What's new in avast! version 4.1
The new version of avast!, 4.1, once again brings a whole new set of enhancements.
This page will show you the most important of these changes. More complete (even though less detailed) list of new features can be also found on the avast! Revision History page.
Support for new archives and packers
The scanning engine of avast! 4.1 adds support for a new set of file archivers and packers of executable files. Relatitely wide archive support of avast! 4.0 was extended with new support for ACE, ARC, ZOO, BZIP2 a Win32 EXE packers UPX, PeShield, PeProtect, AsPack. A change has been also made to the CAB unpacker which should now be considerably faster and which is now available even in the Home Edition.
The last new unpacking module is the MAPI unpacker which works with PST files. These files are used by MS Outlook as e-mail message databases.
New resident providers for the protection of IM and P2P programs
Two new resident protection modules were added to avast! 4.1: a module for the protection of IM (Instant Messaging, "chat") programs, and a module for the protection of P2P (peer-to-peer) programs. The supported IM programs are Windows/MSN Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, mIRC and Trillian; P2P programs supported include Kazaa, KazaaLite, DirectConnect, DirectConnect++, WinMX, LimeWire, BearShare and BitTorrent (some of these are only supported under Windows NT/2000/XP/2003).
Not that chat itself would impose any serious security risks in terms of viruses, but today's IM applications are far from being just chatting tools: most of them support more or less sophisticated file sharing methods - which may quite easily lead to virus infections, if not properly monitored.
In contrary, the P2P protection module doesn't need much explanation - on today's P2P networks (such as Kazaa) there are thousands of infected files, and an effective protection is a must.
Integrated avast! Virus Cleaner
The new version of avast! also includes the Virus Cleaner, a tool designed for a complete removal of most common infections from already-infected computers. So now is avast! capable even to reliably heal (not only detect) the most common malware.
The number of viruses/worms supported by the Virus Cleaner is constantly growing. For the most up-to-date information we suggest to visit Cleaner's own page (for emergency purposes we also offer the Virus Cleaner as a standalone product, capable of running without installed avast).
New version of setup and updating engine
Our updating modules even in avast! version 4.0. were based on a start-of-the-art technology that cannot be found in any competitor's product. Version 4.1 goes even further and brings new significant. The result is updates of minimal possible size (in case of the virus database max. tens of KB, in case of program updates in the magnitude of hundreds of KB), offered on a whole set of servers with great redundancy. This all brings you faster and more reliable possibility to block all the latest threats by having the program always up-to-date.
Scan of auto-start items
A new special scanning area has been added to avast! 4.1: "auto-start items". This area consists in a list of programs, libraries and other files that are (in some way) connected to the start of the operating system (e.g. are registered in particular keys of the system Registry or are in the Startup group). The rationale behind this new area is that these items are very popular targets of most virus attacks.
avast! 4.1 also scans a stripped-down version of this "area" by default whenever it is started, while displaying the splash screen.
Enhancements in the protection of e-mail
A number of enhancements in avast! 4.1 is also connected to scanning of e-mail. That's because e-mail is still the absolute leader in infection vectors so it's vital to pay maximal attention to its protection.
The avast! Mail Protection Wizard, for example, as a new feature now supports Netscape7/Mozilla and IncrediMail. Therefore if you're using one of these programs, avast! 4.1 is able to automatically set up the appropriate options for you.
New features are present also in the MS Outlook provider - now it's e.g. possible to set up an automatic action to be taken whenever an infected message is detected (Professional Edition only).
Full UNICODE support in the resident module under Windows NT/2000/XP/2003
Important changes also occured "under the hood" of the standard resident shield, namely in the system device drivers. The Standard Shield under Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 now works fully in the UNICODE character set which results in perfect detection of infected files even on systems with non-ANSI charackter sets (which are, for example, all Asian/Arabic/Hebrew, and other)
Enhanced Notification manager
Version 4.1 also greatly extends the possibilities of virus notifications. The Notification Manager now supports new transport protocols, such as alerting via MSN/Windows Messenger, ICQ or e.g. printing of the notification message on a (usually network) printer.
The notifications can be set up both globally (for the whole program) and locally, for individual tasks (both on-access and on-demand; Professional Edition only).
