avast! Premier 8.x and allows you to irreversibly erase hard drive partitions or individual files with sensitive data (user data, licensed software, etc.), when you want to be sure that there is no way how to restore data back in case of e.g. selling/donating your computers or hard drives.

When you format a hard drive partition, or delete a file using standard tools, only a reference to its data is removed from system allocation tables and the file's clusters are marked as unused, but no actual erasing is performed until another file overwrites the area on the disk where the original file resided. There are utilities capable of tracing and restoring deleted files, therefore you should never delete files containing sensitive information in a regular way.

The proper solution is to overwrite such hard drive partition or the file with meaningless data before deleting it, which is exactly what avast! Data Shredder does. It allows you to Shred partitions/files in such a way that it is impossible to recover them by software or hardware means. There are several methods available, varying in speed and reliability:

• Gutmann algorithm is a very slow but most secure method. The two methods below make it impossible to recover shredded data with software tools, but may fail when an attacker is equipped with specialized disk restoration hardware, which can uncover even several layers of data previously written to any disk track. The Gutmann method uses 26 overwriting passes, each of which addresses different disk encoding scheme (MFM, RLL, etc.). There are also a few random passes. It should be impossible to recover the original data after shredding a file with this method.
  
  
• DOD (Department of Defense) 5220.22M-algorithm is a less secure but faster method comparing to Gutmann algorithm. The file is overwritten with zero bytes, then with bytes 0xFF (255) and finally with random data.
  
  
• Random overwrite is the simplest but least secure method. It merely overwrites the file one or more times with pseudo-random bytes. The number of passes (overwrites) can be specified.
  
  

Even if you delete sensitive data by standard means, avast! Data Shredder can still prevent file recovery by cleaning disk free space. If you Shred free space, it will be done by allocating a temporary file as large as possible with one of the methods mentioned above. However, not all free space can be reached by allocating a large file. Since files are stored in clusters and rarely the size of a file is a multiple of the cluster size, there often is unused space in the last cluster of each file. This is called the cluster tip and can contain sensitive information. Although it can be lengthy, avast! Data Shredder can securely overwrite these areas too:

• On NTFS partitions, files small enough (up to around one kilobyte) are stored directly in the Master File Table (MFT), which is another place impossible to overwrite by the large file. The unused records are therefore overwritten by creating many zero-sized files with a very long filename.
  
  
• On FAT partitions, it can even prevent restoring the names of deleted files by directly overwriting all deleted entries in the entire directory structure. Unfortunately, this is not possible on NTFS, where it would be risky to access the directory clusters directly.
  
  
  

What is avast! AccessAnywhere and what is the difference comparing to avast! Remote Assistance?

avast! AccessAnywhere is a remote control alternative to existing avast! Remote Assistance, mainly for users who manage several devices for friends or family. In avast! Premier 8.x you can configure it in a way, that you can establish a remote session always when your computer is turned on and connected to the Internet with no time limitation, and comparing to avast! Remote Assistance you don't have to exchange a new security code between computers every time you need to establish a remote session. While the "controlling" computers can have any avast! 8.x product version installed, the "controlled" computers must have avast! Premier 8.x configured to accept remote sessions.

Note:
Please be advised, that avast! AccessAnywhere users will need to have an avast! Account and to be logged in.

Why I cannot configure avast! AccessAnywhere to have my computer remotely accessible?

Please check your avast! 8.x product version, because only avast! Premier 8.x allows you to configure avast! AccessAnywhere in a way, that you can establish a remote session. While the "controlling" computers can have any avast! 8.x product version installed, the "controlled" computers must have avast! Premier 8.x configured to accept remote sessions.

Note:
Please be advised, that avast! AccessAnywhere users will need to have an avast! Account and to be logged in.

What is avast! Ad Blocker?

avast! Ad Blocker is a new add-on for Internet browsers which lets you block banner ads and pop-ups from appearing on the websites you visit, and therefore it should make a much cleaner web session. You can disable ad-blocking for some websites and manage your list of websites for which you want to see ads.

You can also activate Acceptable Ads if you want to help websites with unobtrusive ads. We want to encourage websites using plain and unobtrusive advertising that do not overlay content or those with graphics. That's why we have established strict guidelines to identify acceptable ads.

What is avast! SecureLine?

While antivirus software protects you from malware, firewall your data on your computer, and computer itself, avast! SecureLine is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which allows you to connect to the Internet via encrypted tunnel in order to protect your online identity, downloaded and uploaded data from eavesdropping. Only a VPN provides security and privacy once your data leaves your computer and anonymize your Internet activity. Therefore, main advantages of avast! SecureLine are the following:

• Protection on unsecure Wi-Fi connections. With other people connected to the same public network, attackers are able to capture each and every packet and impersonate another user, for example by stealing his logon cookies. Since VPN connection is encrypted, it provides an efficient protection against these types of attacks.
  
  
• Anonymization. With broadband connections, many people have fixed IP addresses and are afraid to browse some sensitive sites because of the possibility of being tracked back. With a VPN connection, the browsing session is effectively anonymized as the IP address the remote server sees is the address of the VPN server, not the user.
  
  
• Unrestricted access to the Internet from countries with censorship, like China, Saudi Arabia, Korea etc.
  
  

avast! SecureLine integrated in avast! 8.x as an extra service and requires a separate license.

I have inserted a valid license in to avast! 8.x, but avast! SecureLine tells me that the license is expired. What can I do?

avast! SecureLine is integrated in avast! 8.x as an extra service and requires a separate license. Please ensure, that you have also purchased the license for avast! SecureLine.

Why should I use avast! SecureLine?

avast! SecureLine can be used any time you want to connect to the Internet with extra security and privacy.

Can I use avast! SecureLine with any type of Internet connection?

Yes, avast! SecureLine should connect over any wired or wireless Internet connection.

Conditions

avast! Premier 8.x
avast! Internet Security 8.x
avast! Pro Antivirus 8.x
avast! Free Antivirus 8.x

Operating systems:

Microsoft Windows 8 / Pro / Enterprise
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic / Home Premium / Professional / Enterprise / Ultimate
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic / Home Premium / Business / Enterprise / Ultimate
Microsoft Windows XP Home / Professional / Media Center Edition